Liking People Again

Sometime in the last couple of years I've begun to quip, "I don't like people very much." I think it's time to make a shift in that thinking, before it becomes too real.

It's true that I'm disappointed in human kind, especially liberals, for not taking action to protect our planet; it's true that my attention has shifted to loving nature; but love is not a zero sum game, as they say. If I want to be an effective leader of people, I'm going to need to learn how to love them again.

Agenda: 

1. Read "Present Moment Awareness"

2. Love Meditation

3. Nature-Culture awareness

4. Inspiration and awe practice

1. Read "Present Moment Awareness":

I've been reading this book by Shannon Duncan (2001) that takes awareness one step at a time: First, body and senses; then beliefs and limitations; then emotions; and finally, reactivity. It seems like a straightforward plan!

Now I'm moving to the second section: The Illusion of Limitations, about how our beliefs seem so real. "Many of us live our lives confined within a distorted vision of reality, which drastically limits our potential to experience a deep and lasting enjoyment of our lives."

It's true that the things (and people) I'm most annoyed by, when looked at from a different perspective, can seem benign. Thoughts are fleeting and insubstantial, but I decide they are real things, and act on them, all the time.

However, I think I'm pretty good at looking at things from different perspectives, questioning and analyzing my thoughts, and being flexible.

The one thought I'm pretty stuck in is about criticism. Perhaps the trauma of my youth, plus experiences in architecture school, have created a reality there, something like, "All criticism is an attack on my intellect; you think I'm stupid." Criticism of any kind causes me to close down, get angry, and deny.

"It is a sign of mental health to question the validity of our own thoughts, which is an acknowledgement of the liquid nature of truth."  

2. Love Meditation:

Every month after the full moon, in the quiet-energy yin time of the waning moon, I practice a love meditation that progresses from receptivity, to gratitude, to generosity:

Day 1: Practice a love meditation, and open to receive blessings - send a prayer to the universe asking to be showered with love, kindness, health, and happiness.

1. 1 minute - Relax your body, and focus on the tender emotion of generous love. Allow a smile to settle on your face and in your heart.
2. 1 minute - Visualize love as soft, tingly, warm, pink light, and see it move from your heart to every part of your body so that every cell is glowing and vibrating.
3. 1 minute - Now see the pink light of love radiating to fill the whole room, then the whole city, and the whole planet earth.
4. 1 minute - See that all people, plants, and animals feel warm and happy.
5. 1 minute - Send an extra dose of love light to those people you want to have a better connection to.

3. Nature-Culture awareness:

I want to be aware of people as part of Nature. When I say I don't like people very much, I'm isolating and separating us, and I do believe that my lack of care for people can't help but translate to lack of care for the earth.

The British Ecological Society article, "Considering humans as integral components of 'nature' ”, says:

Could we step back and consider that people are an integral part of the natural and wholly untamed components of the Earth? The elevation to our best selves can certainly involve spending more time consciously exploring what is traditionally considered “nature” (e.g. national parks, urban greenspaces, beaches, forests, mountains, etc.), but might it also involve similar connections forged among the bipeds—specifically, other humans—with which we share an evolutionary history? Can the benefits inherent to establishing a personal Earth Connection also be achieved simply by considering ourselves and our fellow people as “natural resources” who are also beautiful, unique and wild and who should be revered, explored, protected and shepherded as carefully as conservation biologists strive to protect those undeveloped “natural” spaces we deem ecologically important? Suppose we stop viewing people and nature as separate entities, but instead experience ourselves and those around us as wholly integrated aspects of Earth's vast treasures.

This is not a new idea. Indigenous cultures from around the world have long recognized that people are inherently intertwined with nature. For example, Paula Gunn Allen, a Native American from the Laguna Pueblo tribe in New Mexico, USA writes, “It is not a matter of being ‘close to nature’ … The Earth is, in a very real sense, the same as our self (or selves) … That knowledge, though perfect, does not have associated with it the exalted romance of the sentimental ‘nature lovers’, nor does it have, at base, any self-conscious ‘appreciation’ of the land … It is a matter of fact, one known equably from infancy, remembered and honoured at levels of awareness that go beyond consciousness, and that extend long roots into primary levels of mind, language, perception, and all the basic aspects of being”

4. Inspiration and awe practice: 

I've wanted to build in a day each week to look for inspirational quotes, videos, and images that inspire me. Today I looked at an article about 20 year-old Autumn Peltier, an Anishinaabe Indigenous rights advocate from the Wikwemkong First Nation on Manitoulin Island, Ontario, Canada. She was named Chief Water Commissioner for the Anishinabek Nation in 2019, when she was 15. She is fighting for clean water for First Nations people.

“My superpower comes from being an Indigenous person,” she says. “Native Americans are stoic and strong. And that’s who I am too. That’s where it roots."