A Quiet Rebellion
What are the un-rushed, intentional quiet acts of rebellion that can happen right now?
Welcome to the first edition of our The Mentor Training newsletter. You can expect to hear from us: Anne, Mollie and Vienda a couple of times per month, as we explore topics prevalent in modern life and how we can navigate it with more intentionality, compassion and awareness using The Mentor Training principles.
I know I’m not alone in feeling massive cosmic shifts, cultural despair, and discomfort all around me. The unease and collective confusion is showing up in books I’m reading, posts by friends and colleagues, discussions with neighbors and the general vibration everywhere.
There’s no kicking it down the road, change is here - but what does that even mean?
I live in rural Maine, on 140 acres of beautiful land that abuts a small mountain range and is edged by a pristine, snow-fed brook [aka, the swimming hole]. My partner and I moved here when we had our first son 11 years ago. Ex-city dwellers (he is a prominent musician) we never imagined staying here this long. But along came a 2nd son, a home, gardens… a life.
Winters are brutal, but I learned I like feeling “tough”. And the shire-like golden summers are something to yearn for and celebrate.
Leaving “the shire” is necessary - kids must go to school, groceries must be purchased, and there are friends to pop in on. But it has begun to feel abrasive, exiting our haven and venturing into the wider community.
Marked changes are happening in the surrounding rural towns. Driving my son to a doctor’s appointment last week, I thought we’d stop at the local bakery with the cute pie-shaped sign outside. As we drew near, I noticed the windows were dark and a new sign hung in the window saying “Marajuanaville! Coming Soon!”. Wait. What?
We continued down the long, twisty roads weaving through farms and apple orchards, the highways dotted with small businesses. Upon moving here just over a decade ago, most of these businesses were a mix of granny-style diners, coffee shops, pizza joints and vintage stores selling old barn finds. Now, I’m reading signs for “Cannatopia”, “Green Gardens”, and “Empire Edibles”. I counted over twenty-five different cannabis shops during the 1-hour drive.
Now, I understand that the feeling of molten sunshine coursing through your veins can be very enjoyable. I’m not opposed to partaking on occasion. But do I think this is a shift in the right direction? Wiping out the few authentically independent businesses that served up homemade blueberry pie and fresh pressed cider? Nope. What happened to Carla who smiled her toothless grin and cackled a laugh as she poured coffee at the Shake Shack?
During that particular drive and on that particular day I felt like I saw it all with fresh eyes. The megacorps and fast food machines hard at work churning out poison, the pot shops bustling, and I felt a despair like homelessness.
“I don’t belong here,” I whispered to myself.
Over the ensuing weekend, I found my emotions volatile. I am typically a quiet person. I tend towards reflection, books and walks to feel centred. But I suddenly felt my inner voice getting LOUD. I felt really damn pissed off. About the toxicity of our culture, about being a woman during these times (that’s a separate conversation), about tech inventions that have only splintered my attention away from those who need it most.
The world wants us distracted, buying, imbibing, scrolling, poisoning ourselves. And we’re lonely and sad enough that we buy, imbibe, scroll and eat things that feel comforting in the moment. We reach for the things in front of us. And lots of people with padded pockets have made sure we have a plethora of poisons to choose from.
Am I the only one whispering “I don’t belong here?”.
Whatever is happening globally, it’s confusing and slippery.
I dealt with my volatile emotions by stripping down rooms and decluttering every space I could. I raked through closets, boxed up half of my wardrobe, dejunked our storage loft and filled an entire truck bed with “stuff” I didn’t want.
As I harnessed and used my anger in that extreme moment of “decluttering”, I knew it was part of a process, a breadcrumb to follow until I happened upon the next. And truthfully, by removing the obstacles of extra “stuff”, I felt cleaner somehow. It was an act of quiet rebellion, saying to the world “I don’t want or need your stuff.” It re-centered my focus towards the larger question at hand “Change is here. What does it mean? And what is my role to play in it?”
A friend of mine sent me this quote a while back, author unknown:
“To make a revolution, people must not only struggle against existing conditions. They must make a philosophical/spiritual leap and become more ‘human’ human beings. To change and transform the world, they must change and transform themselves.”
Ok. Check. But how?
I’m reading a book that describes these times as entering the Chaos Cycle. It is something that’s happened over and over again to many civilizations and it is always unsettling, depressing and makes humans feel a loss of meaning. During these cycles, nothing makes sense as it used to and the old habits and strategies don’t work. Without a road map, humans fall into the dark night of the soul.
The author states that as she “tunes into what’s going on and allows [her] grief and outrage to be present, they quietly transform into ever-deepening motivation to offer [her] best service wherever opportunities present themselves.”
Those lines resonated deeply with me, and as I (literally) cleared my way through feelings of anger, I realised there was no quick fix or fast action to tidy up the macro-scale mess we’re in.
Discernment, reflection, a pause were the nudges I felt inside. Deep acceptance of everything.
Let the thoughts and feelings mix and mingle, don’t rush it.
If we are to be leaders in this next iteration of life as we know it, if we are to be courageous, if we are to protect the sacredness of the human spirit … we need to be grounded in deep discernment and in connection to greater values.
I asked myself “What are the un-rushed, intentional quiet acts of rebellion that can happen right now?”
A story of a Buddhist monk came to mind. The story [narrated by a teacher] goes like this: “Several years ago I invited a Buddhist monk to speak in my Senior elective class and when he entered the room he didn’t say a word. He walked to the board and wrote this: ‘EVERYONE WANTS TO SAVE THE WORLD, BUT NO ONE WANTS TO HELP MOM DO THE DISHES.’
The statement garnered laughs, but there is resounding truth in it. Many of us who are awake enough to feel the discomfort of global change want to DO something about it. NOW. And because we don’t have a roadmap, we fall so easily into despair. But one thing that is readily at our fingertips is the action of serving the human spirit and tending it with kindness.
We can still hold the door open for the person behind us, we can be present in our communities, we can barter instead of buy, we can consume less, and we can feed loving words into the hungry landscape of a child’s mind. Keeping our attention mindfully on what matters [blocking the bots] is a massive act of peaceful rebellion. We can control our actions and align them with our discernment and value systems. We can set an example and decide that the human spirit is worth fighting for. Micro actions among multitudes can, over time, tilt the direction of the future.
If you find yourself overwhelmed and in need of a safe place to share or want to connect with a community of people deeply committed to mentoring one another through difficult times, please reach out to us at hello@thementortraining.com or go here to learn more.
This newsletter was written by our relations director and mentor Anne Holloway.
Anne Holloway
Relations Director & Mentor
Alongside child-wrangling, travel, gardening and losing herself in books of all genres…
Anne has worked in almost every role within the online business management, marketing, and communications industry and manages the external mycelium of TMT. She raises awareness for the organisation, plans and delivers campaigns, manages relationships and builds the delivery framework for TMT.
Anne also leads the corporate in-person training in North America, supports our TMT community and is a lead mentor in our online training.
Anne holds a Master's Degree in International Education and currently works as an Integrator for a Creative Entrepreneurship brand and is a founding member of the Mentor Training Collective.