Problem Solving From The Outside

It’s up to us individually to bring to the surface these callings for change or help or cries for love, even if they are just faint murmurs in your heart, soul, and mind. However, our hearts often pour out to those who are sick, hurt, sad, disrupted, and injured for no apparent, comprehensible reason. Wars are going on in places we need to look up, or perhaps in school we learned different names for those now new or separated countries. We may be scratching our heads just simply wondering, Why? Since I was a little child, I’ve felt sensitive and concerned when I see these various situations and have often piped up for various causes, sometimes often just hoping, wishing, and praying someone’s life would change for the better. While these folks and anyone else you want to add may be much more visible and their messages much more widely known, peace in all forms is up to us each individually first. When your heart, soul, mind, and surface speak to you, in whispers or shouts or regular voices, are you listening? Are you giving your wisdom any credibility? Are you ignoring your instincts, or are you acting on them with meaning and purpose? Are you aware that often it is an idea from someone outside the problem? Sometimes problem solving from the outside with one with a clear picture of the whole problem is needed. It’s up to each one of us individually to behave in accordance with basic human standards, and yes, I feel that is a massive, much larger topic. You can call it civility, human dignity, human rights, and more. I know that it makes my head, heart, soul, spirit, surface, and energy spin and whole being just cringe when I see wrongdoing. I’m not sure I know what all those standards are precisely, but we as individuals know if our heart, mind, soul, and surface feel they are even slightly violated in any way. You most likely know what you will and will not tolerate, and we all know when we have those feelings of wrong versus right and even the murky shades of change in between. Sometimes the question How? enters the picture at about this time.

Try Again Tomorrow

One idea is to raise your children to care and be involved. The pebble you throw in the water casts a wide wave. You may have just had a fight with your spouse or dislike your own neighbor or even family members. Perhaps you haven’t felt well this past week and you are behind in your schoolwork or other work. Your jaw may be dropping at what you just saw on television. You may feel some personal violation or unjust situation. You may feel like the percolator is unplugged and not brewing up your boldest blend. I want to use the word despite here to remind us that despite what is going on, at the heart of us is love and compassion. We may have lost sight of love and compassion personally, professionally, or otherwise, and it’s up to us to bring these back to ourselves so we can percolate them to others. Think with your heart. It’s pausing for a moment to think about another human being. Perhaps it’s pausing to think about your own behavior.

Leading With The Heart

What comes from your heart, soul, mind, spirit, and surface? It’s sharing your light and love with yourself and others. It’s your peaceful intentions and acts that emanate into the world. It is by helping others that we find peace and joy. Are you teaching love, compassion, and morality by your example? What do you do to help others? Are you embracing your space, time, and energy to your highest percolating potential? Do you feel like you are loved and bring compassion and understanding to yourself and others around you? I was recently at the grocery store in the pet food aisle. There was an older woman on the floor basically crouched on her knees picking out cans of cat food. She said, You are lucky you can bend like that. I’m so old I can’t do that at all. It hurts my back. I smiled and said, You are lucky you can be on your knees because my old gymnastic knees can’t take that. We both laughed and helped each other up. She had instant tears in her eyes. Crying she said, You know, aging can be really hard.

Burn That Candle

I used to do this with him and since then no one has even helped me when I’ve been stuck on the floor in pain in this aisle. It usually takes me a lot longer to get back up. We each had such tender souls and loving energy toward each other. We chatted so long our feet began to hurt. I ended up giving her my phone number to call me, especially over the winter, if she needed help because her family doesn’t live close. On my way out, I saw her in another line waiting, so as I was exiting, I also asked a young man to assist her to her car, which he so very kindly did. I share this story with you not because of what I did but rather to ask you to stop and pause when you encounter other human beings. You meet people in your life for a reason that might just not be clear to you at the time. Even in this day and age of everything being so fast paced, many people are slowed down and in need of assistance. Your interactions with each person you encounter matter. We all can do what we can. From the door you open to the smile you share to some other act of kindness, these moments matter to you and others. Someone might need some cash in their pocket and never show it. If you have it, give it. Peace in any shape or form starts with me and you and becomes us and we.