The New World Paradigm: Get Clear, Create a Vision, Take Action

Image Credit: Being Awareness

by Kara-Leah Grant

Eight years ago this week I began The Yoga Lunchbox with a vision in mind – to Bring Yoga to the People.

Daily practice had made an enormous difference to my physical, mental and emotional well-being and I envisioned a world where everybody knew about yoga and meditation, and 10% of the population was practicing regularly.

That vision has now been fulfilled. Yoga is everywhere. And people are practicing. So now what for The Yoga Lunchbox? That’s what I’ve been contemplating for the past 18 months.

In that time I’ve explored selling the website, and focusing predominantly on my own “business” as a speaker. I’ve also been extensively reading politics, history and a myriad of books on the human condition.

Over the last month or so, a vision has begun to crystallize. I’ve realised that I don’t care about my own personal success or ‘becoming’ a speaker. It’s completely irrelevant. I’ve also realised that without a centralising vision, The Yoga Lunchbox has become clunky and incoherent.

It’s difficult to tell what the website is about, because there’s so many different things going on.

I needed a clear vision again. Something that I deeply cared about. Something that would energise me and call forth the best of my abilities.

It’s the American election that has finally tipped the balance. That, and spending most evenings in contemplation and meditation about the nature of what it means to be human.

Most of us are caught in a dichotomy between either struggling to survive, or pouring our energies into personal success. I too fell into this trap when I began to focus on ‘being a successful speaker”. From within this dichotomy, we largely accept the world the way it’s presented to us, while feeling frustrated, angry and/or powerless that society functions the way it does.

We know that the world could be a very different place – governed not by fear, control, greed, domination, competition and acquisition but rather fuelled by love, surrender, generosity, acceptance, cooperation and shared resources.

And, in fact, a move from the Old Paradigm to the New Paradigm is already happening.

There are many people and organisations out there doing amazing work from a deeply grounded place of connection, consciousness and love.

I’m now ready to throw the weight of The Yoga Lunchbox and myself behind this New Paradigm, in whatever way, shape and form I can.

As Charles Eisenstein says, it’s time to tell ourselves a New Story. We can write our future, and then write ourselves into our future. This is what it means to be creators. This is what it means to be Gods in human form.

For so long, we’ve been living from our humanness, projecting our humanness outward, shadow and all. Now though, it’s time to anchor in our Divinity, live from our Divinity and project our Divinity outward, while owning and loving our Shadows into the light.

The massive explosion of yoga throughout the Western World in the last ten years provides the perfect foundation for this work. Yoga practice gives people a way to get back into their bodies, deal with their emotional and mental health, and begin to relate differently to themselves and the world around. Yoga helps people to step back into their power.

It makes sense then to evolve the mission of The Yoga Lunchbox from spreading yoga (that’s happened) to using yoga as a platform to create real-world change. The way for me to do that is through visioning, and leading.

I know the power of Visioning. It’s how I’ve lived my life over the past ten years or so. Here’s the process:

• Get clear on a vision for what you want to experience in life
• Hold that vision in your heart and mind
• Notice all the aspects in you that come up because they’re blocking that vision – all the doubts and fears and shadows
• Do the work to release those aspects of Self
• Attune to all the opportunities and connections that start to come through in support of the vision
• Act on those opportunities and connections
• Note any aspects of Self that get in the way of acting
• Do the work to release those aspects of Self
• Continue to step into the Vision as you and it evolves

That’s it. It’s a grounded, practical, clear way to create a future. It requires both internal work and external action – wisdom in action. It means that the Self changes in order to experience the new Vision.

Many people feel powerless in the face of our world as it is. They don’t know what to do, how to shape a new world, or how to be the change they know in their hearts that they are. People care deeply, yet that sense of powerlessness triggered by apparently overwhelming circumstances stops them from taking action.

People need a Vision to align with, something they believe is possible. And they need to know what practical, concrete steps they can take in their daily life to bring this Vision to life.

I can do this. I can anchor a Vision that I deeply believe is possible. And I can share content that outlines in very practical, grounded ways how to shift from where we are – the Old Paradigm – into that vision – the New Paradigm. I can showcase people who are already taking actions that support the New Paradigm. I can create a Hub for the New Paradigm.

Because I’m not the only one who is doing this – there’s Charles Eisenstein who I’ve already mentioned, creating a More Beautiful World that We Know is possible. And there’s Bentinho Massaro firing ahead towards An Enlightened Civilisation by 2035. The folk at One Community. On a smaller scale, yet just as valuable and potent there’s the work that people like Yoga Education in Prisons Trust is doing, or Off the Mat, Into the World.

The New Paradigm is happening. The old paradigm is dying. Now is the time to hold a clear Vision, and start living it out.

So over the next few months, that’s what’s going to happen. I am going to write out a Vision for the world I want to live in, through a yogic lens. And I’m going to start re-orientating The Yoga Lunchbox 100% behind this vision.

I welcome as much community engagement as possible – I love hearing your perspectives on your worlds. What do you see and feel where you are? What does the New Paradigm look like and feel like to you? What doubts and fears come up when you contemplate visioning up and stepping into the New Paradigm?

We are so much more powerful than we realise. We have so much more support than we realise. We are not doing this alone. When we get clear, when we stand up, when we say THIS is the world we want to live in, and when we’re willing to do the work required… our world will change dramatically, and it will happen faster than we ever dreamed.

Join me.

There’s more to come.

Bonus Video from KL