Integral Awareness

Racism, sexism, nationalism, extremism, terrorism...all symptoms of the same underlying condition: fear. I'm going to take this one step further and include the following: altruism, activism, patriotism, speciesism...all symptoms of the same underlying condition: fear.
Think about it - all these "isms" serve one purpose only: to give you an identity; to make you right and others wrong, to make you more and others less. Fighting symptoms (all of the above) will push the underlying condition deeper; it will give you an identity that seems to be "right" and "more" but in reality it only adds another layer to the ego.
Think about it a bit more: racism and anti-racism are flip sides of the same coin, grounded in the same underlying condition: fear.
Why not address the underlying condition instead? Change/deepen the level of awareness, address your demons instead of those of "the other"?
At a deeper level of awareness, all "isms" will be seen for what they are: figments of our imagination, and only at that deeper level of awareness can we see that there is something else than fear...it's when we no longer need to hang on to the emotions to determine our identity, when we can start to flow with life instead of in opposition to life. It's called freedom.

Intimate relationship - potential, challenge, promise, betrayal, trust, growth...
A friend of mine asked me for my personal opinion on this issue: why give up my life-as-I-know it, content to live on my own with lots of friends and a few special friends, and engage in a dedicated and monogamous intimate relationship. She's been there, done that and has experienced the highs and lows that inevitably come with that arrangement. Heartbreak and divorce, single parenting - all of it.
My question to her was simple: what part of you is being pulled towards this scenario? Why, with all the experiences you've had, go there at all? Her answer: I don't know, but there's something pulling me...

Here's where the deep stuff comes in 😱 - hang onto your seats. We are drawn to intimate relationship because it gives us the opportunity to look at ourselves. For almost all of us this happens unconsciously, where we project our insecurities onto our partner, while they do the same to us. Usually this leads to a cycle of anger, resentment, making up, feeling great, hanging in - and it starts all over again. The opportunity and the challenge here is to step out of the cycle and to look at our own reactions - to take the projection and to realize that it's a mirror; to look at our own conditioned reaction and to internalize instead of externalize. Do we need a dedicated intimate relationship for that? Nope - but will we do the necessary work without one..? That's a question we can only answer for ourselves, one to which my friend said: no, I'd be too comfortable, too lazy...so true 😳😉