opinions - Waking Spirals

None of My Business

“What people in the world think of you is really none of your business.”
― Martha Graham

Not only does it not matter what people think of us but its none of our business. Its a truly subversive thought in today’s society yet its true. So many of us get caught up worrying about what other people may think or say about us that we put on a mask of social acceptability and stop being ourselves altogether. Yet why should it matter? The only thing we are accountable for is to be true to ourselves and the only person whom we are accountable to for that is ourselves. People will have opinions. They always do. They may even say them but in the long run there opinions are not our stuff. If we could but live by that think how liberating that would be.
The corollary to that that what we think of others is none of their business also feels true to me. I tend to chant both of these as a mantra whenever I start to tell someone what I think of them or about something they’ve done. It’s human to have opinions about what people do and say. We have judgement and we use it. However when it comes down to it who are we to interfere with the will of another?
Of course there are exceptions to this rule, if I see an adult beating on a child or someone beating on someone smaller I will put a stop to it. I will try to do so keeping my opinions to myself tho. As to what they may think of me stopping them, well that’s none of my business.
Blessings, G

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Turning Wheels Within Wheels by G A Rosenberg

Solve et Coagula by G A Rosenberg

An Echoing Kiss…

“Disapproval of others is as good a reason as any for self-reflection. This can be avoided by finding others who disprove and forming a group (or mob).”
— Randall Wolfe

A kiss
A simple thing to celebrate and share
A sign of affection, passion and emotion
Sweet
yet seen by others
as divisive
they form their opinions and choose
to champion and degrade
ripples echoing the tide of the moment
yet how can something shared
to bring two together
force others apart?

In my wanderings through the web today, I came across quite a few reactions to the ESPN broadcast of NFL draft choice Michael Sam kissing his lover upon getting signed. The fact that people reacted to it amuses me more than it puzzles me. What puzzles me more is that people are more interested in defending their reactions, good and bad, than they are at reflecting on them and seeing them as the gift of self-knowledge they could be. I would rather gain understanding of my own biases and opinions than I would judging those of others. This understanding may lead me to growth. Yet few seemed interested in gaining this understanding. Instead, they would rather either justify their opinions or incite others into expressing the same. It puzzles me.
Blessings, G

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Debut Performance by G A Rosenberg

Night-Walk by G A Rosenberg

Quote of the Day – May 17 2012

“Don’t be intimidated by other people’s opinions. Only mediocrity is sure of itself, so take risks and do what you really want to do.”
–Paulo Coelho

Why do we care so much what others think? For so long I believed what everyone told me. It definitely made my teenage years hell. I gave everyone space in my head without charging rent. I started curing myself of this by running away at seventeen and joining a religious cult. For five months I tried my best to make myself into what other people who told me they loved me told me I should be. Even when I saw contradictions in their own characters I tried to force myself into the shape of their ‘loving instructions’. One day I had had enough and had a strong sense of the THIS IS WRONG’s. I left and returned cross country to my home. I was shattered. My belief system had fallen and it couldn’t get up.

Now I was back to people telling me familiar opinions of how reality was. The only difference was that now neither their version nor the cult’s version worked for me. I tried charismatic catholicism. Wow this was cool. I find few things as attractive as pure faith. However it can be pretty awkward being the only person in church who isn’t speaking in tongues. Strike one more off the list.

Over the ensuing decades I tried to force myself into so many different shapes, each suggested by others. Gradually I came to realize that just by virtue of being open to so many, I was flying in the face of almost all of them. They all seemed to have some truth to them and work (to various degrees) for those practicing them but how could all be right. These thoughts formed in my head quite awhile before I started reading Ken Wilber and other Integral writers. Somewhere along the line I developed a sense of humour about it all that helped. I still might throw myself into something headfirst but now at least I realized that it probably wasn’t THE answer and almost definitely was only part of My Answer but I went into things honouring the people following them and open to whatever would come.

A large part of what I wanted to do was to understand. From very early on I grasped that understanding how a person defined the universe and themselves in relationship to the universe was a key component in understanding the person and so the more beliefs I can understand, the more people. They all can be given a voice as long as my inner voice, the one that speaks quietest remains paramount.

Blessings, G

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Rise by G A Rosenberg

Eye Journey by G A Rosenberg