Compassion, Curiosity, and Respect

In the Deep Adaptation Forum compassion, curiosity and respect are important guiding values. What is the reason for this? Is it so that we can quietly and gently get rid of troublemakers we don’t agree with or is it to make sure that we don’t treat others the way that we have been treated?

Those of us that have been crying out with our heart and soul about the collapse have been ignored, contradicted, and dismissed. We cried out for years about the patterns we were seeing but we weren’t listened to. This realization was a powerful insight but we should understand that it is really only just the beginning and there are many more insights and challenges that we face.

It is a misunderstanding if we are aware of collapse as an ending. Our emerging ability to think at this new level of pattern recognition and meta-consciousness is not the end but is the beginning of our awakening. There are many more challenges we have to face as we reckon with our own profound self-delusion. If the problem, the metacrisis, is big enough that the entire planet is becoming upset and our bodies are falling apart, then just becoming collapse aware is nowhere near enough. There are deeper forms of awareness and deeper forms of denial that we must each face.

In our wisdom we agree that the guiding values of this forum are compassion, curiosity, and respect. In general how do we in this forum respond to new ideas or differing opinions?

Is the purpose of these values to make it easy to silence differing opinions or is it to make sure we do listen, with real compassion, curiosity, and respect? When people share a different perspective do we listen passively or only respond tacitly or with silence? This kind of silent response may seem to appear very civilized. However isn’t it our civilization that is the problem? Isn’t silent lack of affirmation of the crisis the problem we have faced all along by mainstream thinking? Silence does not often express compassion, curiosity and respect.

Deep listening is not passive or else it is not really deep. The depths are the most passionately responsive parts of us. When we are aligned with the homeostatic and healing impulses of the earth and of our own bodies, there is a deeply felt call to action, even if it is only a very gentle and healing one.

Compassion, curiosity, and respect are guiding values that help us to overcome the understandable resistance we experience as we navigate the Forest of White Lies that we have been telling ourselves for so long. Compassion, curiosity, and respect are guiding values that help us to attune to the deeper homeostatic and healing nature of the earth and our bodies. These three qualities are not easily obtained and if they are the guiding values of this forum then they are something that we should collectively strive towards, honestly reflect upon, and consciously support each other with.

How are you doing with the development of your own collapse awareness?