It is the ordinary people who are going to pull us out of this.
It is us that have to do something different.
- Naomi Remen
Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen
What are you doing in your own life to change our global economic downturn? So that our human society becomes more sustainable? Are you saving more, sharing more, hoarding more, spending more, giving more away? What is the right thing to do and how do you know that? Dr. Remen suggests some even deeper questions will lead you to your own answers.
Rachel Naomi Remen is a wise older woman. She has cared for people with cancer and their families for almost 30 years and is the Co-Founder and Medical Director of the Commonweal Cancer Help Program. Dr. Remen is also the Clinical Professor of Family and Community Medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine and the author of Kitchen Table Wisdom: Stories That Heal and My Grandfather’s Blessings: Stories of Strength, Refuge and Belonging.
In a brief interview with Kate Moos of the radio program Speaking of Faith, Dr. Remen makes the extraordinary observation that because money is something you can actually touch, it is the densest form of both stored human energy and of human community, otherwise it is just paper. She says that this energy follows our beliefs and the economy is based on people’s shared beliefs. What is a good life? she asks. The answer to that question drives our economy.
Remen suggests that, if you want to find out who a person is, you might find out by following them around and see how they spend their money, and what they spend it on. Doing this you will be able to determine their story about life, about themselves, about what is important to them. So what do we believe now? What are the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, about other people, about the world? What are the stories that have become our operations manuals? Remen suggests that collectively we have been operating based on these stories:
- I am alone. I have to count on myself. No one will come and help me.
- The more things I have, the more happy I will be. My goal in life is comfort.
- I am not safe.
Remen believes that we have been based on fear for a long time. With this fear, our human energy has become stagnant, our money has become stagnant, and our stories have become fixed and inflexible; these stories have been much too small. The opportunity during this time of economic crisis is to change the story; we are larger than our stories, we are part of a much larger story.
The economy is a pointing finger to a spiritual emptiness
we have been experiencing for a long time.
-Naomi Remen
So how do we change our stories, individually and collectively? Dr. Remen suggests that we contemplate 3 key questions:
- What can I trust?
- What can sustain me?
- What do I really need in order to live?
These questions lead us to a deeper, more passionate, better way of living and a much deeper connection to a larger reality. Once we have the beginnings of the answers to these questions, we will start forming new stories about money and its role in our lives. These stories will lead us to actions we can take to deal with the economic downturn and to heal our economic system.
What star are you using to guide your boat through this life?
Often you can see the light from your star only after it has grown dark.
- Naomi Remen
Here is a brief excerpt of Dr. Remen speaking about how individuals are the key to changing our world, not experts: