Acknowledging Artist: Igor Morski
If you’re grasping for the system to be stable, you are setting yourself up for personal hell (disappointment).
We Live Through Cycles of Unpredictability
A colleague of mine facilitated a support group on Death Row for years. She began every group with the question: “Given that you’re going to die, how are you going to live?”
The year is coming to a close and we are on the verge of major cultural change. No matter who you voted for…everyone knows that we are on the cusp of transformation in our society. It is also clear that none of us knows how this will affect our life and our plans. Unpredictability / instability are here and affects all of us. What do you have in your tool box to deal with the instability?
Having witnessed many cycles of change growing up in a political family in Alabama, I have seen that change comes in cycles. Given that cycles are a part of life, how can you keep yourself good in the midst of how unpredictable the world can be?
Relying Upon Political Systems for Our Well-Being is a Trip into Hell
We have never been able to rely upon political systems to ‘fix’ society. Political parties are made up of people and all people have both unique flaws and unique abilities. Perfection is not a part of being human. Striving for a ‘better perfect’ is part of our evolution.
If you are grasping for the system to be perfect and stable, I would suggest you are setting yourself up for personal hell (disappointment). Looking for Washington to make things work is a way to push responsibility outside of yourself and your own personal dynamics.
Given the imperfections inherent in all humans, it’s important to realize that change always begins at home. The real change only occurs on an individual basis, through how you speak to yourself, and how you interact and join with others.
“Being the Change I Seek in the World” Mahatma Gandhi
The only predictable we can create in our worlds is to set the standard for our own treatment of ourselves and others. What we allow in our internal world and what we speak to others and expect creates the only reliable outcomes in an otherwise unpredictable world.
Much of what we experience externally is remnants of our own unfinished business and behaviors. How we treat ourselves behind closed doors (do we respect and care for ourselves with kindness?) and how we treat others often tells the story of what we can expect in our lives long term.
Standards of Measurement
Torkom Saraydarian, a physician who wrote extraordinary books on human evolution created a Set of Standards called What to Look for in the Heart of Your Partner. I believe you can not expect to find these attributes in partnerships or your world unless you personally cultivate these mindsets and live them. In an unpredictable world, I believe these attributes form an excellent guide to internal and external stability.
They are:
- Inclusive love: If you have hate in your heart for certain things and people, this lack of respect and inclusiveness brings disconnection. Partial love or conditional love is defective. If you hate or lack respect for some aspect of yourself or another, in time the splinter of hatred will cause you to lose respect for yourself or the other.
- A sense of tolerance and synthesis: To the degree that your mindset includes the ability to tolerate and open to ideas that are not yours including beliefs, religions, and cultures, is the degree of peace you possess when inevitable differences arise. Personally, how much tolerance do you have for your own shortcomings and inconsistencies; relationships that foster intolerance operate in judgment and underlying tension.
- Compassion: Compassion involves the ability to look at a problem with equal interest. There is an inherent desire to help all involved and a wish that all will be benefited. Compassion recognizes that a person is always higher than their needs and wishes for the highest outcome. Personally, do you exhibit a desire to treat yourself with kindness when you fail? In relationship do you seek for a merciful understanding of the limitations and contributions of both parties?
- Do you possess a love of beauty? People that are in balance see and seek beauty wherever they are. They possess a refinement that is tuned to harmony they celebrate art, a beautiful sunset, a smile…always seeking for the beautiful. Are you a person who looks for the beauty in an environment or situation? Relationships without the celebration of beauty are often focused on what is wrong and do not tend to focus on triumph.
- Do you possess a spark of gratitude and joy? Creativity flows from a grateful spirit. Without gratitude and a joyful heart, there is a heaviness and sadness. Are your thoughts full of expressions of appreciation and pleasure in all signs of abundance, giving, etc? Relationships without this element die from stagnation and lack of attention and celebration.
- Is forgiveness central to your thinking? Do you remember the good? Or do you spend much of your energy on what has happened that has produced pain, reminding yourself of the pain and life’s limitations? Putting the past away and forgiving the bitterness is a sign of a healthy life. Personally, you are poisoned by what embitters you…if you cannot not forgive in your relationships, the relationship lacks the ability to breathe when dissonance occurs.
- Are you responsible and trustworthy? Is your word your bond? Do you act in a way that seeks to improve and contribute to the good of all involved? Do your actions and words exhibit consideration? People acting primarily in their own interest lack the ability to bond and feed friendship/partnerships. Personally, do you seek to please your own ends first or do you look to the greater good of all parties? In relationship are you motivated by consistency, follow through, and caring?
- Are you motivated by optimism? Do you look upon all things as contributing and good? Seeing the dark side highlights and generates fear and depression. Personally look at your first impulse when things do not appear to be working as you had desired. Your response tells the story. Relationships that bond around focusing on concerns and processing what’s wrong, lack joy, excitement for life, and the ability to maintain encouragement.
- Do you come from a place of enthusiasm and striving? Do you have energy and vitality for the greater good? Do you take pride in seeking and giving back with passion, knowing that operating for the good is a reward in itself? Personally look at your energy around doing with enthusiasm for yourself knowing that the effort improves you and your total life. Do your relationships reflect an enthusiasm for generating joyfully for what will make a difference?
- Are you connected to and give time to a Source greater than yourself? Do you understand that you are the blessed child of a greater Divinity? Your life is not random. You are a spark of a loving D Personally do you make time to grow this relationship through prayer and meditation? Do you see and treat others as the Divine being that they are?
Predictable Stability Begins with You
It is amazing how peaceful you can be in the midst of unpredictability when you use yourself and your own actions as the measurement. Spend time noticing how you measure up and make corrections in your own behaviors. Stability does begin at home. Be the change and stability you are hoping for!
