I shared last week about how my 70 something year old neighbor who had been my friend told me to my face she thought I was “sick” and in essence, that I should leave the country. Apparently, I am not alone. I have been hearing that the rhetoric of hatred and people feeling empowered to hate their neighbors, family members and friends is rampant at this present time in history. As soon as I looked for it, the evidence of it was literally everywhere and palpable.
Ironically, it seems that the people most ready to divide into zones and shun or worse eject those individuals they don’t like from society seem to be those who are the most obsessed with collectivism and socialism “so that the minority doesn’t fall through the cracks.” All this shoving people off the continent and into the sea is in the name of harmony and unity, while stomping out any chance those values have to take root in practice and in a way that is philosophically consistent.
I have also blogged this week that I discovered my white blood cell count is low based on genetic factors. However, I wonder if there’s more to it than just genetics or whether this is related in a greater way to epigenetics. For example, growing up in an abusive home would likely create a far greater propensity for acquiring infections, yet we forget that abuse gets passed down. It’s a learned behavior. How much of being hurt as kids translates to unworthiness to exist which translates to a shutdown of biological defenses? How many generations of abuse change the biological landscape? What appears to be genetic, may change for my children as I break the pattern and for my children’s children as they grow up in a new paradigm. I hope this is true.
Blending all of this in-formation, I started to notice my own patience running thin this week. When I looked around my neighborhood, I felt sad, stuck and confused. While at first I desired to mend fences with my neighbor in a neutral location, I considered that perhaps my neighbor did not in fact deserve the benefit of the doubt or even want it. After all, she called me and my family “sick” in a way that meant “wicked and disgusting” to my face unapologetically. Since then she’s been nothing short of cold and weird, and I have felt awkward, like an idiot who won’t catch a clue while smiling and being nice to her. I inadvertently started to impose her coldness, rudeness and social exclusivity onto everyone who has gone along with the agenda as of late. That’s just not fair.
Several pieces of information came to me beautifully, gracefully and serendipitously as I began to challenge this belief that half the world didn’t want me in it. One was from my coach and mentor, James Wedmore who in his course Mind Your Money (I highly recommend it) explained that we often as business owners project our own relationship with money onto our customers. In the course, James articulately breaks down the falseness of this conclusion through metaphors and examples. How does my current situation relate to this talk about budding entrepreneurs, clients and money? It’s the internalization and projection. It’s the sense that since this neighbor has this belief set and acted in a terrifyingly inhumane manner toward me that other people who share her beliefs will also behave or be ill mannered and desire my ejection from life on earth until I comply with their radical ideals. Correlation doesn’t equal causation.
How many ways does this apply right now?
Next was this beautiful interview conducted by Russell Brand of Lisa Feldman Barret, a scholar in the brain and how emotions are made. I was just flipping through FB videos (like ya do) and came across this little excerpt of this interview where Brand and Barret discuss how the body is influenced by mere words in very big ways. I had been noticing how my relationship with my neighbor was bleeding out and affecting my relationships with strangers both in person and on FB. All this, because I was viewing everyone of a certain mindset as if they wanted me off “their” planet. That was harsh, and obviously affecting my heart rate, blood pressure and nervous system. I wasn’t feeling groovy. I wondered how it affected my white blood cell count.
With my focus on boundaries, I am always thinking of what I want to receive and let in rather than just being focused on what I don’t want in contrast to being vulnerable. I talk to my husband a lot, since he’s my best friend in the whole world. I mentioned how I had recently prayed for, tapped about (with EFT) and focused on the experience of the supportive Divine Mother in my life. It had worked out so well for me. I immediately manifested support in the form of a $100,000 check out of the blue from my estranged birth mother. So, NOW, I wanted to focus on drawing in the experience of God as a unifying presence showing up everywhere I looked in my life. Furthermore, I felt the immediate compulsion to look around, locate and appreciate every area in which this experience was already happening.
And I didn’t have to look far.
Just today, I received a card in the mail. It was a wedding invitation to a new but dear friend, Danielle’s son (whom I have yet to meet) and his bride-to-be’s wedding reception. I remember walking from the mailbox and discovering that it was more than a mere announcement, but rather an invitation. I was flooded with this feeling, and I couldn’t put my finger on it in that moment. I was so touched I wanted to cry immediately. It really moved me.
Only an hour or so later, I stumbled on the Russell Brand interview and put the pieces together. I discovered where I felt need (or as Mary Morrissey would call it “longing and discontent”) and how I could articulate this desire as unifying presence of God in all areas of my life. It dawned on me that the reason I was so moved by Danielle’s invitation was because of a strong and loving sense of inclusivity and furthermore worthiness. I immediately wrote Danielle in gratitude for this loving experience of including me in this very intimate family affair. I could not think of anything more perfect and clear as a manifestation of my desires. I know, more people and experiences will now flood my life with overwhelming evidence that God is inclusive of me. God wants me in the Holy Family of all good. I belong here in this world as I am. Just as I am.
Interestingly enough, Lisa Feldman Barret expressed in that Brand interview that after explaining her discoveries on how words have such a profound effect on health, she had to hire a personal protection service to defend herself from a gazillion threats against her personal safety. Apparently she was bombarded with people mistaking her discovery with an assault on free speech. Was it really the words people say, though, that caused the health effects or was it the way the receiver had internalized them? What do you suspect?
I think it was the ways in which I internalized and processed the words of another. After hearing Barret explain this biological phenomena, I recognized it was my responsibility to zero in on how I handled what I heard. I had haphazardly let a belligerent person’s words, well intended or not, create meanings in my life which were entirely fictional. It also helped me to understand how I had been focusing on the one person and set of behaviors I did NOT want in my life. I was amplifying that onto everyone else. As I focused on separation, I saw how it was seemingly rampant everywhere. But was that true? Not really. There are likely far more examples of inclusion.
Barret’s explanation showed me that I had hurt myself by internalizing names, serendipitously “sick” and all its implications. I was on a course to prove my neighbor right by making poor choices of focus and attention and allowing that to run my biology. I can’t believe I allowed someone to determine my meaning who seemed if only for a moment to see my life as meaningless and irrelevant. I clung to that moment and forgot everything else. Those few words in one little conversation held far more weight to me than they or I deserved.
I really wanted to share this experience right now because I know in some ways we are all struggling with this obvious agenda to turn us against each other, to have us feel isolated, unwanted and unworthy of respect for our very existence. I know it. I experienced it first hand. I suspect the ultimate agenda is to drive up sickness and dis-ease.
The outcome of this agenda just isn’t the truth. You determine your own experience of acceptance and inclusivity based on your focus and desires. You get to determine how wanted and worthy you are. When you really focus on your desires and accept them as 100% true before you have even realized that they are, the scales will fall from your eyes. You will see all the evidence around you of your worth. Last, you will reprioritize the relationships and interactions therein which you give the most meaning to with grace and ease.
Names will only empower you to see who you truly are!