I am happy to say it. A society driven by the do-gooders of “love, light and mung bean peace” unsettles me. I cringe at the idea we could construct ourselves into a tamed politically correct race masquerading as oneness. I don’t believe this truthfully honors who and what we are as a species. We are creatures of duality. We are a medley of love, light, courage, rage, darkness, anger, patience, compassion and intolerance. Metaphorically we possess both the white wolf and dark wolf inside us. True alignment comes when we can honor, respect and ACCEPT both. One without the other leaves us fragmented and in danger to ourselves.
For this blog, I am happy to deviate away from the mind fitness coaching you have come to expect into observing what is happening the “culture” of wellness as a whole in the hope it creates some clarity for you on a bigger perspective. It was prompted by my recent experience at the Sydney Mind, Body Spirit festival which was later re-iterated by a recent post I shared on my social media “Shut the eff up” by Susannah B Lewis.
The original plan to attend the MBS festival was to get a clearer understanding to why the holistic industry of what is spirituality and alternative medicine still remains so distant from commercial fitness. These two industries need to be talking to one another and integrating their principles, not ignoring each other on the playground as hippy’s v’s jocks. As you know, most of my work is founded within the psychological shift of the culture of commercial fitness where we must expand ourselves beyond its archaic existence to only reshape bodies and educate on exercise. It must now become an evolved doctrine that unites the health of body, mind and spirit. If we don’t I believe Commercial Fitness will become obsolete to the rapid development of the “Wellness industry”. The mind-set stuff around motivation and self-development coaching is great but purely not enough to evolve fitness to the next era. We need the pioneers of complementary medicine, holistic practice and spiritualists to join forces with the soldiers on the ground training people 3-4 times a week and educate each other. I explore this in great depth in my coaching course: The Red Print which will be released for fitness professionals and direct to the public next year.
However my purpose in going to the festival was quickly distracted by disappointment. If this festival was to represent the industries of “mind, body and spirit” it seemed to only present the ideologies of love, light and peace without the respect or support for the duality of our nature. Among the healings, products, speakers, the shiny and smelly things, I didn’t see or hear anything that symbolised or supported our inner rebel, the warrior or liberator. This is the part of us who brings about destruction so we can rebirth into something greater, not necessarily something nicer. These are integral archetypes of our nature and vital to the process of transformation. We cannot transform from anything until we rebel and break away from what we have been conditioned to believe. I have never worked with a woman who want to transform from struggle, depression and loss of identity who jumps straight into self love and democratic compassion for “oneness”. Without a doubt, she will enter a battle of the minds, the ego, the spirit, the sub-conscious and her perceived identity. At times it will be ugly, venomous and sometimes heart-breaking. Many coaches and healers liken it to a snake shedding its skin. We like to romanticise the idea that transformation and healing it will be this magnificent peeling-off of old memories and weight to gently slither forward into the new form. Do you really believe this is the case? We will just wake up after a seminar, a self help book or healing to find our demons have exulted themselves?
She is most likely to wrestle between internal and the external. The ego who needs safety and acceptance will fight the spirit who yearns for freedom and purpose. When she rips that skin off, along with her labels, fears and past hurts, there will often be a little blood shed. To be victorious, it requires us to tap into a very robust, unforgiving and relentless part of ourselves. It has been called many things throughout time: warrior, rebel, liberator, freedom fighter and the destroyer. It is just as beautiful and powerful as the one who emulates love, compassion and gentle release. One out of the 50 seminars at the MBS Festival touched on the messy stuff which was conducted by a wonderful artist, presenter and author Alana Fairchild whose work I love, called The Three C’s: Chaos, Crisis, Confusion. That was it.
This is why I felt the event and purpose was too far removed from the reality of the modern woman who is searching for a more holistic existence let alone a greater understanding of her spirit. Many tell me they are still deterred by the “airy fairy” notions of the events like the MBS festivals and more likely to attend Filex or a Fitness expo to find her tools for “transformation”. She is more likely to drop the money on 12 week body transformation than seek the services of the stall holders at MBS. The “BODY” transformation marketing and purpose speaks a more fluent language to the ego. It has been driven into our psyche a transformed body it will bring us happiness, not our health. Hence her health has suffered so greatly over the last 2 decades in the pursuit of this superficial ideal. As practitioners, coaches and healers, we have to hit harder with our content and message in order to smash through that hard, superficial exterior. It pains me to see the gap still exists. As we enter this new consciousness that advocates the wellness of body, mind and spirit united, we need each other more than ever.
This also reflects the general hypocrisy I observe in some of the “self-help and self love” movement. It deems we accept and love ALL parts of ourselves as we are, but only under the banner of love to make nice with one another. For women, we are to speak our truth, as long as it not seen as “hating on our sista’s”. Its obvious we are still confused between the principles of judgement v’s free expression of our view. So we fear expressing our opinions in the fear will be condemned as “judgmental”. We are to hold compassion in our hearts, abandon fear and all its nasty cousins. What if fear, venom and good old hearty rant play’s a vital role to our life-force? Trust me, this work has taught me the dangers of silence. That is a big topic within itself that I explore further in my book and one of the modules in the online courses to be released in 2015.
It’s no shock to those who know me, attended my workshops or been through private coaching that I am an ambassador of many things uncomfortable, one being the inner rebel who hides in our shadows. I have a deep respect for love, light and oneness. However in order to be deemed as “one”, it includes the synergy of our warrior who is willing to drag us to a bloody ending to bring us closer to our personal freedom. I feel this is the imperative first step before we can enter the democracy of oneness. He/she is our couRAGE, our destroyer and our fierce protector who is often shunned as taboo. This force fuels our activism and can responsible for the odd spit of venom on occasion. He/she will not be enslaved by political correctness or restrained to keep our opinions to ourselves regardless how uncomfortable they make a reader, listener or viewer. While we are being told to hug generously and only say something if it’s nice, what happens to the rightful emotions of protest?
Whenever I hear a person throw a “shut the fuck up” out into the public arena like Susannah, it’s a sure sign ones rebel has woken up and is trying to kick its way out. I want to stand up and wolf-whistle that very moment in time for you. I believe the freedom to scream on your soap box is just as vital to the “self-development” process as a hug. Behind that scream is an energy and passion that can ignite our self- authority. I believe we cannot have self love until we have claimed our self authority. Self authority follows a form of rebellion, a stand and the eloquent protest of “F*ck this”.
Don’t get me wrong, I totally acknowledge and respect the fact we need as many people waving the white flag for compassion, gentle love and selflessness. However there is a skewed perception that oneness and selflessness means we only embrace and express the good stuff. In oneness, where does the “bad and the ugly” fit in? Does it disappear with fairy-dust?
Many spiritualists claim this is the era of the “divine feminine”. It is here to balance the scales of the patriarch. I am fighting hard in that corner to bring about the balance of yin and yang (NOTE: that doesn’t mean yin dominant over yang) yet disappointed the movement doesn’t acknowledge the bitch can be the switchblade between a brutal ending and painful rebirth. We need to know how to navigate through this mud, fire and shit. We get little snippets through adventurous bloggers, authors, performers and artists yet it’s still the minority. I know many of you are attracted to Emazon, the courses or coaching when you enter the important phase of “rebellion” in the transformation process for this reason. There are not many of us. Yet the rebel lives and breathes inside everyone of us.
We cant have “oneness” until we acknowledge and embrace ALL of ourselves first, even the messy, ugly and dark bits who want to scream “shut the f*ck up”.
