Your “Shadow Self.” How To Face It, Bring It To Light & Transcend It

 

By Milan Kareli in Collective Evolution

“What you most need will be found where you least want to look, but you have to look purposefully. If it chases you, then you’re the prey; if you confront it, you can transcend it.” – Jordan Peterson

There is a lot written about shadow and what it is. The direction is clear. Shadow is something we repress and hide from others, and in most cases, from ourselves. Where does it originate and what can we do to integrate or heal it?

Let’s begin by asking ‘why we have a shadow?’ Is it because we carry darkness at our core or does the shadow take shape over our lifetime as residue of fear, rage, shame and guilt, and their avoidance? I’d say a little bit of both. On the human collective level, we carry trauma related to suffering and aggression of our ancestors. But for the most part, our shadow develops during this lifetime in the form of a complex and sophisticated personality, that keeps us with a sense of control.

Deep down we feel vulnerable but try to hide it

Our inner world is complex and for some, unbearable. We continuously face and fear exposure of our contradictory complexity, towards ourselves and others. Instead of delving into the depth of our psyche and inviting more consciousness, we would rather guard ourselves. The more conscious we are, the more responsible we become for our actions. One of the reasons we so meticulously hide our shadow is because we don’t want to carry the consequence of our actions. And so, our vulnerability and shadow are closely linked.

There are many effective ways not to feel vulnerable and retain a sense of innocence. Abiding by a strict morality, adhering to ideologies, be they social, political or spiritual, or relying on religious dogma, all achieve exactly that protection. The kind of protection in which we cradle ourselves in feelings of righteousness and innocence. This is not to imply we shouldn’t seek for our actions to be moral or avoid believing but to become aware when they are used in service of feeling superior over others. Interestingly enough, our wish to remain innocent is a big shadow in and of itself.

So, while we’re busy repressing and controlling, the shadow feeds and grows with every attempt to fight off rejection, humiliation or punishment, as well as situations that leave us feeling guilty and ashamed

Here are some examples of how our shadow hides our vulnerability. Let’s say we want to be recognized for something we’ve done. Instead of asking for acknowledgment, we hide it through false humility and become resentful for not getting the attention we feel we deserve. Another example is our need to belong and be important to others. But again, instead of communicating this need, which makes us vulnerable to rejection, we make others feel important in the hope of being praised for our actions. Over time we’ve developed innumerable sophisticated ways to sugarcoat our shadows and feel in control.

Shadow integration begins with an honesty that seeks nothing in return

We can see, that most shadow has to do with survival attempts of some kind. This happens when we try to control our environments by behaving as victims, gaining respect through false humility, moral superiority and other forms of manipulation. When we talk about shadow integration, it’s crucial we are precise as to what the facets of our shadow are.

We want to, for example, be able to say, while refraining from any judgment, that ‘I smile at others, in order not to be attacked’ or ‘I control my partner by making him or her feel guilty’. Any judgment of what we discover in ourselves is a hidden attempt at victimizing ourselves and finding excuses. The ‘why’ is of secondary importance here, because the list of reasons is endless and the absolute source is difficult to pinpoint, but the urge to limit our vulnerability is still there.

This may be a good moment to say, that shadow integration is not about redemption, but about understanding the inner workings of vulnerability and protection, which are closely linked to our sense of survival, both physical and emotional.

Furthermore, we want to face our shadows, not to feel better or lighter in the future, but in order to become more integrated within ourselves and lessen the sense of separation that the shadow produces. We want to return integrity that comes with the responsibility of belonging to a history and culture that experiences a great deal of suffering and is greater than our individual selves. Integrating our shadow implies allowing the darkness to be part of us, without the desire to surpass it.

Drop the hope for a pain-free life

When we face our shadow, we want to fully own the aggression, fear, selfishness or greed living inside us. We want to clarify first and foremost to ourselves how we play power games and seek control. This acknowledgment doesn’t necessarily reduce the hurt to ourselves or others or enable us to change. There is no certain outcome from shadow integration and that’s a tough pill to swallow. What we’re ‘simply’ doing, is bringing something hidden to light, without the attempt to make it more or less significant or dramatic, but rather see it as it is, thereby becoming more aware.

The more emotionality we induce into the characterization of our shadow, the less integration takes place. Shadow integration should be a non-dramatic act, surrounded by a hint of coolness, where we observe who we’ve become. We will feel the pain of lies, betrayal and hurt to others during this observation. And in the process of doing so, holding back judgment, positive or negative, is truly challenging. How is it possible ‘not to comment’ on what we regard as a personal experience? We need to understand that any commentary also contains the attempt to change the experience, be it freeing or punishing to us.

Healing the shadow is a magical process in which we are the participant, not the director

The great challenge in shadow integration is to grow our capacity to be with or hold an experience without having the ability to change it. What has been done is in the past and can’t be undone; it can only be held and by holding it patiently, more facets can emerge and be seen. Like when a child injures itself, we can only hold them to share the pain of waiting for healing to take place, but the magic of healing has its own mysterious timeline.

When we own our shadow, it puts us in a helpless and humbling place. It shows us our limitations and that is something we don’t want to feel. Maximizing our potential for our own feelings of greatness is just another shadow. Acknowledging the limitation of our potential, without minimizing our strength or exercising false humility, allows us to share our light.

Life comes with a lot of limitations and the shadow tries to interfere with life itself. Facing our shadow is a spiritual act as we embrace and allow a little more of our human totality to be included. Through this experience, we can get in touch with a humility and simplicity, that can often touch something at our core, which is mystically meaningful and expanding.

Integration comes from a place that is non-dramatic, because drama always takes sides, and it makes us miss the simplicity lying in the acknowledgment of human complexity. Shadow integration is a lifelong and even a magical process. It happens when we are completely truthful, giving up all deals with God or fate, and surrendering to what we essentially are: vulnerable. We want to invite feeling the pain our shadow reveals to us without seeking redemption. In a way, every time we say yes to a shadow part in us, we agree to re-enter continuous vulnerability of being human.

This is where integration begins.

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The One’s Reunion With Itself

Reflections - The Headless Way

Ultimately sex doesn't come into its own till it is revealed as an aspect of the One's own joy in discovering and reuniting with Itself, disguised as the not-self or other - as one very special other. (Douglas Harding. Quoted in Seeing Who You Really Are by Richard Lang.)

Who after all, is here? Who is this Present-absent One, this No-thing, this 1st Person Singular, present tense? Haven't we decided that He is the one eyeless Seer, the one earless Hearer, the one tongueless Taster? He is also the one bodiless Lover! And just as the lover sees the beloved's face through a conceptual fog while he thinks he sees it with his eyes, and muffles the sound of her voice while he thinks he hears it with his ears, so he hardly begins to love her body while he thinks he loves it with his body. Only when he submits to being the One he really is - and she really is - does he know how to love that body, and know what sex is really about. In order to love it is necessary to be God, for God is love - and, not least, physical love. In order to be truly one with another it is necessary to be the One who is that other. (Douglas Harding. Quoted in Seeing Who You Really Are by Richard Lang)

The True Lover

 

Reflection 163

Welcome!

The wonderfully strange and happy fact is that this Self-seeing (which is perfect anyway) self-forgetting: with the result that (for example) the once painfully-self-occupied public speaker, now wholly occupied with the audience, talks fluently and spontaneously and unanxiously; and the once painfully-self-occupied lover, now wholly occupied with the beloved, loves similarly well. In falsely self-conscious loving, which begins by being inefficient and ends by being impossible, each is using the other for personal satisfaction; each is attempting to enjoy his or her own body instead of the other's - so the enjoyment dwindles. In truly Self-conscious loving, on the contrary, each is the disembodied enjoyer of the other's body; each consciously makes way for and is occupied by the other, feels the other, knows (in the biblical sense) the other - and the by-product or bonus is that physical enjoyment flourishes, perhaps as never before. 

(Douglas Harding. Quoted in Seeing Who You Really Are by Richard Lang)

 
Please send your comments to Richard

Every Thought, Etched Upon the Sky...

 

by Geneen Marie Haugen at Soulcraft Musings

Friday, January 8, 2021

A band of wanderers who traveled by thumb[1] or caravan to places they regarded as spiritually potent once gathered in the Tetons to Omfor world peace. They asked around for a tipi to use for the Om circles and somehow found me, and thus my tipi was enlisted for their mission. Among them was a songwriter whose haunting voice I can still hear, many decades later. Although her name is lost to me in the far canyons of memory, I still remember the lyrics she sang, which were something like this: “The world outside is a reflection of within. / We have the power to change it. / We can rearrange it.” Attempting to rearrange the “world outside” was the intent of those Om circles. 

When I was not on Teton trails or paddling the river, I joined the wanderers to Om a few times, entranced by the harmonics through which I sometimes heard clear voices that I could never identify, saying puzzling things like: I found them. Over here. Here they are. The seeming dedication of these wanderers to serving the world was so strong that when Anwar Sadat — the Egyptian president who had won a Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating a treaty between Egypt and Israel — was assassinated, at least some of the Om folks took it personally, rededicating themselves to “rearranging” the world within that gives birth (in this view) to the world “outside.” As far as I could tell, from their perspective, rearranging the world within was mostly supposed to happen on the “inner planes,” through Om-ing. 

From my viewpoint four decades later, I could not say that these wanderers were psychospiritually — or emotionally — mature (nor could I say that I was), though the Om practice did seem to offer, at least for moments, a palpable sense of peace and generosity of spirit, even compassion, toward others. The wanderers were the first spiritual seekers I’d encountered who believed — or who wanted to believe — that they were intimately connected with the unfolding of greater consciousness in the world, or with the devastating unraveling. Though even in those days, I recognized a shadow dissonance that I could not name when the seekers were soliciting money or food or airline tickets from folks with jobs rather than enacting their Om practice, I also found deep resonance with a possibility that my own manner of presence might be reflected in the “world outside” — a possibility that I was entangled in not only unspeakable beauty, but also in the aggression, rage, and divisiveness of human beings.

***

At the time, I was not familiar with the (apparently true) story that Jung was fond of telling about an old Taoist rainmaker who was called to a drought-stricken area in China. Upon arrival, the rainmaker asked to be left alone in a cottage outside the village. His meals were left outside the door. After three days in solitude, the clouds opened. When the old rainmaker was asked how he had delivered not only rain but also unseasonable snow, he declined to take credit for it. When further pressed, he offered his own explanation: “You see, I come from a place where the people are in order; they are in Tao; so the weather is also in order. But directly I got here, I saw the people were out of order and they also infected me. So I remained alone until I was once more in Tao and then, of course, it snowed.”[2]

***

I write these words the day after the U.S. Capitol building was breached by throngs of enraged people. I am enraged, too — and feel a strong, practiced impulse to loudly demean and violently condemn all those whose viewpoints and actions I find abhorrent. The “outer world” is in utter disarray with a radically divided populace, an on-going pandemic, climate instability, social and economic inequities, and more. It is easy to furiously believe that “those other people” are the ignorant, the deluded, the power-hungry, the “deplorables” or whatever other distinction I can identify separates them from me.  

And meanwhile, an immense psychospiritual drought withers all of the land. The world outside may be (at least in part) a reflection of within. Just now as I write, I remember a quote that was psychically-implanted long ago: “Think as if your every thought were etched in fire upon the sky for all and everything to see. For so, in truth, it is.”[3] Do I dare to bring to consciousness the tyrants, insurrectionists, enablers, entitled ones, perpetual victims, indoctrinated conformists, know-it-alls, or heartless ones that are hidden (or maybe not so hidden) in my manner of presence, in my psychic habits, in my way of being in the world? 

Over here. I found them. Here they are.

***

Of course it’s not enough to shudder with recognition when we encounter the deplorable in ourselves; of course it’s not sufficient to only Om for the world. But perhaps when we find the top-secret chambers where the tyrants, victims, conformists and others hide, we might hear and feel the tremendous grief cry that we share with all of those who are broken, lost, betrayed, oppressed, repressed, and trying to survive in worn-out systems that depend on pitting human beings against each other. From that recognition, we might find a way toward common ground.

Loosening the Cords: The Most Important Principle in Manifestation

 

By Gilbert Ross on Thursday December 31st, 2020

Receiving From the Well of Abundance

When you look at it through the keyhole of our limited mind perception, the idea of manifesting something out of nothing seems to be a bit of a bizarre notion despite being beautiful and poetic. The reason why it appears so strange for the rational mind is because manifesting something into reality requires us to suspend our habitual way of operating through the mind, with all the judgments, expectations, doubts or seeing things through the lens of the past, and step into the flow of Life. It also requires that we stop observing and following the assumed law of cause and effect as we know it, and start realizing that in the state of flow we are fully participating in creation and that we can cause an effect rather than just being affected by causes outside our own reach. In the  state of flow, the coin of our perceived world is flipped over.

So what is a state of flow, exactly? You know when you are in that beautiful state of mind where everything seems to shine and move smoothly? Most of the time this happened because you are in a high vibe mood, you are relaxed, confident and trustful of life, and more importantly you get yourself out of the way. You don’t judge the process or interfere with the flow. You openly trust what is about to be born and this is essentially what I mean by loosening the cords of attachment and expectation of the outcome. It is about relaxing the tight grip of the mind in its constant attempt to control,manalyze, predict, label or worry about what is happening and what can possibly happen.

The interference of the mind is the biggest obstacle to flow, and of course, manifestation. When you see it from a higher perspective, outside of the mind’s perceptual and emotional filters of realit, everything is in a magical flow, and perfect. It’s only our perception the is distorted. What we think of as magical and ‘paranormal’ is really the normal way the Universe operates at a very basic level. We just can’t see it while the mind is creating noise and distortion.

Loosening and Relaxing the Cords of Creation

The idea of loosening the cords is therefore about relaxing our control on reality - it’s about flowing more with life and controlling less. The Universe doesn’t like to operate in tight spots, through tension or under pressure. Harmony and openness are keys that allow the process to flow because it doesn’t restrict all those paths of possibilities through which something can manifest itself. You need to keep yourself open to the quantum possibilities. If you are focusing too much with the rational problem-solving level of the mind, you are shutting close the door for magic to flow in because by focusing on something specific, you are forcing or trying to determine a specific path without knowing that there are different and more suitable paths manifestation can flow through.

The Path of Least Resistance

Creation and manifestation always flow through the path of least resistance just like a mountain stream will flow downwards through the paths and crevices already carved out. It doesn’t flow where there is resistance. We create the resistances and the dams through our mind by doubting, second-guessing ourselves, disbelieving in our creative potential or simply having emotional conflict going on about the thing we want to manifest. Secondly you cannot urge or force something into creation as much as you cannot urge or force someone to give birth without having the opposite effect of what is intended. To force something into creation will just not work because it goes away from the path of least resistance. Like Joe Dispenza had wittingly put it, you do not go in the kitchen to urge and hassle the cook after you placed an order at the Universe’s restaurant!

The Balancing Forces in Action

Another idea that is very important and which is directly related to the notion of loosening the cords is the cosmic principle of balancing forces. The Universe has an auto-correcting function that gets triggered whenever something goes out of balance. It doesn’t make a difference if it is galactic-scale big or Tuesday-morning-setback small. It’s like an imaginary rubber band that once stretched it will snap back to its original position and restore the balance.

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The Handling of Chaos: Motion Through Stillness

 

Commentary by TLB Staff Author: Lucille Femine

The planet being in terrible turmoil and confusion, what do most people do – myself included, though I strive to overcome it? We accept it while we insist: We will not accept it!

In other words, we resist and that is the road to the acceptance of misery, confusion and unhappiness. How can that be if we resist it? Well, our all too frequent reaction is really emotion of various kinds – anger, fear, hopelessness, grief, etc, exactly what the chaos is designed to create.

What happens then? We feed the chaos with all these emotions and it grows – like raising a child with hate and they become hateful. And the perpetrators of the chaos smile and think they have won. They think they have overcome their own deep-seated and shallow fear and hate has been overcome by holding the “enemy” at bay or destroyed. Now THAT’S a miserable life. Much worse than yours.

We engage in all kinds of activity to beat these evil forces – from reading and commenting with protests, opinions, letters to political leaders, writing articles as I do, etc. There is absolutely nothing wrong with these things and much needed.

But where should these activities come from? That is my gist and I will try to explain it to myself as I write to you. You see, that is part of the plan. The less we think, the more we know, even when putting and trying to put cohesive words on paper and cyberspace. It appears to be very analytical. But truly I had no idea what words and concepts I would write until I began to write them. And I refrain as much as possible from “thinking them up” before I type. 

This practice of reducing thoughts to a bare minimum (needed to wash dishes, go shopping and all that) should never be considered a “blank mind” in the traditional sense of the word – like stupid. That label has been administered by schools and families who stress that we need to accumulate “facts” as the estimation and growth of intelligence and ability to function.

Surely data is needed to get along in our day to day lives. But what comes first? Silence and stillness. In other words, lose your mind with all its pictures, words, worries, pains, conflicts, all from the past. What remains? The powerful essence of you in the present moment. We call it many things – God, the Supreme Being, the spirit, etc. All it is, really, is you in the moment, this moment as you read this.

What do we do in this state of mind – or no mind? We simply know and experience not only our true self but our environment, our world.

What does this mean in terms of the chaos and danger around us? We simply stay in the present moment as we read, study and experience this chaos and not allow ourselves to “be” the chaos, to succumb to it as though it is real or even inevitable. By agreeing to it all, we recreate in our minds and then in our lives and then in our environment and it becomes real.

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Your Body is Sacred: 3 Ways to Practice Embodied Spirituality

 

By Aletheia Luna

Guest writer for Wake Up World

Since the very beginning of all religious and spiritual drive, there has been a deep prejudice against the body.

The body has been called carnal, worldly, lustful, sinful, and illusory. At best, it has been thought of as mere dust, at worst, it has been thought of as a doorway to the devil himself.

What’s worse is that when the body has been celebrated (such as in many neo-tantric practices), it has been fetishised and in some ways objectified.

There’s no doubt about it: we’ve had a weird relationship with the body as a species.

On one hand, we either condemn it and try to subjugate it – on the other hand, we indulge it to the extreme. We tend to swing from one side to the other, never seeming to find a middle ground.

Thankfully, times are changing. We’re sick of treating our bodies as flesh suits to be ascetically denied or endlessly satiated. Instead, we’re beginning to understand and respect our bodies’ wisdom, intelligence, and profound connection to the truth of reality.

We’re starting to see that the body is a sacred doorway to the Soul and the sacred wild Spirit of Existence. 

But as always, seeing our bodies as sacred is not easy. There are layers upon layers of inherited beliefs, prejudice, and wounds that obscure our ability to see clearly. Not only that, but modern spirituality – with its tendency to emphasize disembodied “transcendence” – can make it extra hard for us to come into a healthy relationship with our bodies. This is why embodied spirituality is so desperately needed.

What is Embodied Spirituality?

Embodied spirituality refers to a lived experience of spirituality that is grounded in the body. When we embrace embodied spirituality, we come out of our minds and back into our bodies: into that which is visceral, instinctual, and deeply felt through the senses. We see that the body isn’t just a temple of the Divine, but a living expression of Spirit. As such, the body becomes a source of tremendous wisdom and insight: a doorway to the present moment. Not only do we see the body as sacred, but we see it as a microcosm of the macrocosm – it becomes a path to both the transcendent and immanent nature of the Divine.

Your Body is a Storehouse of Trauma 

As psychiatrist Bessel Van Der Kolk writes in his book The Body Keeps Score:

The body keeps the score: … the memory of trauma is encoded in the viscera, in heartbreaking and gut-wrenching emotions, in autoimmune disorders and skeletal/muscular problems

Renowned psychologist and trauma-expert Peter Levine goes on to write:

Traumatic symptoms not only affect our emotional and mental states, but our physical health as well.

And as psychotherapists C. Zweig and S. Wolf write:

We may forget an abuse, but the body does not. Like shock absorbers, our bodies absorb the wear and tear of emotional experience. We may defend against it, but our bodies take the heat. And slowly, over years, the patterns of stress and trauma accumulate. Inevitably, if we do not become conscious of the shadows lodged in our muscles and cells, they begin to tell their tales. 

As we can see, body and mind are not separate. Whatever painful experiences we undergo in life are stored within our bodies as trauma. This trauma manifests as muscle tension, mysterious aches and pains, ‘body armoring’ and holding patterns, autoimmune disorders, and endless other illnesses.

Without unpacking, exploring, and releasing what’s within our bodies, we remain frozen and unable to move forward. This is the first reason why developing a friendly approach to our bodies is crucial – it is a core element of spiritual healing and transformation.

Your Body is a Gateway to Spiritual Wisdom

Our bodies are also a storehouse of great wisdom.

As the great German philosopher Nietzsche once wrote:

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

And as Buddha once said:

The body is anchored in the here and now while the mind travels into the past and future.”

Although at a core level, we aren’t defined by our physical blood and bones, our bodies are an undeniably powerful gateway to the present moment. Not only do they anchor us into the Eternal Now (hence why many meditation techniques focus on the breath and body), but they are also insanely accurate truth-detectors. They help us to both tune-into what is true and real, on a visceral felt-level, and what is false.

Indeed, our bodies are great and multi-layered gifts. They carry an intelligence that predates the mind and an intuition that is directly aligned with the Soul.

As mythopoetic author and psychologist Marion Woodman writes,

This is your body, your greatest gift, pregnant with wisdom you do not hear, grief you thought was forgotten, and joy you have never known.

There is so much potential for healing, revelation, integration, and regenerative grounding on offer when we honor the body; when we practice embodied spirituality.

But … where do we start?

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Connecting the Dots Between Covid-19 and the Not-So-Great Reset [VIDEOS]

 

ER Editor: This article does indeed attempt to connect the dots, but it also does so by connecting back to the Swine Flu pandemic, so-called, of 2009, in which Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg played a key role, just as he has tried to do this time around, but with heavy MSM censorship.

We remind readers of the attack Wodarg, in conjunction with former Pfizer CEO Dr. Mike Yeadon, has made on the current vaccine trials, delineating clearly what the medical risks may be of the Pfizer vaccine and others, and why they should be stopped. See Dr. Wodarg and Dr. Yeadon Request a Stop of ALL Corona Vaccination Studies, Call to SIGN THE PETITION.

JOHN SLEGERS

You may have heard of the “Great Reset” by now. Maybe you’ve learned about it from one of these articles in Time Magazine. Maybe you’ve learned about it from this silly BBC hit piece. Maybe you’ve learned about it from this op ed in Forbes. Or maybe your “crazy conspiracy theorist” uncle forwarded you one of the many videos on Youtube that mentions this topic. But what exactly is the “Great Reset”? Who is behind it? Why is there such a buzz surrounding it? And how does this relate to Covid-19? The purpose of this article is to help you answer these questions.

The launch of the “Great Reset” campaign

As I’m writing this article, it’s exactly 6 months since the “Great Reset” campaign was launched. Since 3 June 2020, the website of Charles, Prince of Wales, would contain a section titled “The Great Reset”, which contains the following statements :

Today, through HRH’s Sustainable Markets Initiative and the World Economic Forum, The Prince of Wales launched a new global initiative, The Great Reset.

For over fifty years, His Royal Highness has promoted action for a sustainable future to ensure that the natural assets can endure for future generations.

In January 2020, The Prince launched his Sustainable Markets Initiative at Davos, which calls on communities, businesses, investors and consumers to take the urgent and practical steps required to transition to more sustainable practices.

The Great Reset, which was launched during a virtual roundtable today, aims to rebuild, redesign, reinvigorate and rebalance our world. It has been designed to ensure businesses and communities ‘build back better’ by putting sustainable business practices at the heart of their operations as they begin to recover from the coronavirus pandemic.

 On that same day, Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF), published the following on the WEF website :

There are many reasons to pursue a Great Reset, but the most urgent is COVID-19. Having already led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, the pandemic represents one of the worst public-health crises in recent history. And, with casualties still mounting in many parts of the world, it is far from over.

This will have serious long-term consequences for economic growth, public debt, employment, and human wellbeing. According to the Financial Times, global government debt has already reached its highest level in peacetime. Moreover, unemployment is skyrocketing in many countries: in the US, for example, one in four workers have filed for unemployment since mid-March, with new weekly claims far above historic highs. The International Monetary Fund expects the world economy to shrink by 3% this year — a downgrade of 6.3 percentage points in just four months. (ER: All CREATED by the co-ordinated over-reactions of our governments!)

All of this will exacerbate the climate and social crises that were already underway. Some countries have already used the COVID-19 crisis as an excuse to weaken environmental protections and enforcement. And frustrations over social ills like rising inequality — US billionaires’ combined wealth has increased during the crisis — are intensifying.

[…]

The Great Reset agenda would have three main components. The first would steer the market toward fairer outcomes. To this end, governments should improve coordination (for example, in tax, regulatory, and fiscal policy), upgrade trade arrangements, and create the conditions for a “stakeholder economy.” At a time of diminishing tax bases and soaring public debt, governments have a powerful incentive to pursue such action.

Moreover, governments should implement long-overdue reforms that promote more equitable outcomes. Depending on the country, these may include changes to wealth taxes, the withdrawal of fossil-fuel subsidies, and new rules governing intellectual property, trade, and competition.

The second component of a Great Reset agenda would ensure that investments advance shared goals, such as equality and sustainability. Here, the large-scale spending programs that many governments are implementing represent a major opportunity for progress. The European Commission, for one, has unveiled plans for a €750 billion ($826 billion) recovery fund. The US, China, and Japan also have ambitious economic-stimulus plans.

Rather than using these funds, as well as investments from private entities and pension funds, to fill cracks in the old system, we should use them to create a new one that is more resilient, equitable, and sustainable in the long run. This means, for example, building “green” urban infrastructure and creating incentives for industries to improve their track record on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics.

The third and final priority of a Great Reset agenda is to harness the innovations of the Fourth Industrial Revolution to support the public good, especially by addressing health and social challenges. During the COVID-19 crisis, companies, universities, and others have joined forces to develop diagnostics, therapeutics, and possible vaccines; establish testing centers; create mechanisms for tracing infections; and deliver telemedicine. Imagine what could be possible if similar concerted efforts were made in every sector.

The COVID-19 crisis is affecting every facet of people’s lives in every corner of the world. But tragedy need not be its only legacy. On the contrary, the pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world to create a healthier, more equitable, and more prosperous future.

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