Tag: empathy

See You in a Mile – An Experiment in Understanding

 

“You don’t really understand an antagonist until you understand why he’s a protagonist in his own version of the world.”
— John Rogers

 

I have always believed that there are few actual villains in this world and those who would describe themselves as villainous or evil believe that they are justified in their actions and behaviours. This isn’t to say that we all believe we are doing the right thing. Our reasons for doing wrong can be quite interesting. Even when our actions go beyond what most people see as excusable or acceptable in anyway. Trying to understand peoples’ motivation and reality tunnels can be enlightening to say the best. At the very least it frees us from blind hatred. Especially if we can put ourselves even momentarily in the shoes of someone we would normally despise.
Some examples:
1) If you consider yourself conservative, try to see the world from the perspective of Bernie Sanders.
2) If you see yourself as liberal or left-leaning try to perceive the world the way Ted Cruz or Donald Trump sees it.
3) If you are black, jewish or gay try seeing the world from the perspective of a white supremacist.
4) If you are homophobic, try to see life from the point of view of someone who is gay or trans.
5) Try understanding why a member of ISIS would act the way they do. What do they aspire to?
6) If you are Jewish, try perceiving Israel the way a Palestinian does.
7) If you are Islamic try perceiving Israel and Palestine the way that Netanyahu does.
Just for the hell of it even if you don’t fit into any of the above categories, try to adopt each of the above views for an hour each, you might find afterwards that your own viewpoint has become a lot more malleable.
Blessings, G

 

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She Watches and WaitsShe Watches and Waits by G A Rosenberg

 

Rlyeh WonderlandR’lyeh Wonderland by G A Rosenberg

 

Escaping Our Internal Prison

 

“I am constantly trying to communicate something incommunicable, to explain something inexplicable, to tell about something I only feel in my bones and which can only be experienced in those bones.”
— Franz Kafka

 

Our truest selves and emotions cannot be communicated, they can only be experienced. Oh we can project like nobody’s business. We see someone in a situation similar to ones that we have been in and they seem to be expressing close to the same emotions and for a second we flash back. we feel good that we have become so empathic yet true empathy is rare. In reality we are locked inside our own heads pretending yet not to pretend can often be worse. Better though is if we can turn off the head show and really for just one moment perceive not only another person’s perceptions but another person’s heart. Oh it happens. At times if we’re some particular combination of lucky and open to it, something can jolt us enough out of ourselves that for an instance we can feel the heart of the world. All too soon tho we are locked back in our heads again and it will take years to process what we’ve experienced. When this happens we realize that having escaped once from our mental prison, we’ll do everything we can to escape it again.
Blessings, G

 

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Plasma FieldPlasma Field by G A Rosenberg

 

Shadowed RealmShadowed Realm by G A Rosenberg

The Stories That Give Us Strength

 

“Find the stories that help you comprehend the incomprehensible. Find the stories that make you stronger.”
— Eleanor Davis, How to Be Happy

 

The stories that give me strength are ones that deal with our understanding of ourselves and others. Ones where someone is forced to walk in another person’s footsteps and see what life is like from the inside of their head. In many of the stories and novels I have read where this has happened, it results in a certain alchemy taking place where each person takes on the characteristics of the other that they needed in order to become more successful in their own lives. Part of me has always wanted to reproduce that alchemy with almost everyone I’ve met.
We are all such mysteries to each other. We believe we have true understanding or perspective or at least enough to judge what another should do or where they are right or wrong yet seldom unaided can we truly know what it feels like for them from the inside. The funny thing is it is not all that difficult. If we start with getting to know the person, really listen to them and get a feel for their lives and experiences and how they experience them, we can begin to imagine what it is they are going through. This does not mean that we agree with their choices or would make the same ones but it means we can understand why they made them. We can experience their triumphs and what made them strong and we can know what makes them weep. The more people we can understand in this way, the stronger we become.
Blessings, G

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Transfiguration2Transfiguration by G A Rosenberg

 

Exploring the Possibilities

 

It’s never enough just to tell people about some new insight. Rather, you have to get them to experience it in a way that evokes its power and possibility. Instead of pouring knowledge into people’s heads, you need to help them grind a new set of eyeglasses so they can see the world in a new way.”
— John Seely Brown, Seeing Differently: Insights on Innovation

 

I love to share new insights with people. Most of the times when I reach a new understanding, it has been a hard won moment of clarity in a sea of questions. When people come to me and start telling me about some new understanding however, often my first impulse is to test the insight against everything I’ve heard, everything I’ve learned and everything I’ve intuited over the last several decades. The people who I have learned the most from never came to tell me their insights. They handed me the pieces and watched as I struggled to figure out what to do with them. Most often, I would feel like the neanderthals at the beginning of the movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey. I would ram the pieces into each other, try playing with them. I would see how far I could throw them and see how they tasted. Only when about to give up in frustration, would they all fall into place and I could call the insight my own. Quite often this would spark off several more insights.
Its all too easy to criticize each other’s perceptions. How cool is it tho when we can put ourselves into each other’s heads enough to grock the ideas ourselves and use each other as springboards towards greater understanding.
Blessings, G

 

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Wind flow Hawk's EyeWind’s Flow, Hawk’s Eye by G A Rosenberg

 

The Gaze of HorusThe Gaze of Horus by G A Rosenberg

Going the ‘Wrong’ Way

 

“Many times the ‘wrong’ train took me to the right place”
— Paulo Coelho

 

From the age of seventeen until well into my thirties my life choices could easily be judged as off. I did everything from leaving high school and home for half a year and joining a religious cult to hitchhiking across country to coming out to exploring as many different head spaces and points of view as possible. Oh for most of it, I was employed gainfully tho even then they were either jobs that involved travelling from city to city or sales jobs that I was vastly unsuited for. I also had a few minimum wage jobs and a few stints where I read cards professionally. Those, my family would look somewhat askew at tho they dismissed it as me being a ‘free spirit’ (as opposed to one chained? I would often wonder.) Still all of this wandering and exploring has helped shape me in pretty great ways. I have had direct experiences of the universe. I have met fascinating people from all walks of life and am probably more accepting and less judging of the choices of others than most of the people I know. If not for all of the adventuring I never would have fallen in love, gotten married and been raising children. I would never have had the courage to create and sell art or the willingness to explore my life and my spirit in so many ways. I have been blessed by all of the wrong trains I have taken and would not have chosen any other way.
Blessings, G

 

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Lord of the WoodsHern, Lord of the Wood by G A Rosenberg

 

InterspatialInterspatial by G A Rosenberg

Tools For Change

 

“If you want to teach people a new way of thinking, don’t bother trying to teach them. Instead, give them a tool, the use of which will lead to new ways of thinking.”
― Richard Buckminster Fuller

 

I would like a new pair of glasses. Ones that will make what now seems crucial and important seem trivial and trivial things vital. In this way I will learn that what we deem important is relative. Time tends to do this anyway. How many things that seemed urgent to you on a particular day and time five years ago affect your present life at all. These glasses tho would serve as instant time and lend a new perspective…
While we’re at new tools for thinking, how about foot ware that show what its truly like to walk in any given person’s shoes for an hour or two and truly show life from their perspective…How about a ring that would show what true love and commitment felt like so that it would never be confused with anything else?
What would it be like if we each lived our lives as if these tools were real?
Blessings, G

 

This is my 2000th post on Waking Spirals. Keeping this blog and sharing my art, poetry and observations with all of you has been truly rewarding. Thanks for the amazing feedback. Many Blessings indeed

 

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With Eyes Like Galaxies She whispers My NameWith Eyes Like Galaxies She Whispers My Name by G A Rosenberg

 

A Crystal that Will Reveal DreamsA Crystal that Will Reveal Dreams by G A Rosenberg

Healing the Wounds

 

“Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as a secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.”
― Leonard Cohen

 

His emotional wounds called to me. They were so sharp and so painful that I had to look for myself. He had never felt special enough to anyone and asked for a space in my heart. I felt that wound myself so I tried to give it to him. Then I realized that the reason I felt his wound was because I had the same one. I wanted to matter, to have weight for someone. If I mattered to but one person than I would feel more worth in myself.
Is a weight what I wanted to be to anyone tho? Something that would hold them or myself down. Far better to be a balloon, something that would lift the spirits and add buoyancy. I could only do that by healing that part that needed to matter to anyone including myself.
How do you heal a wound tho? The first step is to admit that it exists not so much as an object of aversion but as something to deal with. Then can come treatments of affirmations and healing but never denial. I catch myself with amusement when i see myself enter needy mode, not in a derisive way but in a way that acknowledges what I feel. I already ‘know’ all the whys of it. Why I needn’t feel that way and all the self-talk in the opposite direction yet I feel what I feel. Each time that is honoured but acknowledged for what it is, It becomes that much easier to do without.
One day I’ll have realized how long it has been since the last time I felt unworthy. The wound has healed leaving only the slightest of scars.
Blessings, G

 

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Freedom on a Stormy DayFinding Freedom a Stormy Evening by G A Rosenberg

 

Purple Feather MandalaPurple Feather Mandala by G A Rosenberg

Being There

“There’s nothing in the human heart or mind, no place no matter how twisted or secret, that can’t be endured – if you have someone to share it with.”
― Spider Robinson

 

I’ve heard it said that so strong is the need to share that prisoners in solitary will name insects and talk to them as pets just as a way to externalize what has been bottled up for so long. Given my nature, I would do that (heck I even used to name the lobsters my sister would bring home to cook for my parents, until she made me put them in the pot for her but that’s another tale altogether) tho given my nature, i would probably either bring along imaginary friends or find new ones. Still I see this point even more in its absence. It’s when we feel isolated, when we feel ourselves unable to share what we carry inside that the difficulty lies. Each of us can make a difference by reaching out to those who seem too isolated and by being there as we can when we can. Sometimes just having someone to share with can make all the difference in the world. Being there for other people also cuts down on our own isolation for how often can you hear someone sharing their most intimate selves without sharing at least a bit of our own as well? In addition, the more we can open ourselves up to people the more our capacity for compassion grows so there are benefits all around.
Blessings, G

 

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WhisperingsWhispering by G A Rosenberg

 

On Strange ShoresOn Strange Shores by G A Rosenberg

Listening….

 

“It’s not at all hard to understand a person; it’s only hard to listen without bias.”
― Criss Jami

 

How do I shut myself off enough to hear you? How do I stop pushing to be near you? I am me so loudly at times, how do I tune it down so I can amplify your voice in my ears? How can I dry not judge your tears? How can I sit with you in pain without feeling the cause? or the because…when the only way i can hear the because is to listen not with my ears but with my heart, to feel your energy, as it is presented not as how I would have it be… I cannot use your pain to make my rhyme or waste my time I need to sit with you as I need to sit with myself. Perhaps something I need to learn how to do better as well.
Blessings, G

 

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Sword MaidensSword Maidens by G A Rosenberg

 

Plasma FlowPlasma Flow by G A Rosenberg