Last Sunday my good friend Derrick (a black man) and I (a white woman) talked about the riots.

We come from two totally different worlds. He hails from inner city Detroit and I from suburban, upper class Kentucky.  This leads to great conversations.

I can’t imagine what his world is like any more than he can understand mine. But we do have compassion for each other and are good listeners. And we love hearing different ideas.

Does it require Inner Strength to create real change?

We talked about whether or not the riots would make any real change in the way blacks are treated. This led us to looking at who in the past had excited real change in breaking down racism. We talked about people like Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and Nelson Mandela. Then we discussed what they did, and why they made such a difference.

The kind of strength each of these people displayed in their actions and words can only come from inner strength, from knowing who you are and following that inner knowing.

They didn’t need anyone to give them permission or agree with their equality. They knew they were equal as everyone else and that all lives matter.

Rosa stayed in her seat from a place of quiet strength. She didn’t push against others, she stayed seated for herself. She knew she deserved to sit as much as anyone. If she had pushed against anyone, there would have been a totally different outcome. 

Nelson Mandela changed a whole country by having compassion for his discriminators and looking for ways to bring South Africans together and show how similar everyone was. He didn’t start this way. He started from a place of riots and armed protest, and pushing against. But while in prison, during the time he was surrounded by whites, he shifted and began to see the value in compassion and much we all have the same desires and needs.

Violence gives oppressors justification to oppress. “If we don’t control them, no one will be safe” is the mentality. But nonviolent movements shame oppressors because people who resist discrimination in a non-violent way come from a place of great inner strength. This forces the oppressors to acknowledge their brutality and rise to the occasion.

In order to have compassion for others, Mandela had to first have compassion for himself. He  had to keep looking forward not back.

These great people were Inner guided.

If they’d been  outer directed, Rosa would have given up her seat because she would have feared what others thought and would do to her. Nelson would have continued to use violence to eliminate racism because that’s what his friends believed. And Martin Luther King would have let all the threats on his life intimidate and keep him quiet.

Self Leadership is what gave them the strength to keep going in the direction they felt called to go no matter what others were saying or doing.

Nelson lost his family and many friends. But he couldn’t change who he was and he understood why his family and friends needed to leave.

That’s one of the values of being inner directed, you don’t need to fight against what others do or say, you state your perspective from a place of love, strength and knowing. You take the higher road. You just keep walking in the direction you’re guided to go and people start following you.

Some people will support you, others will drop away. There’s a huge and under appreciated amount of strength in non-violent communication.

Does a fulfilling life come from following the masses or your own inner guidance?

It can be a scary path to follow your own inner knowing instead of what others tell you you should do.

People may not like it when you stop behaving in a way that makes them happy. But how’s pleasing others been working for you? Has that led to a fulfilling life?

We all get to choose how we act. 

I’m not pretending I know what’s best for everyone. I don’t know if the riots will create real change in eliminating discrimination or not. 

What I do know for sure, is that people who really made a difference, who were leaders, and looked up to, and still talked about today, were people who came from their heart and knowing and following their own inner guidance, not just following the herd or imitating the masses.

After flying near Selma Alabama, my husband and I wanted to watch the movie named after the town and events that happened there.

One of the most shocking scenes of the movie was seeing children sitting on their father’s shoulders or standing next to their mothers yelling hateful things as the mostly black marchers walked towards the bridge.

Those scenes were the saddest because those children never got a choice as to how to think of these fellow humans with different colored skin.

Did they really understand what they were doing? Did they really feel animosity towards the marchers or were they just mimicking their parents?

I have a hard time believing we are born with a hatred of people different than us. Or that we were born with anything but love for all things. Do you feel any type of animosity from a baby when you see one?

But somewhere along the way it shifts, the beliefs of those we’re around start infiltrating our minds. And since we love these people we think in our child mind, it must be right.

But is it?

Do our parents and societies beliefs really get so ingrained in us that we don’t even recognize the beliefs as someone else’s?

Do you ever question your beliefs?

I know it can be challenging to even recognize what the beliefs are that we’re working from. The stuff we learn gets so ingrained we don’t even realize it. It’s where our self-worth comes from. Beliefs that we’ve had since childhood.

There are those that exploit our beliefs because we don’t even question our beliefs anymore. They tell us stuff that is in line with those beliefs that leads us to believe that someone is bad.

They can say the media doesn’t tell us about something going on that may seem far-fetched but because it resonates with our ingrained beliefs we think it’s true.

Tribalism, in all it’s forms, is another reason we continue to believe things we were taught as children without questioning them. We think taking on the beliefs around us will keep us safe. And the beliefs of the group keep the group’s way of life the way they are use to. If another group becomes more abundant than our group, there is fear of losing access to resources, and the life we know.

But where is the shift from just keeping us safe and having access to resources to trying to make everyone else believe as we do? When does it become a fear that we will no longer be the majority and we’ll lose control?

I don’t know where this hatred of people different than us began.

But I do know we weren’t born with it.

Have you ever stopped and wondered what beliefs you’re passing down to your children or grandchildren?

Do you try to influence their beliefs? Do you give them the opportunity to express their beliefs without judging them?

And while you’re at it, why not reflect on your own beliefs too?

Share in the comments any beliefs that you’ve been carrying, that you’re just done with. None of us are immune.

1.We bought an Rpod camper and I decided to put it on Airbnb when we aren’t using it. It has been a fantastic experience! The people have been courteous and friendly. I realized that it also filled a need I had to meet travelers and find out where they’re going and why.

I highly recommend hosting! Do you have something you can rent?

2. A Movie I’m really looking forward to seeing.

https://www.thecut.com/2018/05/mister-rogers-wont-you-be-my-neighbor.html

Did you grow up with Mister Rogers too? I did. And he was light in the darkness.

3.Whether you believe in climate change or not this is pretty cool. This is just one of the many reasons I am ga ga over trees.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/05/oldest-tree-europe-italy-pine-climate-science/

4.Have you ever felt like you weren’t doing anything right, this is a great piece on how even the masters had a lot of failures, they just aren’t focused on as much as their success. Something to think about, huh?

http://www.paulgraham.com/disc.html

5. My favorite Poet, right now.Mary Oliver has been my favorite since I was introduced to her a couple decades ago, but one read of this Hafiz poem and you’ll see why I’ve switched.

https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/454/poems-by-hafiz

If you like anything I mentioned let me know!

The word God has all kinds of negative connotations for me and many others.                         

I like many others, had a rough childhood. Where was God when I was getting needlessly beaten? Where was God when i was getting molested day after day? Definitely not helping me.

So I teetered between thinking I must be some kind of awful person that God didn’t find worthy of helping or that there plum just wasn’t a God.

So the idea that I can pray and receive help or guidance has always been laughable to me. Those that feel loved and supported by God, also felt that from someone in their childhood.

And at the same time, because I spend so much time in nature, I was certain there was a source of continuous well being. I felt it in tree chants and the mountain streams calls. I saw it in every wild animal I encountered, and every mountain I climbed. There was something that loved me and every living thing.

There was a goodness that pervades all natural things.  I just couldn’t feel it so well when I was in civilization living my daily life.

I have flittered in and out of depression for most of my adult life. People would tell me, let go, pray, ask God for help. But the underlying belief stayed with me. “Why would God help me now, he/she didn’t help me when I was an innocent child?”

But what I realized a few days ago was that it was the word God that was tripping me up.

I grew up in a church where we had to be perfect or God’s wrath would come and condemn me to hell.

Not someone I wanted to put much faith in.

But I can put faith in the well being I feel from trees, from the perfection of a mountain pass, and a marmot trying to steal my food while I was eating by a mountain lake.

So I started contemplating using a different word. I thought of the word Well Being, that was what I felt. WB, I could pray to WB. But I also wanted it to be playful and not so serious. I just don’t think the person who created manatees is all that serious.

So the word WeeBee was born.

It helped.

It is much easier for me to ask WeeBee for help, and to feel WeeBee’s love than I was ever able to feeling God’s.

Have you had glimpses of that love, that well being? I sure hope so. If not, go sit on the ground next to a tree for awhile. The bigger the tree the better. There is wisdom wrapped within that bark.

And while you’re sitting there contemplate if the word God has bad connotations for you too.

If so, create another word.  I know WeeBee doesn’t care what you call the love and well-being that is in every atom of creation.

And you’re welcome to use WeeBee.