Spiritual independence and interdependence
Often, when the word spiritual comes up, we think of religion. Religion is an institution and it can be spiritual, but it isn’t a requirement for spirituality. To be spiritual is to know yourself.
Do you know that your thoughts and decisions are yours? Or are you haunted by the ones you’ve adopted (or seek) from others, by the people around you and the media you consume?
As a parent, I used to ask myself (and still do, actually), what can I say to help guide my child(ren) to their inner compass, so that they know that their decisions are theirs, true to who they are? As an example of this, instead of telling them how I felt about something they did, I’d ask them how they felt about it and then work with that. When given a chance, children can feel so much more proud of a B or C in an assignment that they struggled through and learned so much from than an A that came too easily. Same with playground behaviors. When they get to tell you about it, they get to own both the process and result, and learn to tap into their deeper values, rather than get conditioned to seek approval or avoid punishment. To me, this was the best gift I could provide as a parent: their ability to become self referred.
Self referral isn’t enough, however. In order to have interdependence with the world, we must extend this same process to others. It’s okay, and in fact healthy, to disagree with others. But our work isn’t to make them wrong. Our work is to know how it impacts our sense of self and tend to that first. Our work is to understand that others come with different experiences, from different backgrounds, and with the same need to be heard, seen, understood, and safe. Tending to ourselves first helps us step back and discern between knee jerk reactions and responsiveness.
Independence Day is based on the dream that all men are created equal. Though we can see flaws in history around it, this dream is real. Sadly, we think we need to make others wrong to get there; we absolutely don’t. Even with our biggest opponents, there are common values at a higher level. How we go about living them - the difference - is influenced by our own history and pain, and we fight because we focus on what makes us blind. To wrong is to aggravate and divide. To understand is to open up conversation. To understand is the basis of any kind of freedom. To do so, we must first understand ourselves.
Let’s remember that our own thoughts create our own shackles, and on the same token, free us from them. When we learn to free ourselves, we learn to free others.
Yes, take action on behalf of what you believe is right. And at least just as important if not more, find peace, trust, and love within and towards yourself, and look to soothe your inner conflicts before judging others. Be for things, not against. Because no matter what you do, it’s what you have going on inside that influences what comes through in your actions. If there is war going on inside, even when you’re deeply compassionate about a cause, what lands is war. If there’s peace inside, what lands when you act is peace.
Spiritual freedom means to unleash ourselves from our own shackles. It increases our capacity to lead others to freedom. This gives us the best chance at coming together in one big united state, a true melting pot of ideas, creating space for a true melting pot of respectful and connected people.
Love, Savitree