Have you ever experienced betrayal?
That moment like waking from a dream —
and suddenly thinking:
WHO is this person?
Where did the one I loved and trusted go?
James Hillman names something piercing about this experience:
When we are let down, we can suddenly see the other’s shadow
– a vast parade of demons that seemed nowhere to exist when trust was intact.
What appears is often the reversal of our earlier idealization.
The swing is violent.
Humiliating.
Deeply Disorienting.
Cracking open the reality we thought we chose.
And here is the harder truth:
The devastation is not only about them.
It is also about me.
About how deeply I idealized.
How much I projected.
How much I didn’t want to see what was already there.
That is ego-death.
It is really hard.
.
For well over a year now, it has been my prayer, intention, hope…
that this kind of Turning (as in the meme) – painful as it is –
is part of what could save us in the US.
Not the chaos.
Not the betrayal.
Not the humiliation.
But the willingness to face what is real,
while staying connected, in love.
To return to reality after being lost in fantasy, projection, infatuation —
about a person, a leader, a movement, a country.
This Turning is happening. Slowly. Painfully. More and more.
And it is a terrible trail to walk.
I would not wish it on anyone.
Because turning means admitting:
• I was wrong.
• I participated.
• I believed something that wasn’t true.
• I let identity wrap itself around illusion.
That is no small thing.
It requires courage that rarely gets applause.
.
But here is the cultural hinge we are standing on:
We need more Turning.
And we cannot beat anyone into turning.
Nor can we beat them when they do turn.
If we punish the return,
we eliminate the possibility of return.
It reminds me of a friend trying to get his adolescent dog to come home.
The dog would not respond to frustrated shouting.
I called gently.
I went halfway.
I waited with ease.
When the dog came, I loved, loved, loved the dog.
I reinforced the return.
My friend was frustrated with me,
thought I should punish the dog for running off.
But one doesn’t train a being to return by punishing it for arriving.
We must reinforce the coming home.
God have mercy on us
– because culturally, humanly, we are very tempted to punish.
This is not a one-sided call.
It is easy to say:
“They need to come back to reality, and we need to love them.”
But that is not the whole challenge.
The deeper truth is this:
It serves us all
for all of us
to keep returning to reality
and to keep turning toward love.
It may serve:
to reorient toward shared facts, democratic norms, accountability.
to reorient away from contempt, superiority, and the temptation to humiliate.
Every step of this, for every one of us is
Hard.
Painful.
Ego transformation.
If this new reality is to be built, together,
this process is for me to engage – not just “them.”
.
Turning is a small death.
It can mean losing status in one’s tribe.
Admitting error privately or publicly.
Letting an identity dissolve.
If folks respond with:
“You idiot.”
“I told you so.”
“You deserve this.”
The psyche retreats.
Better to double down than to be shamed.
Better to stay wrong than to be humiliated.
If we want a functioning democracy…
If we want a reality-based culture…
If we want adults at the helm…
We must become people who can support the Turning.
Not naive.
Not forgetting harm.
Not pretending nothing happened.
But mature enough to say:
Welcome home.
.
This is deeply spiritual work.
The Prodigal Son returns as the father runs toward him.
Anyone who has walked through deprogramming or deconstruction knows:
it is more survivable when there is a safe community supporting the shift.
The word Jesus used was metanoia – often translated “repent,” but it really means turn. Reorient. Come home.
The engine of soul growth has always been turning
– and it is very human of us to want to forget that.
.
Soul Leadership is not just seeing clearly.
It is surviving the loss of who I was when I didn’t.
And it is creating conditions where others can survive that loss too.
Can we build a culture
- Where changing one’s mind is honored?
- Where growth is reinforced instead of ridiculed?
- Where we love reality more than we love being right?
Because if we cannot receive people who turn,
we will not get more people turning.
And if we beat each other up – before, during or after – we are sunk.
.
I believe this Turning:
a natural and necessary part of being human,
growing up, mental maturity, soul rEvolution, spiritual return…
is not only a blessing.
It is
Hard.
Hurting.
Humbling.
If this Turning – Healing, Growth, Change, Transformation, Death & Rebirth…
is part of our individual & collective growing up (Maturing – Teleios)
then supporting it may be some of the most important work we ever do.
How do we become people who make that possible – individually & collectively?
imoe. ymmv.
What is your wisdom and experience?
🙏🏼