We have become a culture – or maybe we always were – of divisiveness. We are in the midst of a huge societal, cultural and spiritual shift. It feels like our divisiveness comes from our attachment to being certain; maybe it is that we don’t feel safe unless we are certain. We protect ourselves because we want to hold onto our opinions, ideas and thoughts. We are constantly judging our experience by deciding that others are either right or wrong and this gives us authority and power: the power that comes from censoring someone else’s views or ideas.
We tend to set ourselves up with a community that holds the same belief systems as we do, one that thinks the same, dresses the same, eats the same and recreates the same. When we do this, we are not being inclusive and we don’t create the opportunities that allow us to hear things we don’t agree with. We accept those who are like us and have the same opinions as us. We aren’t embracing differences; in fact, we are rejecting differences. Even in our social circles, when someone is going through something different from our own experience, we tend to create separation. We don’t want to open our minds up to different experiences because it would mean we would have to open up to the reality of what that would feel like. What would it feel like to lose the love of your life? When we open ourselves up to feeling something that we could never imagine going through means we have to open up to that sensation of pain or trauma. The very action of being empathetic to someone else’s experience takes courage, because we actually have to feel the feels.
We judge others for the decisions they make socially and sexually; we have opinions about how others conduct their relationships or go about their work, recreation and hobbies. This keeps us in the state of feeling we are right or wrong. We gain power in our certainty of condemning others. I have done this too. I have thought someone was wrong for making different choices than I would have made or for not being as ‘thoughtful’ or ‘considerate’ as I am. I have been righteous in my opinions. I have made declarations about how right I am and how wrong they are.
When we are desperate to fit in, we lose the ability to be ourselves and we lose our capacity to be different. Years ago, when I was guiding river and mountain expeditions, I so desperately wanted to be taken seriously that I rejected my femininity. I wore baggy clothing and underplayed taking care of myself so I could be seen as capable. I wanted to fit in with the people around me. Years later, I decided I didn’t care what others thought of me. I embraced my own expression of myself. Where I live now, I see so many people working hard to look like the didn’t put any energy into how they look, just so they can fit in.
I realize now that when I am critical of someone else it is often because I am not allowing myself something. When I’ve judged someone for their sexual choices it was because I was repressed sexually. When I’ve judged someone for their success it was because I felt like a failure. When I’ve judged someone for ending a relationship it was because I was terrified of ending my own. When I’ve judged someone for whom they socialize with it is because I was critical of my social circle. The constant projection of our fears onto everyone else creates divisiveness. It creates ‘them versus us’. It creates wars, fights, dramas and righteousness.
When we accept people as they are, even if we don’t understand them or their choices, we become more inclusive. But more than that, we become accepting of ourselves. We stop being self-critical and we learn to accept ourselves for our own quirkiness and for our own desires and for the way we want to express ourselves. Even if our ways go against social norms or conditioning.
What would it take to meet someone in the middle and really listen to their opinions? Just because their ideas don’t align with your thoughts doesn’t make them wrong. Just because you agree to see someone else’s view doesn’t mean you have to own it. When we stop discriminating against people who believe in different things than we do, we see less hostility in the world. We create reciprocity. We build our worlds up instead of creating walls of separation.
Are you willing to see someone else’s perspective? Your partner’s, your parents’, your child’s, your friends’? Think of how that would build your relationships instead of how it might break them down.
With love
Noelle
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