The Heart of Being Social

. from my last post:

"Hey- community leaders, tool builders, social networkers, 'experts' and innovators!
Have you built in feedback mechanisms, structures and agreements for supporting an ongoing evolutionary feedback process to inform your efforts? "

Support for Feedback Mechanisms in Community
What a huge issue.
For our own community this has been an incredibly interesting and tricky point to navigate, as we are currently seeking new ways to make it safe and acceptable for everyone to engage in various means of feedback for one another.
I see this point as an invitation on the table for us all, actually, because through our observations the most rewarding and amazing experiences can only occur when we allow ourselves to be vulnerable to one another.
...when we are permeable enough to allow the beauty and power of our community mates to reach The Heart of us.

So here are some of the major 'obstacles' to take into account.

THE 'NO DIRECT COMMUNICATION RULE'
For the most part, ours is not a society that takes things on face to face. We are not taught to be direct and truthful, we are not taught to express ourselves truthfully. Many of us are taught that agression is the way to get what we want, either through direct application or passively.
Also, it is not OK to say what you really feel or think to another, especially if it something potentially unpleasant or difficult.
A polite society is a disfunctional society.
How we do turn this around, how do we make it safe to speak our truth, how do we teach ourselves to be gracious and compassionate when giving mirrors/ feedback to others?
Did we adopt this manner of being polite in person then spitting venom behind peoples backs from our English ancestors?
We are all party to this vice, my friends.....and even we allow this 'infection' of the tongue and weakness of the heart to flourish in our social networks.
Say with me: FLAMING STOPS WITH ME

THE MYTH OF SCARCITY REACHES DEEP
We are surrounded by myths, stories, images and icons of scarcity everyday.
A testimony to the lingering death clench of Patriarchal, Institutional and Corporate Consciousness still at work. These stories of scarcity were perpetrated and perpetuated by this consciousness to ensure their existence. College talk really: a self-empowered, self suffienct and mutually supportive consumer/follower/ disciple does not need its symbient host, therefore-the institution must keep feeding the body cues to keep them under the impression that they cannot survive without them.
Most corporate institutions, religions, and social structures are thus designed to thrive on disempowered participants
Consumer culture is based on this premise.
Religion is primarily based on this premise.
Corporate culture is based on this and the premise of non-accountablility.

Heal a crippled person and they will not need the crutches any longer.
The Church knew this long ago and continues to embrace MYTH that keeps people from inheriting ther TRUE POWER.
Things are about to change folks, big time.

FROM WHENCE, THE ORIGINS OF THE SCARCITY MYTH?
So how did we come to allow for these myths and stories of disempowerment to exist in the first place? Good question, eh?
If i knew the answer to that question i'd be on Mount Olympus right now drinking Nectar and spanking Hera on the ass.
How can we have allowed for these panaceas, these snake oils (Institution, Myths, etc) to keep us from our true power?
Well, simply, we have been maturing, have been growing up, these past centuries.
We have been coming into our true power as a people, as a planet of many races, as individuals...over these many lifetimes.
And i think more imporantly, we have been learning to embody the True Genuis of Our Hearts, all this time. These models, uninspiring though they may be, served their purpose at the time but are fast loosing their value now.
Fact here people, we are attempting to birth a New World with social tools built on OLD WORLD PRINCIPLES!!!!!!!!!!

Now here, i may loose some of you and thats ok. but this is the point i have observed that it all comes down to.....it is the power of the Human Heart that will bring about our collective victory!

YOU ARE WORTHY OF CHANGE!
If you do not feel worthy to change, you will not change.
If you cannot feel your own worth, have not found your own worth...truly, you will have no reason to support the worth of others when the going gets tough.
You will resort to the familiar defense tactics of MIND and EGO when things get heated.
If you have not come into a certain place of Self-Love and acceptance of yourself, whether its because your heart carries pain or fear or just because you never ventured there....
you will be able to truly accept the mirror of others.
Its basic, scientific logic folks-if you don't do the work of loving yourself first, forget it, you're going to run in circles your whole life.
Thats a fact.
To this day, i still see many good-meaning but proud community leaders and innovators that think they can do the work for others and not face it themselves.

FACT.
We're all amazing and we're all wounded.
Lets acknowledge our BEAUTY and from that place, find the strength to accept where we may be operating in ways that no longer serve us.
Let us see our culture, our communties and ourselves as 'ever on the path to wholeness"
- wonderful in so many ways, but let us ALWAYS be open.
Let us approach the work of creating and honoring collective agreements in a spirit of light-heartedness and compassion.
Let us support communities, social tools and new stories that sing the praises of being
FLUID-OPEN-DYNAMIC !
Evolution is a dynamic constant so let us constantly be perfected!

FINDING YOUR OWN BEAUTY IS AS EASY AS 1-2-3
Friends, If you have not learned to see your own Inner Beauty and Radiance...you will not see the value of compassion, forgiveness, humility and grace; those qualities being the core currency of what i would consider a True Community Participant.
I have seen many amazing people come and go from my community due to an inadequacy in this department.
They came in search of participating in something wonderful, something collaboratively inspired...but fled when their shortcomings or wounds were illuminated.
I acknowledge my part in this...could i have offered the tools to assist with this learning curve, to support them in their work?
I've seen whole communities fall due to this very point.

THE HEART AND PRIDE
I will not ask you to look at where you may be operating in PRIDE.
Its not my job to point that out but rest assurred, its there.
Pride was the root of all the other 6 sins for a reason.
As pride prevents us from recieving truth from within ourselves, from others and from THE SOURCE (if you believe in that sort of thing)...
So how can we be nimble, apt participants in community if we are unable to accept and receive the gifts others may wish to offer us, if we are too proud to accept them?

I don't attack Pride at the source, no, i've always been a pacifist
....i say...Find Beauty where it really lives, IN YOUR HEART... find your voice, your truth....and on that foundation you will discover the value of staying open!

THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA IS A WOUNDED HEALER
You will never heal yourself by healing others first.
you will never heal the world by setting out to heal others.
If you do not seek that place of Beauty and Compassion within yourself, no amount of technology or structural theory will do the work for you.
The same goes for all communities as they are a sort of COLLECTIVE AVATAR with a Heart as well, beating at their center.
I guess the same could go for the entire Earth, eh?
Many propose that there is a Collective Heart of Humanity, beating solidly to anyone that chooses to listen to it.
I've heard that heart beating, friends and it sounds like a fantastic, many petaled flower blossoming...too amazing to describe in words.

The Myth of Scarcity, the final hurtles of self-love and acceptance we're all wrestling with, the thousand programs of inadequacy and smallness gathered over our journeys...as individuals, collectives and cultures....
hold no sway, lose their grip ....in the presence of this flower blooming in The Heart
Experience it once, and you'll always want it!
See that garden blooming in yourself and you'llnot only see it in others but WANT to see it bloom in others!

LETS ENVISION THIS TOGETHER, its fun!
At the Heart of Everyone, a flower blooming,
At the Heart of every community- a rose garden,
The Earth, a garden of gardens, a New Eden,
a dynamic collective of celebration
Cultures blooming - illuminated by a dedication to ecstatic evolution
Our destiny revealed ...
At The Heart of everything...A Beauty Engine