This piece builds on the reflection I shared earlier. If you haven’t read Part One, you may want to start there.

Before we dive in, let’s pause (we did this in the first part, too – because regulating our nervous systems matters).

Place a hand on your heart.
 Take a slow breath in through your nose…
 and a long, conscious exhale through your mouth.

If at any point you feel your pulse quicken or your breath get shallow or your muscles tighten like you want to run, you can pause and come back to your breath.

I’ve got you.

Part Two zooms out.
Not to overwhelm us, but to orient us.

Here is what I’m seeing:

We are in a great transition.
A new way of BEing is being born.

Old systems are revealing — often shamelessly — just how toxic they are.
And while it is incredibly painful to witness, this exposure is what makes change possible.

Because once we can see what we’ve been living inside of, we can stop perpetuating it.

(FYI When I say “old systems,” I’m talking about the structures that organize power through separation – things like patriarchy, racism, and other forms of dominator culture that most of us have been shaped by.)

One of the most effective tools these systems use is division.

They turn us against each other – across race, politics, identity, even levels of awareness – and keep us focused sideways instead of at the root.

And it works, because we have been shaped, very intentionally, to participate in it.

It begins in the nervous system:
chronic stress, survival mode, fear of exclusion.

Then it becomes internalized:

Don’t show weakness.
Be palatable.
Don’t rock the boat.

And eventually it shows up in behavior:

Silence that looks like politeness.
Compliance that looks like being “good.”
Competition masquerading as success.

Acceptance becomes tied to survival.

And when something is tied to survival, it shapes everything – what we say, what we hide…and who we believe we have to be.

But when survival is routed through conformity, productivity and dominance, we end up defending the very systems that keep us separate, exhausted and afraid.

So when those systems are threatened, they do what they’ve always done:

They divide.

They convince us the problem is each other.

They weaponize fear and aim it sideways – and in doing so, they keep themselves intact.

They chose to meet oppression not with hatred, but with love — not as softness, but as strategy.

Nonviolence is not passive.
It is disciplined.
It is a refusal to become what we are fighting.

Because once moral authority is lost, the people lose their leverage.

In a recent message at my church, Reverend Josh Reeves said:

“When you don’t think for yourself, something or someone else thinks for you.”

If we do not consciously choose our alignment, we will be aligned by default – and that default has been separation.

Separation from each other.
From our bodies.
From nature.
From truth.
From Spirit.

And for me, there is great relief in this:

There is a reason we function this way – and it is not our fault.

This has been intentionally woven into how we’ve been shaped – in our bodies, our patterns and our ways of relating.

But now…we are beginning to understand how it works.

We can start to see what we’ve been aligning with – in our thoughts, our behaviors, and the systems we participate in.

And that changes something.

Because when alignment becomes visible, choice becomes possible.

One of the most sobering distinctions I heard recently from a former Black Panther was this:

“Oppression is a system. Oppression uses people. Oppression convinces ordinary citizens to become foot soldiers. And when we forget that, we become what we are fighting.”

These systems keep us reactive instead of relational, fragmented instead of organized, exhausted instead of resourced.

But when we come back to one another, something shifts.

Not sentimentally – structurally.

Community moves differently than domination does.

It requires:

• regulation instead of reactivity
• courage without escalation
• clarity without dehumanization
• care

It is usually slower.
And it is much stronger.

So what do we do with this?

We begin with ourselves.

As I’ve learned about these systems, I’ve been practicing interrupting them in my own body.

When I notice separation, I pause.
When I feel fear, I get curious.
When I want to shut down or judge, I breathe and soften.

In real life, this looks like:

• Letting go of the story I’ve made up about someone (i.e. being afraid to invite them to one of my healing events because they ‘might think I’m weird’ – spoiler alert – I am, and I’m proud of that…but it still brings me back to that fear of rejection I learned in my youth).
• Choosing to actually see and connect with someone I might have otherwise looked past (like an unhoused person, even when I don’t have cash or a granola bar to offer).
• Staying present in a conversation where I would have previously shut down or reacted (like my hubby when we don’t see eye-to-eye, or someone whose perspective really challenges me.😅).

I don’t always do this perfectly.
But more and more, I do it intentionally.

Because the systems survive when we stay divided.

And they weaken when we remember:
We belong to the same human family.

As one of my favorite activists and authors Valarie Kaur says,

“You are a part of me I do not yet know.”

So what we are witnessing right now – more clearly than ever – is this:

We have been aligning ourselves with systems of domination.

Personally.
Collectively.
Systemically.

And now that we can see it, we can choose differently.

But if we align with relationship, regulation and dignity, something new becomes possible.

This is not naïve.

It is strategic.

There is a reason why we function this way — and it is not our fault.

But now that we understand, we are no longer bound to it.

We are not pawns.

We can choose.

We can realign.

And new alignment creates a new reality (wahoo!).

This is what I’m finding in my own life:

As I begin to see these patterns inside of me, something opens.

There is relief.
There is even joy.

Not because the dysfunction is comfortable – but because once I can see it, I can begin to free myself from it.

And when I do that, even in small ways, it creates space for something else:

Connection.
Presence.
Choice.

And something else becomes clear:

When we begin to tune into that Light within us – that deeper knowing, that steady presence – we don’t just change ourselves.

We give others permission to do the same.

We remind each other.
We strengthen each other.
We come back together.

And collectively?

That changes everything.

It’s about us leading each other.

It’s about remembering that the Light within each of us is not separate.

That as we honor it, listen to it and live from it, we begin to illuminate the path forward.

Not perfectly.
Not all at once.
But together.

This is how we find our way through.
 This is how we create something new.
 This is how we rise.

Together…
We Light the Way.

Notice that you are here.
Notice that you have a choice.

That is where hope lives.

If you feel called to explore this work more deeply – the nervous system work, the relational work, the healing that helps us step out of these patterns – I would be honored to walk alongside you.

You can work with me one-on-one, attend an event, or explore The Rising community through the menu at the top of this page. 💛

With love, and in trust of what we are becoming,
Clarissa

Photo by Mike Labrum on Unsplash