Or, how to heal your inner narcissist and anarchist
There is a common saying that, “what you resist persists.” It generally means that the more you resist something, the stronger the energy you’re opposing grows, creating more and more conflict, divisiveness, polarity, and staying power between you and whatever it is you resist. It’s similar to Newton’s Third Law of motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
I would like to say this is true EXCEPT…
If you’re doing sacred activism, you’re doing more than simply resisting. You are also using whatever you’re resisting as a catalyst for transforming yourself as well as the possibility of transforming whatever you are resisting. Then you aren’t creating polarity, you’re integrating and creating Oneness.
How does this work?
Well, with our new POTUS and his chief strategist, the USA is having a large number of people actively #resisting. But if this is to work to everyone’s best without creating even more division, it means that those who are resisting ought also to be looking within to heal their own inner narcissist and anarchist.
So what would you say are the most upsetting things to you about POTUS or his chief strategist? Lying? Boasting? Hiding financial information? Cruelty? Incompetency? Heartlessness? _______?
Now where do you/have you done those exact things? Maybe not on the level they are doing those things—POTUS and his chief strategist may have these traits at the level of a football field next to the little tiny ant of your level of doing these things. But still look and see where you do/have done these things even in the smallest amount.
Then look at why you did these things. Was it to try to protect yourself from pain, from trouble, from conflict, from embarrassment, from ? Probably. And you can understand that as a normal human thing: to try to protect oneself from harm, even if your action was misguided. You can understand it and have compassion for yourself. You can see that the intention to protect is a good intention, even if it got rather warped when you told that little white lie, or hid that one bonus on your taxes, or said that heartless thing to someone who made you so mad you could spit.
You can see that you were trying to protect yourself and you can compassionately forgive yourself and then realign with your highest ideals.
When you do this inner work, using the antagonist as a giant magnifying mirror (which is a strikingly different approach than the distorted mirror the narcissist uses to determine their greatness), while holding the antagonist’s energy in compassionate understanding, you then flip the system that is perpetuating this same energy en masse around you like a centrifuge. You become the axis around which the system transforms. This is powerful stuff.
It doesn’t mean that you put up with or tolerate abuse or stop actively resisting injustice. It just means that you resist and stand up for your highest ideals, knowing that we all need more alignment and we all are held in compassionate understanding. We hold those we resist with love in our hearts knowing that on some level—football field or ant—they are us. We are One.
Narcissists are seeking Love. They may not have experienced what unconditional Love really is. Narcissists may think love equals adoration, or success, or loyalty. Love is what they are seeking but all their bluster and ego defenses are merely trying to protect a fragile, weak self-esteem that can’t stand any kind of criticism or rejection because of lack of Love. Yes, they may do what is unconscionable, but we can still have compassionate understanding even as we resist their false self-glorification with all its brutal consequences.
Anarchists are seeking Peace, another form of Love. They want to be comforted, they want the chaos inside that was caused by pain and injustice done to them, to cease, but instead the chaos and rage is so strong, they just try to blow up the world to try to stop the pain. We can also understand being hurt so badly that we rage to try to quell the storm. Anarchists may go too far, but we can still hold compassionate understanding even as we transmute their destruction.
In the movie, Doctor Strange, we see a narcissistic doctor transformed into someone willing to serve all. This happens first by him experiencing his entire paradigm painfully falling apart and then by him interacting with a master healer, followed by an anarchist. It’s an interesting juxtaposition considering this blogpost! In the end, Doctor Strange ascends to his greater calling.
I would like to say this is true EXCEPT…
If you’re doing sacred activism, you’re doing more than simply resisting. You are also using whatever you’re resisting as a catalyst for transforming yourself as well as the possibility of transforming whatever you are resisting. Then you aren’t creating polarity, you’re integrating and creating Oneness.
How does this work?
Well, with our new POTUS and his chief strategist, the USA is having a large number of people actively #resisting. But if this is to work to everyone’s best without creating even more division, it means that those who are resisting ought also to be looking within to heal their own inner narcissist and anarchist.
So what would you say are the most upsetting things to you about POTUS or his chief strategist? Lying? Boasting? Hiding financial information? Cruelty? Incompetency? Heartlessness? _______?
Now where do you/have you done those exact things? Maybe not on the level they are doing those things—POTUS and his chief strategist may have these traits at the level of a football field next to the little tiny ant of your level of doing these things. But still look and see where you do/have done these things even in the smallest amount.
Then look at why you did these things. Was it to try to protect yourself from pain, from trouble, from conflict, from embarrassment, from ? Probably. And you can understand that as a normal human thing: to try to protect oneself from harm, even if your action was misguided. You can understand it and have compassion for yourself. You can see that the intention to protect is a good intention, even if it got rather warped when you told that little white lie, or hid that one bonus on your taxes, or said that heartless thing to someone who made you so mad you could spit.
You can see that you were trying to protect yourself and you can compassionately forgive yourself and then realign with your highest ideals.
When you do this inner work, using the antagonist as a giant magnifying mirror (which is a strikingly different approach than the distorted mirror the narcissist uses to determine their greatness), while holding the antagonist’s energy in compassionate understanding, you then flip the system that is perpetuating this same energy en masse around you like a centrifuge. You become the axis around which the system transforms. This is powerful stuff.
It doesn’t mean that you put up with or tolerate abuse or stop actively resisting injustice. It just means that you resist and stand up for your highest ideals, knowing that we all need more alignment and we all are held in compassionate understanding. We hold those we resist with love in our hearts knowing that on some level—football field or ant—they are us. We are One.
Narcissists are seeking Love. They may not have experienced what unconditional Love really is. Narcissists may think love equals adoration, or success, or loyalty. Love is what they are seeking but all their bluster and ego defenses are merely trying to protect a fragile, weak self-esteem that can’t stand any kind of criticism or rejection because of lack of Love. Yes, they may do what is unconscionable, but we can still have compassionate understanding even as we resist their false self-glorification with all its brutal consequences.
Anarchists are seeking Peace, another form of Love. They want to be comforted, they want the chaos inside that was caused by pain and injustice done to them, to cease, but instead the chaos and rage is so strong, they just try to blow up the world to try to stop the pain. We can also understand being hurt so badly that we rage to try to quell the storm. Anarchists may go too far, but we can still hold compassionate understanding even as we transmute their destruction.
In the movie, Doctor Strange, we see a narcissistic doctor transformed into someone willing to serve all. This happens first by him experiencing his entire paradigm painfully falling apart and then by him interacting with a master healer, followed by an anarchist. It’s an interesting juxtaposition considering this blogpost! In the end, Doctor Strange ascends to his greater calling.
In the end, all of our souls will ascend to our greater calling and True Home: Unconditional Love for self and others in the service of All. In the meantime, even as we resist, let us ascend to our greater calling: to hold all in the heart with compassionate understanding, integrating and healing ourselves along the way, in the hope of a larger transformation for us all.
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Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.
Monica McDowell is a dynamic speaker, author, and practitioner in alternative wellness and spirituality. She is the author of The Girl with a Gift, Confessions of a Mystic Soccer Mom, You are Light (internationally published by 6th Books in over 14 countries) and My Karma Ran Over My Dogma, and has the distinction of being the first ordained minister in America granted civil rights by a federal ruling. She lives in Seattle, Washington, USA, and can be reached at monica@monicamcdowell.com.
