So you Believe(Seeking to understand and be free from control)

I invite you to come and sit down and talk with me to speak to me of the things you hold close to your heart. Let me hear of your experiences and what lead you to where you are now. What have your beliefs given you and how have they added to your peace of mind? Have they lead you to new things, interests and helped you to meet new people? Have these things you believe these things you hold dear helped add to your sense of self worth, have they given you new thoughts in discovering who you think you are and how you fit to this universe? Do your beliefs contribute to your lively hood, have they lead you to great achievements, and have the encouraged you to look beyond yourself and reach out for more? Have they contributed to your value system and how you put your vision out in to the world?

 Share with me all these things; tell me of the challenges in your life and how some of them may have been as a result of your beliefs. Tell me of your triumphs and all the wonderful things holding your beliefs have brought you. I am curious, I long to know what lies in your heart, what the world has shown to you and how you  have made yourself open to it. I will listen to all you have to tell me with both an open heart and mind, if you feel so moved to share these things with me. I can accept your truth and all that you are and still view you with unconditional positive regard. I may not fully understand you, nor do I promise I will come around to your way of thinking, but I will listen with my full heart and seek to understand why it is important to you.

 But as I listen to these things as I seek to understand, do not seek to put me down or force your will on me. Do not seek to make me feel bad about who I am, my own experiences and what I believe. Do not attempt to make me feel less then you intellectually, morally, spiritually or force me under your control. We are different people me and you, we have experienced different things, met different people and have been exposed to different schools of knowledge and thought. We both have our strengths and our weakness, things that come easily to us and things that feel like no matter how hard we try we are just never going to get.

We are both beautiful and unique people, you and I with threads of similarities that run through us, the similarities which connect us all. We both have our place here, there is room for both of us, we are both part of this world and we both belong. We needn’t try to make each other feel less than we are, so that we can fit into a world in which we are already both a part of just as we are. In fact if we were both the same, if we were all the same would that really make the world such a better place? Do different thoughts and ideas stem from many places?  Would you really want me to be a carbon copy of you, always thinking like you and acting like you and doing things just like you?

We are not machines to be programmed but living beings and we deserve to be free, to be who we are not what somebody else dictates to use that we should be. So I invite you one again to share with me, work with me, live and love with me, but please let me be.  Because I promise you this, we all have enough of our own personal challenges in life that we must all overcome. We all have our insecurities and personal battles that we must fight that we really don’t need each other adding to these things by trying to make each other feel worse about whom we are and what we belief. 

Even if my beliefs seem ridiculous to you just look back on your own answers above and what is built into your own beliefs and how important some of those things are to you. I ask you now just to keep in mind the next time you attack someone else or make a joke at their expense, how deeply do your own beliefs run in you? How do you feel when someone does this to you?  I know it can be useful to have our beliefs challenged that this can provide with an opportunity for growth and help us to see where we are holding back. I know that it can be good for us to laugh at ourselves and not take ourselves or life to seriously.  And perhaps sometimes when we are challenging someone else beliefs our intentions are good and we are hoping to help them or fuel their growth. However I would like to suggest that there are ways of doing this without setting out to make that person feel bad about themselves and who they are.