The Golden Rule
School School,
The Golden Rule,
sign your name at the Golden Gate…
So many things we teach children about sharing, about respect, about consideration, honesty, love, believing in ourselves, and even things like the magic and mystery of life, we forget as we grow older. The Golden Rule is definitely one of them.
Treat others how you wish to be treated
It’s so simple but we make it soooo hard. Our wounds, our subconscious drives, our egos all get in the way of this tenant of common courtesy which reflects the deeply spiritual truth of oneness, of “namaste.”
That, which is Universal in me, sees and respects that which is Universal in you
That’s it! That’s all there is to it. It doesn’t mean you have to like everyone you come across, it just means that respect should be the minimum you give to every other living being on this planet. If we could have The Golden Rule as our foundation, there would be a lot more love, patience, and understanding in our interactions.
I find it really interesting how, when everyone is pretending to be perfect, that inner knowing that they are flawed turns into shame. One of the most base ways to get out from under shame is to project it onto someone else.
This is the primary mode of operation in most Christian Congregations I’ve ever spent any time in. Everyone is all up in everyone else’s business to slight-of-hand style distract from the mountain of skeletons piling up in their own dang closets. The people who are the most judgmental often have the most to hide. This is why I teach self-compassion.
Shame doesn’t serve anyone. All it does is help the ego feel superior, all it does is cause more hurt. You can’t shame someone into healing. You can’t shame someone into changing. You can’t shame someone into being straight or cis or able-bodied any other weirdo expectation humans like to set for one another.
What if we could re-contextualize flawed into “learning” or “growing” or “healing?” What if we could stop expecting perfection from ourselves and extend that courtesy to others bi proxy? What if we accepted ourselves and one another as works in progress? What if we treated each other how we’d like to be treated?
One thing that living and suffering in New York City has taught me is a lesson that I first learned playing field hockey. When a good team plays a bad team, they are often tempted to play the bad team’s game, meaning their technique and strategy go out the window when met with the chaos of none. Its like when you’re playing Street Fighter against someone who’s really good but you’re a button masher so every once in a while you get win on ‘em by playing absolutely nonsensically?? Existing in New York is the same. Everyone is in such a rush. Capitalism is in the air, in the lunch people inhale while rushing to the next thing, in the horn honking, in the shoving getting onto and off of the train… it’s hustle culture to the extreme. While living here (especially if you’re not from here), there is a strong temptation to play their game, to think “well if everyone is in a rush, I need to be in a rush too” or “if everyone else is racing to get fed, the only way to get my piece of the pie is to beat them to the plate, man!!”
Chaos begets chaos,
rudeness begets rudeness,
disrespect begets disrespect.
I talked in my CPTSD episode how rushing can be deeply triggering for people with complex-ptsd. It can trick the nervous system into an emotional flashback by creating the feelings of stress when no actual threat is present. It’s monumentally healing to simply
sloowww!! the fuck!! down!!
Since living in New York, I have leaned into slow. I don’t want to play their game. If someone wants to go faster than me, I let them go ahead. If someone is pushing me to get a seat on the train, I let them sit. If the train is too crowded for the door to close, I wait for the next one. I take my lunch sitting, I smell the flowers, I scoff at those who refuse to acknowledge my humanity and I feel genuine compassion-centered pity for them. How miserable must it be to be so unconscious? How dull to never stop to notice the beauty of living? To only experience the gloom?
Once, in the throws of my spiritual awakening before I had left my hometown of Norfolk, VA, on a beautiful spring day, I stopped to sit on the beach on the way back from my daily walk to the library. I felt my heart open wide and smile as I observed the joy around me. I had been healing from the worst heartbreak of my life so far, but, thanks to my healing and connection to the Universe, all it did was open me up further. There was a mom and her two daughters playing with a golden retriever puppy who has flopping around them in zooming circles while they laughed and laughed, there were three old men sitting in silence, in quiet community, fishing poles planted in the sand bending with a bite every so often, there was a young couple who couldn’t stop loving on each other, laughing and taking selfies, not the least bit afraid that it wouldn’t last, there was a father and son flying a kite dancing in the wind. I teared up. The sunshine and the waves and the sand under my feet and the beauty. I couldn’t believe the overwhelming love I was feeling.
I could feel an energetic tether connecting all of us.
they are me
i am them
we are love
this is love
amen
amen
amen
What you do to another, you do to yourself. What you wish on another, you wish on yourself. When you hurt another, you hurt yourself. When you truly love another, you love yourself.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
listen here // watch here
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