Guilt & Integrity

For the month of November, 2018

Every month, co-creators of the Divine Dog Wisdom Card deck and guidebook Barb Horn and Randy Crutcher each draw a card to tune into some of the energies or qualities the month may bring forth and some ways to work with those energies or qualities. When we asked the cards about what to do when a sense of hopelessness or overwhelm arises, here is what the cards had to offer:

Barb drew Guilt with its phrase Turn Off The Alarm and Randy drew Integrity: Presenting An All Together You

Often the place to turn when we feel hopeless or overwhelmed by our external world is our internal one. And yet when we turn inward we may experience more of the same, a full tide of negative thoughts and feelings of contraction. One of the things we may find inside is a sense of guilt. Guilt can run amuck and control your choices, actions and results. On the other hand, guilt is an excellent alarm to tell us where we are out of alignment with our own truth and integrity or sense of peace and wholeness.

World events are harshly exposing so many to the cumulative impact of decades and more of chronic trauma in our societal and economic systems. This can be mind and heart numbing. Hopelessness, both a feeling and a state of being is a natural consequence coupled with a desire to avoid, hide or remain ignorant. We may not feel like we can make a difference or really matter, the situation is seemingly so pervasive and unmanageable. And we may feel guilty we are not doing anything or ever doing enough.

What to do?

A healthy way to use guilt is to think of it as a flashlight to go inward to do your own work, the work you have the most control over. You chose to be here now and you have inside you something to contribute, you just have to remember what that is.

First identify what you are saying to yourself, where is the hopelessness or guilt focused, on what issue or vector, in your life, in the world?
Next, identify what you are doing and get resourceful here. Those of you who have children and are showing up as conscious loving parents, teaching your children love, equality, respect, breaks the chain of generational trauma that contributes to so many of our society’s ills. That is a major contribution in itself.

Perhaps you’re helping a neighbor or you’re taking care of parents. You contribute time, money, and resources to a cause. Count and value who you are and what you are doing toward our collective change. Healing happens one moment, one choice and one heart at a time.
Lastly, identify one thing you can and are willing to do right now or today. Don’t judge how big or small it is, claim the truth of your “ripple effect.” Just start somewhere: volunteer, give a donation to an organization helping people, animals or the environment, speak up for others, or tell your own story.

Any of these count toward your realization of greater integrity and inner peace, by claiming what can be difficult and transforming that into what uplifts, elevates and brings more love into your world and everyone else’s.

We are better together.

November 2018 Card Draw
November 2018 Card Draw

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