I want to heal the world. It’s painful to see humanity largely pitted against each other. There is so much hurt, and so much rage and judgement hiding the vulnerable wounds we so desperately disguise them with. We have lost the ability to have open conversations and find common ground; to practice kindness and to really listen to each other. We are too busy hiding our own insecurities with arguments we make to prove we are good enough, smart enough or righteous enough in order to feel safe in relationship to others, hoping they won’t see what’s underneath. And so we feel disconnected and alone, despite the millions of people we share the earth with. We have made ourselves islands, alone with our opinions of truth; none of us really knowing for sure what is, indeed, TRUE.
Our world is in desperate need for the human race to set our differences aside and find our similarities again. And at the most basic level, we are all creative spiritual beings in physical bodies, longing for connection; searching for love and acceptance. We can bridge our differences and find compassion for each other again. It is possible. But the work begins with ourselves. It has to start there, because we judge and abuse others because we judge and abuse ourselves.
We have only forgotten who we really are. But our souls are Divine. They know on the deepest level that, though we are human and imperfect, and though we are capable of the vast spectrum of human behaviors ranging from love to hate, that our truest nature is love. Everything else is just distortion created by self-rejection, fear and feelings of separation. We can turn this around by practicing radical self love. We can finally accept, forgive and heal ourselves. This doesn't mean we are apathetic about what we don't like about ourselves or past choices. It means we acknowledge the person in the mirror, with all of the "good" and the "bad" that we see, trusting that we are inherently love. We can begin to see our own unique internal beauty, for all of our imperfections, and begin to really nurture that. Healing ourselves creates a ripple effect outward.
From there, we can begin to forgive our fellow humans for their imperfect humanness, glimpsing the common depth and brilliance that shines within them as it does within us. No matter how different our opinions and beliefs are, we can stop trying to make anyone wrong by being “right.”
We might begin to communicate then. We may be able to open our minds and hearts more, find mutual respect and ways of coexisting more peacefully. Certainly we will feel less alone when we see our common humanity. We can acknowledge that each of us, from birth, has grown up in different environments, with different families and belief systems, different faiths and cultures. Most importantly, we will understand that we have each suffered different traumas and challenges that have shaped our opinions, around which we have created walls of self-protective mechanisms to help us each feel safe. Perhaps, whether we know the history of another or not, we can give everyone a break, refusing to fling our beliefs and opinions and judgements their way just to feel better about ourselves somehow. Instead we can find compassion.
There is great power, strength and courage in someone who is compassionate. That person doesn’t kick others when they are down. That person is unafraid to reach for their hand and help them rise up too. We have all seen this beautiful human quality of compassion. When tragedies happen in communities, we see it in the kind acts of others helping. Compassion comes from love, as we all do. It is a higher human behavior that we are all capable of. And it can be contagious. Let’s build it, starting with ourselves. Let’s create great ripples of healing in the world simply by learning to love and accept ourselves. Because, when we can love ourselves, we can finally love each other.
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