Five things to think about if you want to change the world

by Serge Beddington-Behrens, Author of Gateways to the Soul: Inner Work for the Outer World

Remember that you can’t change other people.

How does one deal with those people who have no intention of changing, who know their politics and their business dealings are essentially corrupt and are destroying the environment, but have so much fun playing their power and status games, that nothing other than their actual physical demise or the whole world financial system going up the spout, is going to stop them?

You cannot play them at their own game, as they are much smarter and stronger than you.

You cannot play them at the ‘please change, the world is collapsing’, I will send you love and light,’ as they are not responsive and also couldn’t care less. All they are concerned with is their own survival and that of their family and cronies.

We need to ask ourselves: ‘Where do I fit in? What can I do personally to play my part in changing the world?

My ‘weapons’, for example, are the written and spoken word and the people whom I work with to try to bring more heart and soul into their lives.

For many, this is not so straight forward. I  think three things are important: a) that we address issues that deeply move us, that break our hearts as that is where we can bring power in, b) that we find out which skills we are good at and bring those to the table. c)  We mustn’t  feel we have to do everything, as we can’t. Change agents are part of a large human collective movement, and what we cannot do, others will fill in and do.

Ask yourself how, as a change agent, can you remain positive?

This is very important as our thoughts determine what will happen in our lives. For example, people who feel they’ll never ever ‘meet the one’ or never ever get a good job’ tend to have their negative expectations fulfilled!

Therefore, it is important that we hold a positive viewpoint and no matter how much negativity and drama we get from the  media, we stay true to ourselves. It will also greatly energise us and we will feel much happier.

Consider how much you are willing to commit to  giving up being part of the problems in the world, and instead seek to be part of their solution.

The key thing here is that we need to embody or live the changes we want to see. No good still playing our old consuming games; no good continuing to dump our inner negativity onto others; no good hanging on to our old racist or Islamophobic patterns; no good still using plastic as promiscuously as before; no good always being stressed and anxious; no good  still believing in the many limitations we were all brought up to believe about ourselves. Put simply, we need to commit to walk our talk so we’re not just a weekend change agent.

The more sincere we are, the more power we will have, and the greater a difference we’ll be able to make.

Be very clear how you want to make a difference, and where.

None of us can do everything and if we spread ourselves too thinly, we’ll achieve nothing. Also be aware where our strengths and limitations are. Don’t go on demonstrations if they are not your thing. Don’t be an organiser if organisation is not your thing. Find where you want to work and do your thing and don’t compare yourself with others.

About the book

A guide on how to live more soulfully and, in so doing, transform yourself and the planet

• Explores the connections between healing your personal wounds and healing the planet.
• Explains how embracing unitive qualities such as love, friendship, joy, courage, forgiveness, and truth, as well as facing your Shadow sides and confronting world evil, enables you to move through important gateways leading to soul.
• Offers a variety of transpersonal exercises, meditations, and guided visualizations.

Humanity is in a great crisis of soul today, but there is also much good will around. As a species, we are challenged to start embracing a new story, one that enables us to be less greedy and materialistic and to espouse peace not war, kindness not cruelty, and heart as opposed to indifference. What we need is to bring more soul into the world. In this guide about engaging in inner work to bring change into the world, Dr. Serge Beddington-Behrens reveals how the healing of our personal wounds combined with the growing of our soul life leads us directly to the addressing of world problems.

Transforming your inner world...

Sharing inspirational stories from his own personal journey of becoming a transpersonal psychotherapist, shaman, and activist, he shows you how, by transforming your inner world, you begin creating important positive ripples that reverberate around all areas of your outer one. The exercises and meditations he has devised will not only help you heal and become more fully human but also enable you to bring a very different kind of awareness—a sacred awareness—into all areas of your everyday life. Not only will this enable you to experience more joy and meaning as you increasingly disconnect from the clutches of the system, but you will also find yourself opening your heart, reclaiming your personal power, bringing in new myths for humanity to live by, and gradually shifting away from being part of the problems in the world to becoming a core part of their solution.

About the author

Dr. Serge Obolensky Beddington-Behrens, MA (Oxon.), Ph.D., K.S.M.L., is an Oxford-educated Transpersonal psychotherapist, shaman, activist, and educator, awarded an Italian knighthood twenty years ago for services to humanity. For forty years he has conducted spiritual retreats all over the world. In the 1980s, he cofounded the Institute for the Study of Conscious Evolution in San Francisco. He is the author of Awakening the Universal Heart.