Wake-up calls are powerful…. and not always very welcome. When we’re comfortably dreaming away, we’re rarely happy about an alarm – whether that alarm is that our health is in crisis, that climate change is a reality, or that our skills are needed elsewhere.
The BBC2 documentary Future Of Food has been the most recent wake-up call for me. When we discover how unsustainable our food supply is, it can be tempting to hit SNOOZE and roll over. Last week, my SNOOZE button no longer seemed to work. The gravity of the situation hit me the way a wave does – throwing me up and making it hard for me to find ground. In this disorientation, my work felt negligible; my ‘little bit’ washed away in the vastness of the problem, with only one huge question for company: “How on Earth do we remedy a system as dysfunctional as this?”
I’ve returned to ground, thank goodness, with renewed commitment to the Transition Town movement and to local food. As a result of watching this documentary, have we as a nation radically altered our diet and how we source our food? I don’t know. Fascinating studies have been done on how we respond to bad news; specialists like Chris Johnstone explain how our psyche responds to such a threat by turning our heads the other way and sending us into denial and disengagement. It’s not that we don’t care, it’s that if we can’t grasp an obvious solution, we don’t wan’t – or can’t bear – to know.
In the archetypal ‘hero’s journey’ (as mapped out by Joseph Campbell), there is The Call and then immediately there is The Refusal Of The Call. Of course, this makes sense – a wake up call, by definition, alerts us to the fact that something must change in our world.
In my work with Contribution Footprints, I see us not as cowards who simply resist change, but rather as people who initially (a) don’t know how to change, and (b) don’t believe we are significant enough for our change to make a difference. This is why I believe so much in the Contribution Footprint model, whereby we acknowledge a real and present problem, acknowledge simultaneously that we ARE significant, and find ways of being effective, thereby finding our ground once more. Then… we can get to work.
The World Needs Your Passion, So…
1) Inquiry: What have been your most powerful wake-up calls to date? How did you initially respond to the call? What helped you over the resistance?
2) Inquiry: What calls are you hearing now? What resources would help you now in responding powerfully?
3) Action: Use what you discover to decide on a way of acknowledging and dealing with the resistance… and then taking the next action step.
4) Leave a comment on this blog post, letting us know what you discover.
Found this post challenging? Helpful? Inspiring? Irritating? Leave a comment and let us know.
© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2009
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(And I plan to attend so you never know, you may hear my voice piping up in the Q&A section!)
Great article Corrina.
Thanks for the Wake Up Call about Wake Up Calls!! It is only too easy to ignore the alarms and hit ‘snooze’, to hide under the covers instead of taking action to change – I know this from experience.
For some time I was on an emotional rollercoaster, experiencing self-imposed restrictions on my freedom and happiness by drinking too much, living way below my true potential, pointing the finger of blame outside of myself and surpressing my great yearning for a more meaningful life.
My big Wake Up Call was in seeing the effect this lifestyle had on me when alone. I could bare it when with my friends and family, even excuse it, feeding off the security, comfort and kindness of others, but when alone I could not escape my inner voice calling me any longer. There was too much conflict.
I think there are times in your life when you need to listen to your inner voice and guide, to align yourself with what truly matters to you and causes you no conflict insdie. My Wake Up Call surely prompted me to walk a path much greater
.
Rosanna
xx
Rosanna Gordon´s last blog ..Good Habits
Couldn’t agree more Rosanna!
Intuition – gut feeling – instinct – call it what you will. I like to call it my inner voice. My independent radar, on 24 hour surveillance for sinister characters and situations – the little voice that ‘just knows’, and I have no idea how it ‘just knows’ but it just does! If one thing is for sure, it has never let me down, yet I’m still guilty of having selective hearing when it’s shouting at me, desperate for me to WAKE UP! In my desire to get the thing I want, it seems easier to suggest to myself that it might be wrong this time! Having the confidence and power to step aside from that thing you want so badly – or so you think – is not easy when you doubt yourself.
So getting my fingers burnt is quite a speciality for me…..and the toes….the eyebrows….oh and there was this one incident when I even lost a shoe….though I wasn’t wearing it at the time!! Each time I get frazzled I can relate back to the time when ‘something wasn’t quite right’ and I ‘just knew’….and now I know that it was then that I should’ve listened!
Whatever it is – from something as minor as slowing down on the road cos you ‘just know’ there’s a policeman waiting to pounce….and you end up with a speeding fine and more points to add to your points……or……my particular favourite; ’just knowing’ that the new man in your life is withholding the complete truth that he has a girlfriend already thank-you-very-much…..oh and by the way she gave birth this morning! (an oldy but a goody!!)
So when you ‘just know’ something is GOOD – when something is your destiny, and that you’re on the right path – you trust it right? Well like everything else you don’t quite trust it, you don’t understand it so why make a decision based on a feeling?….how can I possibly ‘just know’ this stuff?
Having my own events company for ten years was great….to a point….but whilst I wasn’t happy, I felt that I should be, so I fought the feeling. Years later I had to do something – I was being screamed at. I went through and am still going through the odd tough time but it is worth it. I have developed a pure skincare brand and online gift service http://www.peacefulpleasures.co.uk/ourproducts.html and I am writing – whenever I can, and I love it. I may not be earning what I was – but I can say that I am doing what I should be doing – something meaningful, that makes me happy.
Soooooo….do yourself a favour….don’t question, don’t query, just listen up and listen good, not only can it save you from imminent disappointment, it might just lead you somewhere truly beautiful!
Thanks Corinna, as always
Kerry x
Okay, so it sounds pretty awful to say (write?) but I think i find myself way on the other side. Or rather, perhaps that when the alarm went off I woke up in a different place.
I find myself pretty much assuming that things aren’t going to sort themselves out sufficiently and we’ll have to go through some catastrophes to restore the balance. With sustainability issues (be it food, energy, waste, etc…) I really believe there is too much momentum in the wrong direction with too little time to avert catastrophe. There is a term for this kind of ‘event horizon’ in Chaos Theory but I can’t remember what it is.
I wouldn’t say it was right – if you assume disaster cannot be avoided – to stop doing good things in the name of sustainability: far from it, there is still damage limitation and laying the groundwork for a new era of building a sustainable society from the ground up. It is also the right thing to do, in the same way that it’s wrong to start looting your town if a Volcano strikes (see the film ‘Volcano‘ for the reference
)
However, I do strongly believe that there is very little hope of somehow getting us all pointing in the right direction to effectively turn back the clock, in the way all the little fish managed to escape the net in Finding Nemo. Man, that was a good film.
@Rosanna – Thanks for your openness and honesty. Actually listening to and acting upon the knowledge of our inner guide can be tough: it may require us to change quite significantly – but, as you say, the pay-off is that we lose that inner conflict. It reminds me of when two people have an argument; we can stay stuck, holding on to resentments and actually we’re just hurting ourselves. There’s a great quote: “Holding on to anger at someone is like sipping poison and expecting our enemy to drop dead”. Heeding the wake-up call can help us escape from that internal poison we may not be conscious of.
@Kerry – Ah yes, selective hearing. I’m going to guess we all apply this in certain areas of my life. I haven’t yet looked into the environmental impact of mobile phones or Apple products because I’m not quite ready to let these go. Yes, it does take confidence to step aside from what isn’t working (a job, a relationship, a lifestyle choice). I am SO happy to hear you are now doing work that you love, that feels meaningful – yes yes yes!
@Stuart – “Things aren’t going to sort themselves out” – who are these ‘things’? WE are the things, it’s whether WE decide to sort our society out… and thankfully I am very much in touch with those people, organisations and movements which are. And who wants to turn back the clock? We can draw on the wisdom of our elders and the generations that have gone before – who knew a lot about community cohesion and useful skills – and we can also build upon the great elements of our current society in order to build that new era: a sustainable society. I’d love to hear more about what role you’re playing…
@Corrina: I feel like I might not have explained myself properly. Naturally it is we who have to act to change the course of our society but because our world society consists of 6(+) billion people we are carrying a lot of momentum. Therefore it will require a big, big effort by almost everybody to change things quickly enough to avoid what I guess you could call a catastrophe by failure of sustainibility.
You confused me a little about being in touch with ‘people, organisations … which are’. Which are what?
I’m not entirely sure that the ‘wisdom of the elders’ are (in general) that useful a resource bearing in mind that the elder generations are pretty much responsible for pushing us in this current direction. Instead, i would turn to the younger generations who’s minds have not been set in ‘the old ways’ and also to those (elder) folk who never agreed with the direction we were hussled into.
I do agree though that some kind of community cohesion would be hugely beneficial but we must remember that: communities and society are very different now to previous generations with massive globalisation and the acceleration of mixing cultures; communities used to be based around the focal point of the church (or similar) and we really don’t want to go back down that path.
The other problem is that the people and movements desperate for a change often can’t seem to agree on how to change things for the better and to get the world to a point where aren’t using more than we’re producing (and other problems). Because these groups tend to be (relatively) less powerful and almost ‘rebels’ they also lack the research skills and power of larger companies and groups. You then end up with completely mental groups like Greenpeace, Peta and people who really believe organic food is healthier and more sustainable and everybod’s shouting to get heard and the general public don’t know what to believe.
However, don’t get me wrong – I completely agree with the need for a big wake up call and for everyone to get their behind in gear and start doing something, but there is a mountain to climb and, looking at the climbers, I’m not sure it’s achievable. But I do wish it were.
(P.S. My role in all of this? I don’t know what you’d call my ‘role’ – I try not to do anything stupid or selfish and above all I believe in the application of scepticism to find the best path.)
(P.P.S I’m sorry this is so long, but you did ask questions
)
@Stuart – I respect your hope and wish that we will achieve what is needed. To answer your question: organisations and people who are sorting out parts of the problem – like the Transition Network, Pachamama Alliance, 10:10, the New Economic Foundation and ventures like Morsbags, the Homeless World Cup, Lift_Share – to name but a very few. I see lots of people doing a lot. By your role, I mean the unique part that YOU are playing in all this. What, for example, is the role you see for scepticism? How do you see it helping?
Corrina´s last blog ..The Thing About Wake-Up Calls
@ Corrina: Hello, me again. I think the phrasing ‘unique part that YOU are playing in all this’ is slightly rhetorical and a little vague for me to answer. Also, personally, I think ‘unique’ individual roles aren’t really the necessary focus of massive global efforts (as opposed to what might, but I understand your role is to inspire the individual so naturally that would be your focus so I understand your inquiry.
As for the role of scepticism, surely it’s a necessary part of making any important decision/claim/action (etc). Scepticism demands proof for claims; it needs evidence; it questions new ideas and rejects false evidence. It is critical thought and scientific reasoning. The reason I mentioned it before is that (in my limited observation) a lot of thelouder voices of revolutionary/radical thinking in terms of enviromentalism et al. tend to be people who haven’t actually thought critically about their proclamations and start mouthing off without evidence to back up their claims, and this can have terrible results. We can’t really afford to start charging up world-changing revolutionary paths without a well-researched, well-reasoned thought process behind them… right?
The organisations you list appear to have their heads in the right places, mostly, as far as I can tell from quite brief research. Though I still have doubts about timescales, I’d be happily proved wrong.
@Stuart – Absolutely re: well-researched, well-reasoned. That’s why I highly recommend the Transition Handbook – a rigorous, well-sourced and hands-on approach. And the secret is that even if every single fact about peak oil or climate change is false, we’d still be better off with the kind of community that Transition is about. Happy reading and thank you for contributing your discernment to this discussion.
Corrina´s last blog ..The Thing About Wake-Up Calls