My body is calling for something other than sweet after the last few days of cookies, candy, cake etc. I love to eats sweets but my body just doesn’t appreciate all the sugar. As I get older I feel the need to tune in even more to what is right for me and my body, my heart, my mind and my spirit. There is a great depth of wisdom in you and I if we listen inward.
Yesterday at dinner with my wife’s family there is mostly just silence. No one wants to talk about anything because they seem afraid to hear their own family’s range of viewpoints about the issues of our time. My wife and myself are progressive, compassionate and open-minded and her family seems angry about our points of view yet they have never even asked what they are. They make assumptions based on some kind of slot they have put us in. How come people do that? How come they pass judgment all based on a collection of thoughts in their own head?
There seems to be a culture of anger and hate out there against so called “liberals” as if they are a scourge to the world. Why is it that people have to demonize those that view the world differently than they do? The talking heads of the right seem to specialize in building anger and hate towards ideas different then their own. What are they afraid of? How come we can’t just all get along? Where is all this charge of emotions coming from? We are all part of the human family who just have differents ways at looking at things. There is no right or wrong in most of this. The question is, “Is it working the way it is or not?” If not then let’s get together and figure out what will work.
These are a few of my questions and frankly, I don’t want to have to be numbed out to be with my wife’s family. She is use to it. I can’t seem to make it ok in me to try to be numb, it is the opposite of what I am working on in my life. A life in which no one wants to have real conversations about real issues seems dead to me. Do these questions seem at all familiar to you and your life?
As you might well know from reading my blog, I am an agent of change. My life is totally focused on encouraging healthy change in my clients and being a person who advocates for significant social change. How can we as citizens of the planet have hopes for positive change if our families can’t even talk?
My bias is that there is so much more common ground than there are substantial differences. That below the rhetoric there is compassion, basic needs, desire for connection, and hope for a better tomorrow. What will it take to get past the blocks in the head and the heart?
Please share any ideas you have. I plan to stir things up in 2010 even if it makes people uncomfortable. Our comfort zones are also self-imposed prisons if growth has stopped and we are resistant to change.
Letter #6 To The President:
I hope you first Christmas in the White House was wonderful. That must be the most amazing experience.
Please know that with great respect I challenge you decision to build up our involvement in Afghanistan. Is it the wish of all the people of that nation that we intercede and cost many of them family members in the war? Do we have the right to impose our will on another nation?
I am deeply upset that we are going to kill more people for political reasons. This does not feel right to me in any way. Please rethink your plans. Please talk with people who truly value human life over the ego’s need for power and control.
Joseph Bernard, Ph.D.