“It is no measure of health to be well in a profoundly sick society.” Ahh, Krishnamurti KNOWS. And this is exactly why it’s time for a revolution.

I’m interested in how we work as individuals and how we come together as a society—to create justice. To be in right action. To balance the scales. To transmute darkness into light. How do we hold people accountable? How do we speak out with fire and clarity about our ideals? How do we call people on their destructive sh-t without creating harm or incurring karma?

I’ve got some ideas. Here’s what’s in LIGHT WORK Episode #5: How to be a revolutionary for just love…

Admit to how bad it sucks right now.

We are, on the whole, morally-bankrupt. Corruption is the norm. We are in a time of hypernormalisation, meaning we make the abnormal feel normal and acceptable. We’ve come to accept so many things as “the way it is”:

That greed is the primary driver of most social systems: politics, schools, even the wellness industry.
That healthcare is making us sick.
That so much of religion has so little to do with love and tolerance.
That food, vastly, is poison. It’s not even real food.
That success is about consuming instead of giving.
That we live in a post-truth society. How heartbreaking is that?

One of the reasons we normalize is to protect our hearts from the extreme situations of immorality that surround us. To that I say, we’ve got to feel the heartbreak sometimes.

Do not doubt the wisdom of your rage.

Note: this is in the context of mental health and stability. First, anger: I feel like anger takes things very personally. My ego is offended. It feels like something’s happened outside of me—to me—and it’s wounding. It agitates my personality.

Rage feels different to me. It feels more like a creative fire. Rage can be a flash of clarity, or a flare of justice. There’s something that lifts me up with rage. I feel like I’m seeing from a higher, more inclusive point of view—I am enraged on behalf of something. And I think that kind of connective rage is the appropriate response to what’s happening in the world right now. Do not doubt the wisdom of your rage. Here’s the contemporary irony: if you are not enraged these days, you are not alive.

Do not doubt the wisdom of your rage. Here’s the contemporary irony: if you are not enraged these days, you are not alive. @DanielleLaPorte (Click to Tweet!)

Stay sensitive. We can’t go numb.

Here’s the all-too-often scenario: We hear some tragic news—probably from Instagram. For me, I’m often in my kitchen, putting avocado on toast. I’m moved to tears. I give it a few moments to sink in, and then I switch to the work of my day and the things I have to do. But I feel like there’s this ghost hovering for the rest of the day, waiting to swoop in and corrupt my faith. That’s when I have to, very intentionally, say to myself, “I believe in the power of Love.”

A passage from Marianne Williamson’s beautiful book, Tears to Triumph: “Modern civilization has itself become a depressing phenomenon, predicated on principles that dissociate human beings from the feelings of connectedness and wholeness, without which happiness cannot be found.”

We can’t turn away from the pain that’s accumulating. So then the question becomes, “How do we get on top of the pain? How do we face it and lead it and manage it?”

Where do we start when the world is so messed up, and you’re feeling messed up because of it?

Gloria Steinem has great advice for this: work on what hurts the most.

We must take radical responsibility for our own wellness.

This is what Gandhi was saying: “Be the change.” You can use your lifestyle as your form of activism by choosing what’s best for you. YOU create your radiance, and your radiance is how you create change. You’re so conscious that advertisers cannot tell you what to do. You cannot be swayed. It’s your consciousness—not only your anger—that will disrupt the status quo.

We don’t need to tear people down or name call. We don’t need to be obsessed about everything that everybody else is doing that’s harmful and wrong. Your conscious lifestyle is in such contrast to the corruption around you, that it’s shining a light on what needs to be fixed. And it’s your love for The Higher, your love for wellness, that makes you unstoppable.

It doesn’t mean that you don’t have to get engaged—you will get more engaged, more vocal, more active in your community than ever. But you’re going about your business as a centered, luminous, and informed badass. When you make light choices for yourself in every area of your life, every day, you change the culture.

Gratitude for Mother Earth—it’s essential to being a revolutionary.

My perspective used to be that I lived “on” the Earth and I was grateful for that. I’ve always considered myself an environmentalist. But my relationship with Mother Earth wasn’t as reverent and intimate as it is now. Now, I feel that I am living with the Earth, not on. I feel something much more deeply, which is: I feel beholden to respect all those resources. And now, when I give my thanks for the air, the water, the soil, and the fire… there’s always a request for forgiveness. I’m sorry for what we’ve done to you.

I treat Mother Earth as I would treat a friend. And I have a much greater sense that, say, water is an entity with feelings, that the soil is an organism, and that this great consciousness that we have called Earth is having a pain response. She’s hurting and yet she never stops giving. That consistent, unyielding, profound generosity—how could we not be in awe? My increased reverence for the Earth is the direct result of my meditation practice. Which brings me to…

The revolution requires faith.

We have to fuel our faith with the divine simplicities. Here’s a poem for that:

After a long night

After a long night
I wake up
with infinity on my lips and I must tell you:
Everything turns out okay.
Put down your worries,
even though you must take up the cause.
On the Light crusade
we must remember
The Ultimate and Immediate Why:
Swallowing fresh water,
inhaling
clean air
through our mouths,
speaking
words of adoration, and
kissing.

Include everybody in your plans for Love—for real.

I think there are two kinds of dark behavior. There’s the kind that comes from a person who is ignorant and deeply wounded. It’s the CEO who does essentially criminal and inhumane things to make a profit for his stockholders. Because what he’s really trying to do is get that love and validation from his stockholders, that he didn’t get from his parents.

Then there is true density and evil. It’s a very specific force that has been in battle with the Light for eons. It’s the Lucifer story. Lucifer was an angel who broke away from the Godhead. He came from the light, but there was a fracture. There was a choice to turn away from the Soul.

In my belief system, all things come from, and return to, the light. So: can you love the guy at Monsanto? Can you love the people who are making decisions to rape Mother Earth, who dehumanize people for profit, who are trying to feed on the light? No matter what side you’re on politically, can you find compassion in your heart for maniacal orange asshat leaders? Can you love all those people?

This is the point of view of the Soul. We feel compassion for the darkened folk. On a personality level, there may need to be some serious justice. We all have to move forward together—because in oneness consciousness, everybody’s in.

Oh, sweet fellow revolutionaries. This is a full episode. Thank you for being here. You are—we are—heartbreakingly beautiful. Go do right by Love. Keep doing the LIGHT WORK.

One Love,
Danielle

Listen to LIGHT WORK Episode #5 on iTunes, Spotify, or Stitcher.

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LINK LOVE
Light Workers mentioned in this episode…

• Eve Ensler is the author of The Vagina Monologues and In the Body of the World, and the founder of VDay.org
• Gloria Steinem’s latest book is My Life on the Road

READS

• Tears to Triumph: Spiritual Healing for the Modern Plagues of Anxiety and Depression, by Marianne Williamson

CHARITIES

• charity: water is a non-profit organization bringing clean and safe drinking water to people in developing countries.
• V-Day is a global activist movement to end violence against all women and girls (cisgender, transgender, and gender non-conforming).

MUSIC

• DJ Drez + Marti Nikko from Drez’s latest album, Alpine Swift, featuring the song, Light Me Up

Danielle LaPorte is an invited member of Oprah’s SuperSoul 100, a group who, in Oprah Winfrey’s words, “is uniquely connecting the world together with a spiritual energy that matters.” She is author of White Hot Truth: Clarity for keeping it real on your spiritual path—from one seeker to another. The Fire Starter Sessions, and The Desire Map: A Guide To Creating Goals With Soul—the book that has been translated into 8 languages, evolved into a yearly day planner system, a top 10 iTunes app, and an international workshop program with licensed facilitators in 15 countries.

Named one of the “Top 100 Websites for Women” by Forbes, millions of visitors go to DanielleLaPorte.com every month for her daily #Truthbombs and what’s been called “the best place online for kickass spirituality.” A speaker, a poet, a painter, and a former business strategist and Washington-DC think tank exec, Entrepreneur Magazine calls Danielle, “equal parts poet and entrepreneurial badass…edgy, contrarian…loving and inspired.” Her charities of choice are Eve Ensler’s VDay: a global movement to end violence against women and girls, and charity: water, setting out to bring safe drinking water to everyone in the world. She lives in Vancouver, BC with her favourite philosopher, her son. You can find her @daniellelaporte and just about everywhere on social media.