What really matters

This week’s article is a bit different. It’s about how all of us, you and you and you and I, can ignite a new dialogue about what really matters.

Now, this is not a preachy, sermon type blog. It’s about rethinking the patterns of behavior that are getting in the way of successful relationships.

I believe we are in a transition period about what matters and are looking for ways to liberate ourselves from old constraints.

Nothing in history suggests that a transition from power to partnership, from greed to sharing, from bullying to kindness is likely to be smooth. To the contrary, this transition seems to be characterized by social and political disruption.

The underlying cause of the divisiveness is fear.

It’s up to us to keep the levels of fear and anxiety down through raising the levels of understanding about the vital need for transformation at this point in history. When fear is loud and strong most of us begin to cringe and yearn for the ‘good old days.’  

My daughter sent me a Facebook post that sums up how so many of us feel as the #metoo movement has morphed into a mighty battle over abortion rights. The post said:

                                                     Time zones are interesting:             

                                                     In Australia, it is already tomorrow,

                                                     In London it is midnight

                                                     And in the USA it’s 1928!

Look, we can all stay in the battleground of ‘I’m right and you’re wrong’ and keep the ancient conversation going about who has the power to make decisions and what happens to those who disagree. All is still based on a power paradigm and I would like to add my voice with a different perspective.

The founder of the Department of Sociology at Harvard University, Pitirim Sorokin searched for the deeper patterns that lay beneath the surface of the calamities of war he had experienced. He suggested that much of history fits a pattern of cyclical rise and fall of two basic known value systems that he termed “ideational” and “sensate.”

Ideational values develop from individual inner work and have a spiritual component, this is found in the thinking that there are values that transcend the physical world and go beyond the physical senses. The other value system, the sensate, believes that only what can be perceived with the senses has any reality.

There is a third value system that represents the harmonious blending of spiritual and sensory values. This is the integral system that takes the best of both and weaves them together. This is where a deeper understanding of relationships is required.

Sorokin’s analysis, written almost 90 years ago suggested that the sensate system of the 20th Century would soon come to an end. That was before plastic was choking our oceans and the divide between the haves and have nots was not as clear as it is today. He was right.

He felt there was a possibility of a new world view that could focus on “the techniques of altruistic transformation” by increasing the world’s supply of creative, unselfish love.

I suggest that while the #metoo movement has been a wake-up call for GUTSY WOMEN around the world to speak out, and while the issue of women’s right to choose is front and center today, the underlying issue for all of us is to take a deep dive into relationships.

This is my work, my passion.

To look at what has been handed to us from generation to generation as ways to behave and begin a deeper critical thinking dialogue about what is needed for now and the future.

What if, as John Lennon’s song says, we begin to IMAGINE a new, braver world where we take the time to dialogue about what is the meaning of love, the various types of love that we need for our survival, and make it clear that we are all connected and no one wins unless we all do.

It takes GUTSY WOMEN and BOLD MEN to stand strong. Become part of the solution.