Creation from Destruction

“Any time you are creating something new, destruction is present.” – Lola Wright

In January of 2020, we may not have known what cosmic shifts were about to take over our world, but we could feel the disquiet of the human consciousness. Today I’m bringing you a talk from that month that serves as a reflection on this experience and a tool with which to process what we need as something closer to normal returns to us.

When I spoke about the heartbreak of the new at Bodhi Center sixteen months ago, I didn’t know how much was about to change for all of us. But while that time feels like a lifetime ago, we had the same concerns that we have now—the role of social media in changing our world, the danger of resting in inertia, and how to consciously rise above the circumstances of our lives. The process of creating something new requires destruction, and you may naturally be tempted right now to return to your former life as quickly as possible. However, we deserve better than that, and we have the power to rise above those old ways.

On this week’s Find Your Fierce & Loving, we investigate our patterns that aren’t serving us anymore. Listen in to learn how to handle the discomfort that comes from breaking those patterns and daring to create something new.

• (01:50) – Looking at the world
• (09:30) – When things fall apart

Do you want to unleash your inherent love and goodness, liberate yourself, and free humanity from the oppressive systems and structures we have created? We are here to support you in finding your fierce and loving life. Join us in Our Circle, a vibrant membership community rich in opportunities for engagement and transformation. Find out more at lolawright.com/our-circle.

You can follow Lola Wright, on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter and learn more about my work at lolawright.com.

Chicago born and built, Lola grew up in wealth and privilege, yet always sensed something was missing. She sought out aliveness and freedom in music, immersing herself in the hip hop and house music scenes of 90s Chicago. After finding herself on her own at 23, as the mother of two young children, she became determined to create a new experience.

Lola is an ordained minister with a gift for weaving together the mystical and material, she served for many years as the CEO of Bodhi Center, an organization committed to personal transformation, collective awakening, conscious activism, and community-building. 

This podcast is produced by Quinn Rose with theme music by independent producer Trey Royal.

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Lola Wright (00:01): Something is stirring. Maybe you’ve felt it. We are reckoning with the reality of injustice and binary thinking that feeds the political machine. Humanity is in the midst of a heartbreaking and painful paradigm shift. That is a good thing. My name is Lola Wright, and this is Find Your Fierce & Loving. This podcast is intended to help you disrupt, untangle and free your mind of personal and collective agreements, patterns and beliefs that are holding you back and weighing you down. We desperately need your fierce and loving purpose now more than ever.

Lola Wright (00:54): Today’s episode is one of the last talks I gave in my role as CEO and Spiritual Director of Bodhi Center. My last six months at Bodhi were some of the most inspiring for me. I concluded my time with a project that was an absolute self-expression. It was titled House of Bodhi with Lola Wright. It was a kind of conscious variety show that traveled throughout some of Chicago’s hottest music venues. On this particular evening, we were at City Winery in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood. It was just weeks before we would find ourselves amidst a global pandemic. I think you will find my words to be particularly timely. Enjoy.

Lola Wright (01:50): There is a lot occurring on the planet right now. I have four children and two of my children are home from college. We were having dinner on Sunday night, and a very heated conversation ensued about the state of the planet. My 22-year-old daughter said that she had deep appreciation for social media as a tool for activism and that her sense was really that there were conversations occurring on the planet right now by way of social media.

Lola Wright (02:24): Her 19-year-old brother, my son, said, “Yes, and I feel deeply troubled by watching animals burn next to a teardrop emoji.” It’s really like, “Yeah, those are the times, burning animals next to teardrop emojis.” I think it’s an interesting exploration of where we are in consciousness. One of the books that I have… I did a 10 week series on recently called Stillness Speaks by Eckhart Tolle. I want to share an excerpt from that book that has been a real anchor for me, and especially in times like these.

Lola Wright (03:06): This book was written in 2003, so more than 15 years ago, and I think it’s very accurate today. He writes, “The transformation of human consciousness is no longer a luxury available only to a few isolated individuals, but a necessity of humankind is not to destroy itself. At the present time, the dysfunction of the old consciousness and the arising of the new are both accelerating. Paradoxically, things are getting worse and better at the same time although the worse is more apparent because it makes so much noise.” I think that’s really well stated. What science is now affirming is that consciousness is always expanding, that there is this thing that is moving forward. There is an evolutionary impulse to life, and media is designed to freak you and I out.

Lola Wright (04:05): That does not mean we turn a blind eye to perspective war. It doesn’t mean we turn a blind eye to, I think, half a billion animals that have lost their life in burning land, but that we actually start to see, “Oh, this is what it is. It’s called the law of cause and effect. As we stay deeply unconscious, there’s an impact.” One of the things that I have been noticing in my life is that as I begin to change my patterns, it disrupts the agreements around me. And so, I’m in this transformational space myself. For me, the word transform means to rise above, to consciously rise above circumstances and conditions of my life.

Lola Wright (04:59): You and I have sort of a patterned way of being. This planet has a patterned way of being. This country has a patterned way of being. If we rest in inertia, it will go a particular way as evidenced by a prospective war, as evidenced by a country that is on fire. For example, if we fall into our ego identity… See, I have created an identity construct since the beginning of time, since I pressed into this dimension of time and space, and it’s based on three things: control, accomplishment, and success.

Lola Wright (05:40): My being is organized around control, accomplishment, and success, and it gets validated by the world reflecting affirmation back to me. And yet, that pattern is only going to take me so far. It has gotten me as far as it’s going to get me. I would love for you to take a deep breath and ask yourself: What are two, three, four ways of being that you have organized yourself around? One of the ways of being that we reliably do in this condition is productivity.

Lola Wright (06:16): Who I am is what I produce, and then I get in a loop of productivity. Yeah, and it creates a lot of suffering. One of the practices that I’m in presently is… I’m calling it the heartbreak of the new. If I begin to disrupt the patterns and agreements that I have in the relationships of my life, I then have to live with the discomfort of someone else’s reaction while honoring myself. Except that I’ve been deeply invested in control, accomplishment, and success, so that becomes very problematic. My success, my accomplishment, and my control is at stake if me disrupting my pattern creates upset over there with you.

Lola Wright (07:08): I can see this organizationally. Bodhi’s been in existence for 16 years, and there’s a particular way we’ve done things. That particular way had some wonderful qualities, and it had some deep, deep challenges. The feedback that I will find myself getting is, “Yeah, but just keep it going the way it was because I feel comfortable with that.” When I’m rooted in control, success, and accomplishment, that sounds like a good deal. Oh, it’ll make you happy, and then I’ll get affirmation. And then, my ego construct can stay intact, and then I don’t actually have to experience heartbreak.

Lola Wright (07:49): If I actually interrupt my patterned way of being for control, success, and accomplishment, then I have to live in the heartbreak of loss. I was thinking about this this morning. If you were to put an addition on a building, something new, likely a wall, has to get broken. Any time you’re creating something new, destruction is present. We could look at the context of this country. We could look at the context of this planet. You could look at the context of your life and say, “What needs to be destroyed? What way of being needs to get interrupted? What is not serving me?” There is something not serving the consciousness of humanity right now, and it is this insidious, insidious agreement with fear.

Lola Wright (08:45): You want to be more alive. You want to unleash your inherent love and goodness, liberate yourself, and free humanity from the oppressive systems and structures we have created. We are here to support you in finding your fierce and loving life. Join us in Our Circle. This is an affirming and radical space that will gather weekly, on-demand or live, whatever works best for your life. For more information on how you can engage in Our Circle, visit lolawright.com/our-circle. I’d love to have you with us.

Lola Wright (09:30): This morning I woke up in my meditation practice, and I just kept hearing, when things fall apart, when things fall apart, when things fall apart, when things fall apart. Do I know who I am when things fall apart? Do I know who I am when things fall apart? How willing are you to even let things fall apart? There is a whole world that’s falling apart around you. That’s actually what’s occurring on the planet right now. The world is falling apart.

Lola Wright (09:58): I would actually make the argument that that’s very good news because the ways of being that got us now are not of high and holy service for who we’re to become. There is an evolutionary cycle of consciousness. It is a big idea. There’s a vision of and for your life. It is unique to you. It was pressed in. See, you and I relate to this dimension of reality as the most real thing. Pema Chodron says it like this. I almost die laughing when I read her say this. “When things fall apart and we’re on the verge of we know not what, the test of each of us is to stay on that brink and not concretize, not to become like concrete. The spiritual journey is not about heaven and finally getting to a place that’s really swell.”

Lola Wright (11:02): Part of this evolution in consciousness is actually evolving our maturity into a capacity to be with discomfort. We’re highly addicted to comfort, highly addicted to things feeling neat and good. See, if I keep my heart in this nice, neat little cell, and I don’t feel the discomfort of being authentically me and the disruption it may create over there with you, it’s all real manageable. The practice I think right now is to allow our hearts to be broken over, and over, and over, and over again, and to develop a capacity to be with a broken heart.

Lola Wright (11:51): Not as some kind of masochistic practice, but as actually like, “Hmm, I can expand love. I can expand love. Destruction occurs, new construction begins. Destruction occurs, new construction begins. Destruction occurs, new construction begins. I know in my most intimate relationships with my children, with my husband, destruction occurs, new construction begins.

Lola Wright (12:21): My daughter said to me this holiday season, she was like, “We have literally been doing the same rituals for 22 years. It was something that created a sense of great safety in me as a small person, and now it’s feeling like Groundhog’s Day.” Perhaps your life can feel a little bit like Groundhog’s Day. Make the sausage. 6:00 AM, get up and make the sausage. 7:00 PM, get nervous about making the sausage at 6:00 AM. You and I are here for something more than that. There is a divine idea that has been encoded into you. You are an individualized manifestation of the most high. You are the God body. You are the spirit in form, but when we think this is it, it looks real bleak. We go to the news, and we get a hit. Then we go, “See, I told you it’s falling apart. Why bother?”

Lola Wright (13:29): There could be another way. We could actually see the paradox of things falling apart and new birth coming, new life coming. This experience in this dimension of reality can go a particular way if we are looped into inertia, fear, scarcity, lack, limitation, and we could always choose something more, something new, something different. The best is yet to come. When something dies, when a construct dies, when a construct called Bodhi dies a particular way, who do I be with that? When my marriage dies in a particular way, who do I be with that? When my children die in a particular way. My 22- year-old looks very different than her 11-year-old sister. Different parts. Different emotions. Whole lot of different, and now what?

Lola Wright (14:28): Do I hang onto my 22-year-old daughter as an 11-year-old, or do I let her become the extraordinary, beautiful, powerful woman that she is here to be and celebrate that? I said to Nathan last night, “This is the first time I’ve been married for 13 years.” He was like, “Yeah.” I’m like, “That is a whole new world, to be married for 13 years and got a lot of kids and a lot of responsibilities,” and that can go a particular way.

Lola Wright (15:09): What do we want to create? As you and I, as people who are doing this life together, how do we want to create this? With my children on the holidays, how do we want to create this? With your career, how do you want to create this? The best is yet to come if you choose, if you choose. We actually do know what could make a difference. It’s transcending fear, getting activated in our purpose, living fully alive. Stop staying safe. There is no such thing as safety. It is a complete and total fucking illusion. There is no such thing as safety. You’re it.

Lola Wright (16:03): When are you going to do the thing? There’s something you came here for. There’s something you came here for, and it’s not to get sad about the news. It’s not to get sad about the news, and here’s the thing. The vast majority, the mass consciousness, is in a seduction and a trance. It is called the matrix. Did you see the movie? My friends at Chicago Ideas posted something yesterday, said 88% of new year’s resolutions will not be fulfilled. Why is that? Likely because you are creating resolutions that you don’t even have a full aliveness around. It’s like, “Well, I should lose this. I should tighten up this.”

Lola Wright (16:57): Maybe. Maybe. Is that what you really want? Is that what you really want? What do you want? Go create that because we are walking on the planet with a bunch of miserable human beings living in a perpetual state of productivity producing lots of nothing. What are you here for? Would you please? By the way, I should let you in on a little secret. All of this is always just a conversation with myself. So, it’s not like you over there. It’s like, “Lola, what are you doing with yourself and your life? You are fixating on things that are beyond your control, that dampen your energy field, that hold you back, that weigh you down. Why? So, that you can turn around a decade from now and provide a whole list of reasons you’ve become your 85-year-old uncle who’s telling you stories at the holidays about what he didn’t get to do in his life. That’s your future, Lola.” Something else is possible.

Lola Wright (18:18): If you enjoyed this show and would like to receive new episodes as they’re published, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and consider leaving a review in Apple Podcasts. Your review helps others find this show. You can follow me at Lola P. Wright on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and learn more about my work at lolawright.com. This episode was produced by Quinn Rose with theme music from independent music producer, Trey Royal.

Lola Wright (19:03): What is my addictive pattern to fear? Just think of one. You actually have dozens, but just one for tonight. I don’t want to go too fast, too far. You’ve been drinking. You could get unruly. We don’t know.