Patience

My greatest difficulty with others is my expectation that they have arrived rather than they are under construction.  However, I do want others to know that I am not complete and perfect, but that I am growing toward perfection.  This sounds a bit hypocritical and it is, but it may be a very likely tendency of humans.

When I am working with someone and they have a professional role I expect them to live up to that professionalism without exception.  I am terribly challenged to look at a person in a professional role as someone who is under construction.  Likewise, when someone is dressed to the nines or has the perfect hair or the fanciest car, I am likely to think they have it all together and should live to that standard.

In reality the professional that I have such high expectations of is really just a person in a role.  If I met that person on the street and had no idea what their profession was what would I expect of them?  How would I interact with that person?  If the "all together" person came to the grocery store with sweatpants and a hoodie with no makeup or fancy car, would I see them as more as a person under construction?

I believe that if all of my interactions started with the thought that I am encountering a person who is under construction, they would be steeped in patience and love.  I would tolerate more imperfection.  I would mentor more.  I would offer more kindness and acceptance.  Actually, I would be a much better person to interact with, if I was patient with the human-ness that I encounter with others.

So today's challenge:  be patient.  Be patient with others and with yourself.  Accept that we are all on a journey and have achieved different levels of growth.  We are all under construction and with patience we will become something much more beautiful than we are today.  If we treat one another with patience we will have room to grow and in so doing we will be making the world a better place.

Peace Man...

In the seventies everyone was going around making the peace sign with their hands.  The catch phrase that accompanied that gesture was the well known, "peace man".  It was a way that the culture was connecting with one another and the only thing we really needed to say to each other was "peace".  A major force in this cultural norm was the Vietnam War and the cries across the nation for peace rather than violence, on our own soil, and abroad.  In that time we became aware that we had to extend our community and be interconnected as a society.  As a people connected to one another we sought peace and fought for the common good.

In this time we experienced the words of Mother Teresa, belonging to each other and seeking peace.  We connected on a global level and cried out for peace across the seas as well.  And what happened once the warring stopped and the world quieted?  We had peace, long enough to forget.  I wonder if we remember that we belong to one another when we do not have peace in our families, our work places, our community and our world.  When I consider the terrorism of our time I realize that we do not as a world society understand that we are one people and we are woven together.  I think of some of the posts I see on social media and the divisive nature of what is being put into the world and it is clear that on many levels we have forgotten that we belong to each other.  We have a commitment to care for one another as neighbors in our global society, but it seems that is all too easy to forget.

As a parent you think of your children as the little ones that belong to you, that belong in the care of your nest.  In families we think of how we protect one another or come to the aid of each other in times of need.  Do we think from that frame of reference for all the people we meet on the street, in line at the grocery store, as we pass by in the halls at work or get irritated with on the roadways?  I can honestly say that I do not always think from this framework and yet I wonder what would happen if we did.

So today's challenge is this:  treat everyone you encounter as if they belong in your fold.  If we interact with each other as if we belong to each other then we will have peace in our interactions and we will most certainly be changing our world.

One Simple Thing

This story is amazing and gives me renewed energy for the cause.  We really can change the world with simple things, one interaction at a time.  I think it is great to start where you are, just like this young man did and see where things branch out from there.  You just never know how you might touch the lives of others!

Spread a Little Joy

Joy changes everything!  It is certainly not easy, but it is courageous and usually contagious.  As I have been writing this blog, I have also been working on my own interactions with the world and I have been challenged to be joyful.   Choosing joy doesn't mean choosing ignorance.  In that scenario everyone would be blissful.  Instead it means to hold a peaceful contentment deep in your soul no matter what is bringing chaos in the environment around you.

I think that having joy brings about change that is noticeable to those around you.  When my foundation is from a perspective of joy, then I am more patient, kind, forgiving, generous with my soul.  I am definitely much more slow to anger and I am noticing that I bounce back from the big, uncomfortable emotions more quickly.

Living joy is courageous.  Try it for a month and you will see why.  Today is a great day to start living from a place of joy.  When we think of changing the world one interaction at a time, it is important to consider joy.  How can our interactions change when we are living joy?  Can we touch the lives of others?

Today's challenge:  Live courageously and choose joy!  Than be intentional about your interactions with others, making sure that you start from a place of joy.  You might just change the world!

Through the Gate of Love

If we are to change the world, we must begin with love.  I do not love the choices of every person.  Nor do I love the behavior of every person I have ever met.  However, I am challenging myself to look past behavior, choices, the undesirable characteristics that I see and see the humanity that lies buried within.  

If we look past the rough edges what do we see?  There we see what was created to be wonderful and beautiful.  There we see the what was meant to be before a world of imperfections created a broken version of the original masterpiece.  Looking through this lens we can see the beauty of humanity.  How can we not be filled with love for the people we encounter when we change our view?

In this view, Gandhi's words make complete sense.  Our attitudes are visible and one does influence the other.  When our attitudes are in line with love we can appreciate and value the wonder of mankind.  In this mindset, our interactions with one another are steeped in kindness, goodness, gentleness and understanding.  And those interactions are the foundations of changing the world one interaction at a time.

Handling Grief

I was reading yesterday and came across something quite interesting.  The author said that we are never truly healed until we handle our grief.  It would seem that the idea of changing the world one interaction at a time has something to do with healing.  If that is true then we must learn how to heal. This must begin within our own hearts if we are to truly have something to give to others.

People are uncomfortable with grief and particularly so in the western culture.  We work tirelessly to protect our children from grief and in so doing we do not prepare them to handle it in their own lives. The likely cause of this is because we are filled with our own grief that we have failed to handle because we have never been taught how and we are afraid of the powerful depths of grief.

When I was a young girl, just thirteen years old, my mother died.  I had friends that were caring and well meaning, but had no idea how to even be around me.  I was uncomfortable with my own grief and I was uncomfortable with their discomfort.  A day or two after my mom died the house was filled with people and my friends were sitting with me.  Spontaneous tears began rolling down my face.  I did not know what to do and neither did they.  Strangely, I apologized to them for crying.  Looking back on this I understand that we were just children and knew barely anything of the world and certainly did not know how to handle our emotions or comfort others in emotional distress.

Years later I had another devastating blow with grief.  My husband and I had tried for a long time to conceive.  After a long time of trying we were elated to find we were pregnant.  We had started to gather baby things and made plans and had told a few people as we were nearing the end of the first trimester.  As we were enjoying dinner out one night, an ominous feeling came over me that I tried hard to push back.  Over the next few days I prayed and went on bed rest and did everything I possibly could to be healthy and save our fragile child.  The following days lead an excruciatingly painful experience, both physically and emotionally, of losing our child.

I had no idea how to begin to emotionally process my experience.  The one thing I decided was that I was going to experience my grief however it came to me.  My emotional pain ran deep and I was intentional about not hiding it or squelching it.  This was very disconcerting to my family.  Each had their own grief they didn't know how to handle, but further, they didn't know how to handle someone being open and real about experiencing grief.  While they were very troubled, I determined to do what I needed to do to experience it and heal.  Taking this approach allowed me to heal and live from a positive perspective.  If I had not grieved, I do not believe I would have healed.

My thought is that many, if not most, are not trained in the way to experience and process grief.  This means that each day we will encounter many carrying invisible wounds of grief.  What can we do then to bring healing to a wounded heart?  How would we treat someone who we knew was grieving?

How is this important to changing the world?  We need to remember that many we interact with each day have unhealed wounds.  How can this knowledge change how we interact?  Perhaps we can see each person as someone who may be hurting and offer kindness, gentleness, understanding and love.

Today's challenge:  Today we should see each person we interact with as someone who may have a place of grief in their heart.  What would you say?  How would you say it?  What kindness or gentleness would you offer?  Perhaps in all we do we can be understanding and treat one another with the attributes of love.  Meeting this challenge could make a great difference in our world!

Offer Suuport

Today I think it is important to consider how an interaction of support can change the world.  It is so easy to judge and much more difficult to help.  I see this often as a parent of a child with special needs.  Unfortunately, I find that there is much judgement and very little help outside of our doors.  Personally, all I can muster most days is to work and take care of my child's needs before falling into bed completely exhausted.  I don't have time and in the moments where I have a second to breathe I don't have the emotional energy to reach out.  My husband and I do want friends and social interactions, but most of the time we are simply in survival mode.  We know that from the outside people may have opinions or think their ideas are better or that their children have turned out better than ours appear to be turning out.  However, we also know that we have to parent the child that we have and not the child that we others think we have.  It would be so much easier to do this from day to day with a little support from others.  Sometimes support really is just being willing to listen.  It could be a text or email just to say that you still consider us friends even though we can't spend much time together right now.  It could be a smile or a hug or even saying something nice to our child.

Imagine what a difference it would make for someone to know they have your support.  It really does not need to be something huge.  The simplest things can have a really big impact on the world.  So today's challenge is to offer some sign of support to another person.  A kind message, a show of friendship, a random act of kindness, anything that let's another person know you care.