The level of social discourse continues to decline throughout the country and the world. Let’s come together to understand how we can respond and reHumanize a world that contains constant voices of dehumanizing. reHumanzing is an opportunity to reignite creativity and connection. Through connection and creativity the unmanifest transforms to manifest truth, goodness, and beauty in the world.

Join us for this important discussion… together we can reHumanize.

Dealing with the discomfort of two opposing ideas or beliefs can, and often does, lead to various behaviors including addiction, withdrawal, or violence. We can feel disconnect from our self and others. We don’t feel whole, consciously or unconsciously. People find adaptive ways to live while holding two or more different worldviews. For example, many people today claim to have a Jesus worldview and a Trump worldview. Another example, a person might believe they are talented and also believe no one likes their talent. In part, this is made possible by an “identity split” (not to be confused with a split personality or dissociative identity disorder). In these and many other cases we don’t feel whole. Sometimes we feel lonely, disconnect from our self, others, or disconnected from something larger than ourselves, something More, God.

When we learn to recognize these splits we can begin to live the principles of nonviolence and heal towards wholeness, oneness, union with all that is. We learn to recognize these splits, in part, by learning to become aware of the suppressed and denied parts of our Self. Techniques like noticing how we project onto others and practices like Jungian-style shadow work play an important part of our healing toward wholeness.

In this two-hour seminar, participants will begin to learn how to recognize four major identity splits. Participants will also discuss two stories that illustrate the various effects of the suppressed/denied self, projections onto other, and the impacts of being projected onto. Lastly, participants will be introduced to identifying projections and shadow work exercises.

Expanded description1: One constantly recurring theme in history is that human beings who try to avoid changing themselves always set out on a destructive course of trying to change the world or others. Most dramatically it insists on violence, the death of others, catastrophe, or war. Anything rather than change ourselves! To avoid the legitimate suffering of being human, we inflict untold suffering on others, and actually create more suffering on ourselves. It is the theme of hubris that seems to be at the heart of every tragedy.

Unless we recognize and admit our own personal and cultural viewpoints, we will never know how to decentralize our own perspective. We will live with a high degree of illusion and blindness that brings much suffering and violence into the world. Without such critical awareness of the small self, there is little chance that we will reduce violence. We must recognize our own biases, our own addictive preoccupations, and those things we refuse to pay attention.

Everyone’s viewpoint is a view from a point, personal and cultural. People who have done their inner work see beyond their own biases. People with a distorted image of self, world, or the Sacred will be largely incapable of experiencing what is really real in the world. Instead they will see what they need reality to be. We can move beyond seeing everything through our aggressiveness, fear, or agenda.

Each of us form a construct of what is necessary and good. The ego, the small or false self wants to protect its agenda and project itself onto the outer world. We need support in unmasking our false self and in distancing ourselves from our illusions. It is necessary to install a kind of inner observer and with patience and practice it becomes quite natural.

1Expanded description adapted from the sources below.

Brian McLaren, Why Don’t They Get It? Overcoming Bias in Others (and Yourself)

David Richo, Shadow Dance: Liberating the Power & Creativity of Your Dark Side

William A. Miller, Your Golden Shadow: Discovering and Fulfilling Your Undeveloped Self

reHumanize - Healing Our Multi-Worldviews