Gray and grey are both common spellings of the color between black and white. Gray is more frequent in American English, whereas grey is more common in British English.
During the week of the primaries, my sister put the following post on Facebook. I do not know who wrote these words, but I think you will agree that this message is vital.
Gray and grey is a good way to think about the way we see the world. And politics aside, we need to remember that some of the most beautiful, inspirational people we know will disagree with what we believe. We (as individuals) are learning to speak from our hearts. The heart recognizes the beauty in those we agree with and those we do not. Just as the wave is not separate from the ocean, we are not separate from one another, even those with whom we cannot agree wholeheartedly.
We can make a habit to follow some version of the four basic steps of communication as they are outlined by Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, founder and director of educational services for The Center for Nonviolent Communication:
1. Observe the situation objectively.
2. State how the observation is making you feel.
3. Connect with a need.
4. Make a request.
I went through this process looking at, not politics, but just one dynamic related to dealing with the pandemic.
1. People I respect and care about are making divergent choices navigating the pandemic.
2. I feel helpless when people who are important to me socialize in ways that do not seem safe to me, so I do not feel OK being with them.
3. I need to feel like I matter to the people who matter to me.
4. Are you willing to quarantine so I could feel safe to make a visit?
I have not asked these questions directly, but articulating this has made space within me. The process inspired a poem.
Some Do
Sadness seeps in
seemingly unbidden
Arising out of conditions
This pandemic puts people in jeopardy
everything seems different now
We cannot plan or travel
or freely visit with friends and family
Some do
When everything falls apart,
what remains?
The sun still rises
birds still sing
Butterflies and flowers burst forth
Babies are born
people pass away
Some do not see what remains
some do
Remaining blind and deaf and dumb
or numb
Some think they can drink themselves toward peace
or eat, or sleep, or read
Willing themselves to pretend
what is lost cannot be found
My fingers find the keys
My voice sings the chants
My heart opens closing the gap
between what is and what is not
What is is now
What is not is then, next, never, always
Some do not make that distinction
some do
Recently working with a woman doing the Imagine Healing process in preparation of some surgery, just moments into our Zoom meeting, she had soft tears. “I did not expect to cry,” she said.
Those who have sat face-to-face with me over the years recognize that tears often accompany change. And everything is changing during this dimensional flux….
I generated a mantra around Gillian MacBeth-Louthan’s “How to Move Through This Dimensional Flux.”
Come to the plateau of inner peace; a place where words, actions or emanations of others cannot touch you unless they are invited in. Find your center — your fulcrum — your balance, and stand in that place in power.
Just as the Imagine Healing process is designed to help see gifts in healing happenings, many gifts are hidden in plain sight during this pandemic. The woman on Zoom mentioned that her boss had always been the kind to get into the office by 6:30 am five days a week. She reported him saying, “I don’t see myself ever going back to that.”
Imagine Healing is an amazing process primarily because it quickly activates the parasympathetic nervous system, where healing is natural. Any time we are involved in something that has not yet come to be, the sympathetic nervous system takes over to watch for anything that might be life-threatening. Unfortunately, one of the most life-threatening things is staying in the sympathetic nervous system! Fight, or flight, or freeze is not designed for healing. Quite the opposite. It is only designed for an actual immediate threat. The lion, the attack, the disaster…. we want to be able to activate and act and survive.
Healing occurs naturally when the body is in the parasympathetic nervous system where the focus is on regeneration, renewal, and recovery.
Think about the changes that have occurred in your life as a result of the pandemic that you don’t see yourself ever going back to.
Let’s never go back to forgetting we can put politics aside and be kind, wise, and transformed!