Humanity is in Need of Healing - This secret tool will help us get there
Mutual respect, honoring the historical practice of sharing stories, holding authentically human conversations, and hospitality will be our modern medicine.
The Stories We Tell Ourselves Matter.
How we think about ourselves and our stories matters quite a lot actually. They hold their weight in gold. Our conscious and subconscious beliefs make a difference. They influence how we think, feel, give, and receive information in this world.
We can be humble, hopeful, and draw in other positive and optimistic energies in our life. Or, we can be stubborn, closed-minded, pugnacious, volatile, and end up nihilistic and pessimistic pushing people away.
Jordan Peterson has a great program focused on future authoring that propels someone through a personal journey to describe and define what bright future they imagine for themselves. And we must use this power of imagination if we truly desire to improve the world around us.
As people see themselves in a better story, they develop narrative traction, as best-selling author Donald Miller discusses in his latest book, Hero on a Mission: A Path to a Meaningful Life. The story we tell ourselves is much more important than what we give it credit for.
Miller builds upon many profound and reliable principles of human psychology, such as including the work of Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning and his work on logotherapy. We as humans crave story. We learn through stories and storytelling was our earliest form of teaching, mentorship, even scientific dissemination.
Collective Vision and the Power of Storytelling
We need a better vision for the future if we hope to strive to something better and brighter than where we currently find ourselves today. As plants grow in the direction of the sunlight, we too long to grow in the direction of the light as well.
We are currently being tossed around between counter narratives driven by an exhaustive political front, over dramatization in every headline news article, and a complete demoralization / dehumanization within many smaller sectors of culture today that are propped up to seem and feel like a majority opinion or concern.
In reality, historical truths remain on solid ground and will never be shaken down. Call it natural law, call it something else but there is a vast difference in the script being sold and the true design for human flourishing.
Remember, your thoughts are malleable, feelings are vulnerable and they will be tinkered with by news, media, marketing, etc. Stay strong, stay loyal to the truth and don’t lose your love of life in the midst of the madness (noise I call it) going on elsewhere.
Personally, I like to tell people to find their song and dance to it with beauty and bliss. Don’t let the news, media, hostile headlines or opining talking heads on tv take that away from you.
We need to see and believe in a better story. We need to be sold a vision. We need to be captivated by something so incredible it inspires us to endeavor upon greatness — together.
While this topic may sound far too abstract for practical use, those who walk in relationship with their mind, body, and spirit will understand. The problem is that we have thousands of distractions on a daily basis that detract us from the truth, from beauty, and the opportunity for a better life well-lived together in our communities.
If we want to strive towards a better life, we must outline the exceptional ideals we long for and strike-out the items we no longer want to include within our life. It’s likely that each of us carries with us several detractors that keep us from staying consistently focused on our personal mission in life.
We are a vulnerable species and our psychology is tapped into every single day. According to Yuval Harari, humans are hackable animals.
We must be vigilant to defend against falsehoods and stay focused on the light, the truth, the life we long for, striving after what we collectively believe includes the greatest potential of human flourishing.
In the last few years, we have seen a great uprising around concepts of community and shared perspectives of anti-establishment ideas for governance and policy making. These narratives have power within themselves when people rally together and support one another instead of succumbing to the hopeless narratives of self-ineptitude and welfare dependency.
We can be courageous. We can be courteous. We don’t have to be fiery and flagrant to friends and strangers just because they decide to share their opinions that do not match our own.
Bringing People Together
Consider the mountainous ascent of podcasts and independent interview talk shows today. Joe Rogan leads the number one podcast in the entire world. He has guests on his show from all walks of life and holds sincere interest and respect for his guests while giving them space to be their truest selves, speak with authenticity, and be at ease as he thrives in his own unique role as shepherd to the conversation and a hospitable host.
Before the age of podcasting, people would host dinner parties with diverse and esteemed guests to share ideas and interests and expand our conscious minds, shaping and sculpting our perspectives along the way. Before dinner parties, we shared stories and life lessons around a circle with fire and food at the center.
The practice of living and learning from one another is one that runs through our blood as a species and will never leave us. If we hope to collectively move ourselves into a brighter future, we must leverage this primitive behavior for the greater good. Impressively, we’ve seen aspiring political candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who are running for president of the United States of America take podcasting by storm in an effort to discuss more ideas openly and honestly, reaching more people, striving to bring the fractured culture of the United States together.
The stories they are telling are ones of reform and even revolution. They are speaking to the people with hope and optimism, neglecting to insult and criticize other political candidates like that of our recent past. They have taken moral and ethical positions of which beckon us to treat one another with mutual respect despite differences in opinion. This is just one small step in a healthier direction as a country longing for cultural identity and collective security.
But this type of leadership doesn’t have to only exist at the highest political front of society today. We too can also lead our households, our towns and communities with a shared pursuit for mutual respect and a high level of hospitality to various types of people.
Absolving ourselves from the opportunity for compromise will never move us forward. Shutting our ears to the world at large will never encourage others to listen to our own ideas. We lead by example. We learn by osmosis. The more we can independently and individually lead with respect and hospitality, the greater we can enrich our collective culture and symbiotically benefit from one another in our society today.
Ps. share this message with two people who could learn something from this story. Thank you!
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I liked it as much the second time around !!
Incredibly awesome post . Thank you 🙏!