GOOD ENOUGH

I have to tell you the truth.  I am not a consumer.  I am not a recluse, nor introverted,  nor extroverted.  I am not too sensitive, too smart, nor too anything.  I am just right for who I am.  I can say this, yet our language tends to define, name, classify and pathologize behavior from birth on.  There is no one to blame. Oh well, maybe just a little bit.  But then, blame is another learned behavior    

What if I decide, which I have, to simply be with people, especially children, being present, noticing when I am about to classify, or label them.  Are children "fussy" or are they uncomfortable, needing something?  I feel lighter and freer when I delete all the naming of what appears wrong, missing or needs improvement with others, or self.

There is a system and habit of carrying voices inside of us that constantly find fault with ourselves, and a belief that whatever we do in life, is never quite good enough.  I could explain how all this self judgment, and judgment of others came to exist.  But doesn’t matter.  I know it separates us all.  I just want to hang out with people, care about them: children, women, men, gay, straight, neither.....that have a sense of humor, can speak of things you cannot prove, are not logical, not even part of what appears to be reality, (consensus reality).  Just hold space for everyone.

It is more fun to look for what is right about everything even when it seems so wrong, and learn to see myself in others. 

COMPASSION FROM HATRED

When I was five-years-old, our family lived in Utica, New York.  I was walking to my first day of school, swinging my lunch box as I skipped down the sidewalk, anticipating my unknown new adventure.  I was happy.

Across the street, I heard a creaky screen door slam shut.  I turned to see another boy about my age running towards me,his face red with anger.  From his sidewalk, he screamed, hatred in his voice,  "Get out of our neighborhood you dirty Jew.  We hate you." 

I didn't know what a Jew was, even though I later found out I was one.  My body could only begin to cry, turn around and run two blocks to our home.  I ran up the wooden stairs, into my room and threw myself on the bed, hiding my head under the pillow, sobbing. 

Weeks later, we moved to Los Angeles, where within a few years I found myself in high school, a school occupied by lots of students of color, white people, and a whole variety of religions and economicdiversity.   Utica was behind me until one day, I found myself standing up for a Latino student who was being harrssed.   It was an instinct on my part.

Later, as a new high school teacher, that same instinct inspired me to reveal racism by the administration.  I was soon terminated, but the institutional racism ended.   The angry anti-semitic boy in Utica, when I was five, was a gift.  I got to feel deeply and access my compassion….finding ways to bring people together…even today. 

WHO WE REALLY ARE

A resolution to love oneself.  What a good idea.  When people I know, or come to know,
no matter their age, step back from there public selves, the part that others easily see, often they silently reveal a need to love themselves, and are judgmental of who they think they are and what they have done.  No matter how much money they have, what they have done in life, whether famous or not, they carry a belief deep down that they are not good enough, no matter what. 

It's a cultural thing.  It's a religious thing.  It's a school thing, something we all learn: that no matter what we do, or who we are, we tend to believe we are never quite good enough.  Not true, but it is a common belief. 

As we come to remember who we are inside, the us that was born innocent and kind and connected to everyone, we exhale and remember the truth.  What happens when someone sees, really sees you, or I, inside, behind the personality and that public self we have learned to display, to be part of what some may refer to as consensus reality?
 
Instead of the term loving oneself, I suggest a different term, or words.  Instead of loving myself, I listen to myself.  I pay attention to familiar feelings and beliefs that separate me from others....feelings that only exist in the body, not the mind.  I can tune into that feeling sensation (for seconds or a minute) that remind me to show up now, be present, be aware of the familiar pattern that I have reacted to since a child. 

Loving myself is all about awareness.  Self awareness. Aware of all my body sensations, feelings and thoughts that accompany that feeling, then take a different action.   The actions include being silent instead of reacting.  Feeling a feeling without need to explain it or speak of it.

And, only speak when I can be heard.  Only then.  Notice when I am judging, making someone else wrong, blaming, and then simply and quietly let them be in my mind.   Maybe this is loving others, an action that I can take daily.  From this perspective, I don't need to love myself.  Not when I am loving others more often.  Loving them means letting them be in my thoughts.  Then I am not loving myself, I am simply being.  It's a practice.
A daily, hourly practice.  

COMING HOME

I think we all ought to come together: meaning becoming more inclusive, welcoming others into our homes and lives, especially our children no matter their age.  This individual, separate, find a career, move away from family or people you love being around, to do it on your own, be independent, earn lots of money, own a home, save for the future, take sides in conflicts and politics and decide who is right and who is wrong, simply goes in circles, leaving me or you constantly searching out something better or more than we have, holding a belief that whatever we do, is never quite good enough, wanting whatever it is we do not have, often unaware that what we have now is what we wanted before.

Just what if we believed that friends, people we know that are easy to be with, mothers, fathers,
grandparents, children, all thought it would be a good thing to live in one home, or close by in a neighborhood, knowing that there is a satisfying bigger community then just a city with people spread out all over, or even states away, staying connected only by phone or email, yet deeply heartfully
longing for daily connection, familiarity, love, and the beauty of being cared about, and caring for
those around us, frequently, daily, all the time, an awareness that as humans, or as most creatures on land and sea,  (money can fill banks), while people can touch one another, calm fears, open hearts and dissolve most symptoms of the body and mind......living amongst each other in close proximity, with others that have noticed the relative peacefulness of knowing we matter.  We simply matter.