Be Blessed: In The World And In Ourselves (From the Daily Om)

As I written in the past, The Daily Om is a website I highly recommend for insight and perspective when you need it. I generally visit the site and search for a topic I feel the need to address and read through the results until I find one that resonates with me.

I recently received from feedback from a friend that I have become very negative in my thoughts (specifically concerning race) and as a result of this, I may have lost the friendship. It's sad, and while I do not agree with the feedback, I am always supportive of someone's process, and if my perceived negativity is harmful to this friend, then I understand the decision made.

We will never truly understand what it's like to be in each other's shoes, so I've learned that showing compassion is the best place to begin to gain some comprehension. Compassion is hard to do when you feel angry, but it is possible and definitely worth achieving.

In The World And In Ourselves
Feeling Fed Up With Humanity

From time to time, we may all feel fed up with humanity, whether it's from learning about what's going on around the world, or what’s going on next door. There are always situations that leave us feeling as if people are simply not capable of behaving in a way that is coming from a place of awareness. Often it seems as if people are actually geared to handle things in the worst possible way, repeatedly. At the same time, none of us wants to linger in a judgmental mood about our own species. As a result, we might tend to repress the feelings coming up as we take in the news from the world and the neighborhood.

It is natural to feel let down and disappointed when we see our fellow humans behaving in ways that are greedy, selfish, violent, or uncaring, but there are also ways to process that disappointment without sinking into despondency. As with any emotional response, we honor our feelings by feeling them fully, without judging or acting on them. Once we've done that—and we may need to do it every day, as part of our daily self-care—we can begin to consider ways that we might help the situation in which humanity finds itself.

As always, we start with ourselves, utilizing our awareness of the failings of others to renew our own commitment to be more conscious human beings. We are all capable of the best and the worst that humanity has to offer, and remembering this keeps us in check, as well as allowing us to find compassion for others. We may find ourselves feeling compelled to serve people who are suffering injustices at the hands of other people, or we may begin to speak out when we see something that we don’t think is right. Whatever the case, the only thing we can do is pledge to serve the best, rather than the worst, of what humanity has to offer, both in the world, and in ourselves.