The High Road by Susan Boskey

click on the banner for more info about my service

Take the high road. I think you’ll appreciate the view.

We live in a time of cultural divide – nothing you didn’t already know. Republican or Democrat, jabbed or natural immunity, gender fluid or bio-gender, university degrees or blue collar, rich or poor, gay or straight, collectivist or individual, AI or God. I’m sure there are other examples but you get the picture.

I see digging in on one side or another as choosing to take the low road. Though everyone has a right to their opinion, the either/or paradigm has failed to increase general quality of life and safety. Instead things have become mightily oppositional and unfriendly without possibility of resolution.

As far as I can tell, the us vs. them soft-war is a deep-seated ancestral mental construct with origins rooted in identifying one’s enemy for physical survival. Now, the same lens on life continues to be encouraged from the top of the pyramid by media, governments and their elite rulers. In turn, we the people seem to gladly embrace and react by waving self-righteous banners of I’m right and you’re wrong.

Embroiled within a divide and conquer strategy, we become blinded to its origin and its purpose. Quoting Vernon Howard, spiritual teacher and author, “We are enslaved by anything we do not consciously see and are freed by conscious perception.” With eyes wide open we could see just how we are being played.

Played? Yes. There are those who benefit hugely by our insistence on in-fighting. “They” deliberately sow inflammatory seeds of discontent our way to activate the more primitive qualities of human nature/the ego: fear, greed, anger, blame a sense of superiority, revenge, self-righteousness, power over others, jealousy, etc.

As Rome burns, so to speak, behind the scenes a new infrastructure is rising; one global in nature of increased centralization, control and transhumanism. There, I said it. But don’t take my word for it; this is my opinion.

Blind Trust

Perhaps even more importantly, there is no blame for the powers that be who have cleverly orchestrated the divide and conquer to seamlessly pursue their agenda. It is I/we who have taken the bait and yet we are not to blame, either. Rather, it’s a story of our shared blind spots.

I’m suggesting that at the collective level of blind spot/darkness it is entirely understandable. Who, in their wildest dreams, would ever suspect the “higher ups” to act so aggressively for only their own aggrandizement? I never would have thought this day would come until it did.

I have searched my soul to find answers to the current madness. The answers that occur to me are beyond political. The core issues appear to be more about character than policy since politics are only as good as the integrity of those elected. Many have been blinded by big money.

First Things First

My search for answers has given me greater understanding of a more personal, spiritual nature. Bottom line: I believe that within every human being exists the transformative power of love and ability to live in harmony. Rumi, a 13th century mystic and poet once said: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”~Rumi

The barriers he mentions are one’s shadow, dark side.

Generally speaking, (at least for the Western world) we are not taught about what it means to be a human being with a shadow side nor how to address it responsibly. Might this be a deep human blind spot passed down through generations? Perhaps fear of the dark (of every kind) unwittingly leads us to banish the dark, hoping it will simply go away if we ignore it. But this could not be farther from the truth.

Given all I’ve studied and learned from my own dark side, the shadow grows and takes on a life of its own when it is denied. What I do not own (but also do not identify with) I typically project outward onto others as their fault. It’s a very short leap from there to realizing how a repressed understanding of the dark side can eventually unravel to the point of violence and war. When the shadow is tacitly taboo in polite society its repressed expression can be easily observed as control and domination.

A Transformed Collective Soul

However, as sure as night become day, shadows weaken when we shine light upon them. The task is to courageously stop lying to ourselves. As a voluntary act, we may need to acknowledge our self-hatred, deep trauma from the past, or ways in which we adapt to please others at the cost of our own truth, etc.

Putting the needs and feelings of others first is caring up to a point. Habitually practicing not being true to oneself breeds co-dependency: the assumption/lie that we are responsible for the feelings of others. As a result, unexamined anger and despair can boil over and erupt, as I well-know first-hand. What I fight externally is that which I hide from knowing about myself.

The more I face my dark energy, thoughts and behaviors, the more I learn and feel compassion/forgiveness for my many misgivings. My knee-jerk reactions in life are gradually shifting as I gain insight and discover a new level of being that makes it easier to take the high road. As a work in progress, I aim to make my unconscious conscious.

I contend that if we are not willing to see, own, integrate and redirect our own darkness, we cannot expect world peace. We are each a piece of the whole of existence: the collective soul of which we each play an essential, not casual, part.

Do you realize just how much power you have to affect the quality of your own life and that of the collective experience? The return to personal and planetary integrity will become exponential as more and more people take the high road: they choose to acknowledge, feel and release trauma and negative conditioning. The gift of pure love is waiting for each of us beneath self-imposed/maintained barriers.