"I know there is strength in the differences between us. I know there is comfort, where we overlap."
Everything feels so fractured.
There is so much negativity, misunderstanding, hate, and violence. It's at home and at work... in our neighborhoods... in our city... in our country.... in our world.
How do we not just turn inward and close off when it all feels TOO MUCH!?
Where is our sense of COMMUNITY!? How did we lose sight of the strength in our differences? What happened to respecting one another and finding comfort in our overlap? When did we all get so damn judgmental and egocentric?
With great humility, I'll admit that I've found myself closing off in certain ways lately.... creating barriers, real and imagined... being judgmental... comparing and competing against.
I know that this just perpetuates the issue, but it's challenging not to get caught up in it.
At the end of a session with Raghunath at Wanderlust last month, he asked us to try to not speak negatively for the rest of the weekend. Not an hour later, even within the "yoga love fest" environment of the festival, I was caught. Try it for yourself.... catch yourself throughout the day when you say, or even think(!), something negative. An incredibly important part of our own personal growth is to become aware of the ways we might be contributing to the problem... however hard that may be to own up to.
Finding common ground (even if you differ in some way) is at the heart of COMMUNITY. Let's drop our defenses, our egos, and our sense of "other" and begin to know strength and to know comfort. It starts with each of us.
Namaste,
|
