The Whole World

Last week we heard a Vince Gill song that haunts me. The title is The Whole World.

I finally found the lyrics online this morning after a very busy bike ride with a soulful download of information and insight I might call A House Divided. I wish I had stopped to grab my phone so I could record the whole thing. I never capture it quite as it came through, but it began with something like this:

For the past few years we have literally lived in a house divided for one-third of our lives. The floor plan is sometimes called “zoned” with the primary suite on one side and the guest suite on the opposite. In the middle is the living/cooking/dining space. In our case, John and I have the guest suite, which works wonderfully because other than when we have guests we have a room for my meditation and John’s music.  Speaking of music…. Vince Gill’s mournful voice singing The Whole World resonates profoundly. Here are a part of one verse and the chorus:

I’ll never hate you

If we disagree

Well brother you’re breathing

The same air as me

Feels like the whole world’s

Got a broken heart

We sure could use

A brand new start

How the hell did we wind up

So far apart

Seems like the whole world’s got a broken heart

Before my ride his morning I had also seen a message about “Four resistance actions (one was yesterday) that are being planned across the US.” That message, too, set my heart on a path of singing the chorus of The Whole World.

Just the simple asking John about what we could do for dinner today got twisted up. What he thought I was saying was not what I was saying at all and it was a major undertaking for us to get clarity!

In NLP we learned to notice language and the impact of it on the real people engaged in it. It was understood when John says, “Coke tastes better than Pepsi” he is not saying anything about Coke or Pepsi. He is telling us something about John. A simple change in language can help tremendously, “I prefer the taste of Coke over the taste of Pepsi.” Few people speak and listen with this level of consciousness.

If I wonder why this is such a challenging concept related to something as simple as what to have for dinner or a preferred brand of carbonated beverage no wonder the complexities in our world end up as issues being viewed across a great divide….