The Other “Me Too”

Photo by Mark Wiener, 11/28/11

We can think of shame and scandal as forcing change, as may be happening among certain individuals whose sexual misbehavior is being exposed.

Yet, in recent months, I have also noticed a surge of old school politeness among men towards women - giving seats on the subways, holding doors, offering to carry bags, even walking aside to pass me on the street side of the sidewalk. I also see more people reaching out to beggars on the street and just plain being “nicer.” Perhaps it’s those little changes that make the bigger ones possible, not the other way around.

We are all a part of this. We all can take a breath and be a bit more kind, patient, giving, accepting, helpful, and loving in our daily lives. Your smile and a thank you will make YOUR day too, when you receive a courteous gesture. That’s how change really happens.

Want to make a better world? Me too…

On judgment...

Ever feel misjudged? Caught myself doing just that a couple of times recently, and for some reason the thought kept jabbing at me. Until I realized…

I had only been judged by myself.

Questions had been asked in a safe way by trusted people. Questions! To me, the fact that they were even asked felt like condemnations, and I came away certain my answers had not been believed. Why?

I was carrying judgments from my past without realizing it. Truth does nothing to dispel pervasive nightmares, they need to be dismissed by letting in the light. And part of that light is, when you deem someone judgmental and opposed to you, you have just judged, and likely misjudged, them… and the beat goes on.

Forgiveness breaks the cycle. It does not mean forgetting or permitting true transgressions, but holding onto feelings that no longer keep us safe actually tie us to the offense and the offender. And we get to forgive ourselves too, so…

When those thoughts of judgment come up, we can remind ourselves that we can’t change the past, forgive ourselves and move forward. Suddenly nobody else seems to be judging us either, or, in case they are, we can always forgive them.

IMAGE CREDIT: By Pamela Coleman Smith - a 1909 card scanned by Holly Voley (http://home.comcast.net/~vilex/) for the public domain, and retrieved from http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot (see note on that page regarding source of images)., PD-US, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17299683