Overcome Resistance – Rev. Linda Jackson
This video features the Sunday “talk” only. Watch the full service on our Facebook page.
DESCRIPTION
The transformative power of a compelling vision supports you to overcome resistance and inspires meaningful action for lasting impact. Join us this Sunday as we explore the importance of the Lightworker’s Vision.
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
Rev Linda Jackson (00:02):
Thank you so much. Let’s give it up for the music team one more time. We can be the healing. Yes. Isn’t that what we’re here for in this community? To be the healing. Thank you so much for that song. With everything going on in the world and with our theme and the book, I just felt like that was a great song for us – to be the healing. And Ernest Holmes says, nothing to be healed, only God revealed. So let us reveal God, let us reveal love, light and truth in all we do. And we are the healing.
So I am Rev Linda Jackson, and I use she/her pronouns. As many of you know, our theme this month has been Make Change, Maintain Joy. We’re working with Karen Walrond’s book, the Light Maker’s Manifesto: Making Change Without Losing Your Joy. And if you heard Rev Darrell’s talk last week, he shared the importance of being aligned with your values, even having a manifesto to give you direction. And all of our speakers this month have shared many of the Walrond’s practical strategies for staying resilient, staying hopeful, while advocating for change. And this is our work as practitioners of Religious Science to keep our minds right.
(01:35):
She also shares about the importance of community building, which is what we are doing here, right? The necessity of self-care, why it’s critical to celebrate our wins so that we don’t get caught up in the drudgery of what we’re working for. And the power of embedding gratitude and joy into our advocacy so we don’t just become part of the problem. So we don’t just become the resistance. And she says we have to maintain our authenticity, remembering what we are standing for in the face of adversity. So not getting pulled out and becoming part of that problem due to fear, stress. But we stand in our power, we stand in our light, we stand in our joy.
(02:31):
So this is a famous photo by Bernie Boston. It inspired the feature song. It’s a young man placing the flower in the barrel of a rifle during a march on the Pentagon in 1967 in an anti-war movement called Flower Power, a symbolic protest against the Vietnam War. They were promoting handing flowers to police officers, spectators, politicians, to fight violence with peace. And I love this idea, except that idea of fighting violence with peace seems like a misnomer, right? That’s the right idea. But what if we were meeting violence with peace? Instead, when we resist something, we give it power.
(03:27):
Let me make sure I didn’t skip anything there. Okay. Ernest Holmes would say to be for something and against nothing. He is not telling us that we should just roll over and turn a blind eye. He’s reminding us of the importance of our stance, the importance of our words, the importance of our energy. And Walrond’s book helps us to name the values and the skills and the actions that bring us joy, to identify what sparks our empathy, our compassion, what we want to work for in the world. And then she helps us to put it all together to be more effective change makers saying that everyone is essentially a light maker and everyone is an activist. And as we heard last week, aligning with our manifesto and our values is critical to keep us on track, to make the impact that we want to make.
(04:33):
And I love the invitation to map these ideas onto our own lives. Whether we are an advocate or an activist or if we’re just everyday people moving through life. In the science of mind teaching, we’re sort of naturally activists for love, activists for peace, for truth, for freedom, for all that God is. We stand for that. That’s what we teach. We know and we teach that we are always consciously or unconsciously activating the law that is creating our experience through the filter of our beliefs. And we remember “all that God is” as the high idea of what is possible for all of us, not just some of us, not just the privileged ones. The high idea of “what God is” available for all. And when we know that, and when we walk that, and we live that, and we speak that, then we can be the healing. We are revealing God
Because there’s more than enough for everyone to be fulfilled. We can have different perspectives, we can be on different sides and God can still make it work for all of us. We don’t have to know how. We’re drawing from a pure potential. Living from that is really our work as activists of this teaching. And from the song, “in a world that’s so divided, we shall overcome”. When we lift ourselves into the possibility of something greater, we are the healing, we do overcome.
While we are all activists and we are all light makers, I just want to acknowledge that there are some folks who are devoting their whole lives to a specific cause. The entire or majority of their existence is spent there in that work.
(06:59):
And in May, I was privileged to spend 10 days at a peace building, immersion training, learning from folks that have dedicated their lives to that work. The founders of the River Phoenix Center for Peace Building, Heart Phoenix and Jeffrey Weisberg, a colleague and CSL minister, Cindy Grimes, is one of their trainers and board members. She sort of enrolled me and many others. And they brought in brilliant teachers and the material was fantastic and so full. We learned about restorative justice and solution focused conflict coaching and nonviolent communication. And that’s just to name some of it. There was so much. And I am just going to focus on one person, a woman named Rivera Sun. She’s an award-winning author, activist and trainer. You might want to look her up, check her out if peace is your vibe. She has dedicated her life’s work to nonviolent activism. And she shared some similar concepts to what Walrond shares in her book. And in a little while, I’m going to walk us through an exercise, an activity that she shared with us in the training.
(08:16):
Aimee mentioned when she spoke at the beginning of the month about the example Walrond gave about the tug of war, trying to pull people over to your side. And I’ve often used that example in coaching and in conversations, if people are struggling in the tug of war and they’re pulling back and forth, what happens when someone lets go? This one lets go… This one has to readjust, realign, figure out a new way to be – right? Otherwise you just stay in that struggle. Real change requires letting go. I’m in a big let go. Many of you know where I’m at in my life right now with this move and transition I’ve been in. But real change requires letting go. What we resist persists.
(09:24):
And in my talk today, overcome resistance, I described the talk as relying on our vision to overcome resistance because our vision inspires our meaningful action. So we’re not acting out of that resistance, we’re acting out of inspiration. A vision supports us to stay in our joy, to stay in our light. It lifts us into the high idea of who we’re here to be and the high idea of what we’re working toward. And just like in prayer, we affirm it is done and we let it go. If we keep meddling with it, it’s not going to shift. We can rely on our vision to support us, to step into the unknown, to let go of trying to control, to let go of fear, of failure, to let go of being comfortable. And it may sound counterintuitive, but overcoming resistance requires letting go. Just like on the tug of war, tug of rope.
Your vision must be big enough that it inspires you to overcome your resistance to change. That’s from the conscious leadership group. And if overcoming resistance requires letting go, we could say that as “your vision must be big enough that it inspires you to let go”. How do you let go?
(11:07):
According to Walrond and many other activists, this is the importance of having a mission, a vision, a purpose. People often conflate what those are and have different descriptions of what they are. And that doesn’t matter for this conversation. What matters is that you have an undergirding, that you have a purpose, a vision, a mission one or all three. Something that supports you. And that you know your values. The underlying beliefs that inform the why, the what and the how of what you are doing, how you are creating impact. And a little something that I will add is we have to be aware of our personality. We want our personality to shine our light, to share our authentic way of being and expressing, not getting caught in the pushing, the struggling, the fear-based coping strategies. And this is where emotional intelligence and social intelligence becomes so important to have the awareness to notice, is that personality trait that I developed helping in this instance? Or is it kind of running the show?
(12:37):
Another way to think of it is, is this strength being misused right now? So for example, if my tendency is to push and get things done, I have to be aware, is that really helping in this moment? Or if my tendency is to defer to others, is that really helping right now? Is rising up in power helping right now? Or is my tendency to pull back helping right now? Whatever it is, we need to know our impact. We need to know how we are impacting the people around us. And we need to remember the impact we are going for, thus the vision, the mission, the purpose, the values. And then we can be aware of our actual impact. So imagine being so inspired by your vision that you can let go, you can let go of being right, you can let go of it looking a certain way. This is where real change is possible.
(13:49):
Your vision must be big enough that it inspires you to let go. When we push against the problem, what we resist persists, what we focus on increases and we often exacerbate the situation. Think of the act of inclusion. It requires understanding that we don’t know everything, that we don’t understand everyone… and we include them anyway. We don’t know all of what’s possible. There’s possibility beyond my understanding. We have to remember this. And this requires being open, requires listening, asking what else is possible, asking how can this be a win-win situation? How can I be for something and against nothing?
Being a visionary takes courage. We must be able to find the opportunities within the challenge.
(15:05):
I’m trying to hold myself back from going off on a tangent. I was doing so good on time. I’m in a big transitional period, bought a new place, there’s some construction being done. So I’m what I call residentially fluid at the moment. I’ve stayed at a friends, I stayed with my daughter, I’m at my sons now and it could be like this for a while. And if I’m mapping this idea of the vision into my personal life, the vision is for me to have this investment property and it’s going to take some time to get to the end game on that. And if I get caught in the resistance of what I’m doing every day right now and how hard it is, I’m never going to get there. I have to hold the vision of that end game and stay in that high vibration and not let myself get caught in the challenge, find the opportunities. And what an amazing opportunity I’m having right now to figure out what I don’t like (audience laughs) and what will be important to me in creating the home that is going to be a lasting home for me.
(16:24):
I’m learning what I really want, what really matters.
So back onto my talk. We identify the problem, then we focus on the solution. My sister who recently retired as a teacher, so often shared when she would be talking about a challenge that was in the classroom that she would say to her students, are you a part of the problem or part of the solution? We need to stay focused on what we really want and not become part of the problem. Visionary leaders work with the end in mind and we find the opportunity within the challenge. And again, that’s how we pray. For anyone new, we use a particular type of prayer, affirmative prayer, where we affirm the desired outcome, right? We affirm and we have the end in mind and we speak it into existence. We hold the vibrational frequency of it already being done and every one of us here and online, we are all by nature of how we practice, visionary. We are speaking things into existence through the power of our word intentionally on a regular basis.
(17:41):
There’s a universal wholeness that is desiring to express as you. Using this creative power of mind is the greatest tool that you could ever access. When we use this constructively, we fulfill our heart’s desires. And as long as it is against no one, the universe conspires on our behalf and it creates a solution for all. A world that works for everyone, as CSL says in their global statement. There is a way that can be made that is sometimes beyond our understanding. We have to hold the high idea and trust the power of the intelligence that is operating in back of life to work out those details. We look for the opportunities within the challenge and trust their unfolding.
(18:52):
So this quote by Dominic Barter is from the nonviolence training. Rather than be dangerous, conflict holds within it vital messages regarding unmet needs and areas of necessary change. Given this understanding, safety is increased not by avoiding conflict, but by moving toward it with the intention of hearing the messages within. Safety is increased, not by avoiding conflict, but by moving toward it with the intention of hearing the messages within folks. I found this very profound for the time that we are in, our current state of affairs. For all people, all parties, all sides, I don’t care. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m saying how do we find peace? How do we lean in and hear the message within the conflict? What’s really needed? Most violence stems from unmet needs.
(20:12):
How do we tap in, tune in to uncover the unmet needs? When we uncover the unmet needs, we discover win-win solutions. And as Gandhi said, we can be the change we want to see.
So I’m going to share a practice that Rivera Sun shared with us at the immersion training. It’s from the two hands of non-violence inspired by the writing of the late Barbara Deming. I’m modifying it a little bit for our purposes, it is really written about violence and injustice. But I find it a powerful practice for overcoming resistance in general, right? So if you’re comfortable, I’m going to invite you to stand.
(21:12):
You can do it seated, but I just find the body feels it more powerfully in a standing position. I’m going to model some typical approaches to violence and then I’m going to ask you to try it. So avoiding violence, avoiding resistance. Let’s see, maybe I can still hold it. Avoiding injustice. It looks if I make a body posture that matches it, it looks something like this. Alright, go ahead and try that. All right. Accommodating violence, accommodating resistance or injustice. Looks like this. (covers eyes, ears, turns away) You feel the difference in your body right now?
Counter violence is resistance meeting resistance, meeting violence with violence, right? So counter violence is like this. (Arms up in front with elbows bent and palms facing outward.)Do you feel that resistance? I almost feel a little aggressive when I do that.
Now in active non-violence, active non-resistance, we take one hand out-stretched and the other arm straight out. Now adjust that a little bit, pull the hands in so it’s a little more comfortable. And you feel that right and it is written as follows. On the one hand, I will not cooperate with your injustice. I will resist it with every fiber of my being. On the other hand, the hand that is open, I am open to you as a human being.
And letting the arms relax, I invite you to bring to mind a situation that you oppose, whether it’s personal, political, global, anything you are resisting. And I invite you to take that active nonviolence position, one hand up and one hand extended, and bring that feeling to mind of the resistance that you’re experiencing. And then tap into this feeling.
On the one hand we say to the one who is angry, to the oppressor or to the unjust system, or thing that’s happening. Stop what you are doing. I refuse to honor the role you are choosing to play. I refuse to obey you, to cooperate with your demands. With this hand, I may even interfere with the wrong you are doing. I want to disrupt this pattern. And stay with that.
(24:45):
And now feel with that arm that’s extended out, the outstretched hand. Maybe outstretched with love and sympathy – maybe you can’t go that far, but always outstretched. With this hand we say, I won’t let go of you or cast you out of the human race. I have faith that you can make a better choice than you are making now. And I’ll be here when you are ready. We are part of one another.
And there’s another activity you can go on and adjust and feel which hand to use. Maybe switch the dominant hand and the non-dominant hand, which one is outstretched and which one is up. But the real objective here is to feel in your body how it feels to take that stance of resisting and accepting at the same time. And I really believe that is our work to do as light makers, as change makers. And how are we on time? Should I give people a minute to share or should we close? So I’m going to invite you to just take two minutes to connect with the person sitting next to you and share how that felt for you. What happened in your body? What did you notice? Were there any takeaways for you in that exercise? So just enjoy that opportunity to express how that felt.
Just take one more minute, make sure both people have had a chance to share. Sorry, you folks online. I hope you’re sharing too. I don’t mean to neglect you.
All right, let’s bring the sharing to a close. Y’all love to talk to one another. It is your favorite part of this service. We need to find more ways to let people connect during service. So as I close out, I’m going to share this quote from Rivera Sun “oppose the injustice, not the people. Treat people with respect even if their actions don’t warrant it, your dignity does. Refuse to surrender your humanity by holding out the hand of acceptance.
We honor our shared humanity. We remember our oneness. We re-engage our empathy. We soften the resistance and something new is possible. We remember our light and the power of our vision can move us forward.
I invite you into prayer. So just turning within in whatever way works for you, recognizing that place within the access to the infinite. And in this moment, remembering the truth of who we are. We are one with the infinite. I recognize God as freedom, as love, as harmony, as order, and each of us as an individual expression of it. I affirm and know that this divine light that lives within each of us is desiring to express itself in the unique expression that each of us is here to express. I know and affirm that we are expanding in knowing ourselves as that love, as that joy, as that freedom, as that wholeness. And I know in a firm that we are knowing and seeing and having a lived experience of seeing the God in everyone, knowing each one, we meet as the joy, as the love, as the freedom. Extending that hand of humanity, of our shared humanity, staying in our dignity with love and grace. Letting go of the opposition, opening to something new, being possible, leaning into the challenge, finding the messages within it. And we are uplifted, we are inspired, we are moved, we expand and we grow. We deepen in our capacity for love and compassion. And I bless each of us as we stand in our truth, stand in our mission, our vision, our purpose. I know we are blessed. I know we are sourced with all we need. I know the world is blessed because of the work we do. I am grateful I release this into the law knowing it is so. I call it good. Please join me. Insane. And so it’s,
(31:32):
Thank you Reverend Linda.