TGIF | Respecting Our Differences
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Dear Community,
On Monday morning, my neighbor invited me on a run with her and another friend. I was reluctant, feeling especially sore after an intense workout over the weekend, but I acquiesced because how many 80-degree days do we have left this year?
During the run, my friend shared a beautiful story. I felt compelled to share it with you today to talk about something pretty sensitive—respecting our differences and learning to love all of our neighbors.
We Have Different Realities
My friend recounted how, this summer, they met a sincerely attentive and kind concierge while traveling in Ireland with her son. To entertain her son, he introduced them to an exercise. The concierge wrote the number 6 on a piece of paper and put it on the ground. He had the son stand on one side of the paper and his dad on the other. The son was asked what number he saw (6), and so was the dad (9). Despite looking at the same thing, they saw and interpreted it differently.
Our Perspectives Shape Our Reality
The lovely Irishman continued with his lesson. He said, “See, in life, you’ll encounter this often. We may be looking at the same thing, but what we perceive and then interpret as fact can be quite different. We cannot judge another’s experience or opinions until we see through their lens.”
Wise man. His story demonstrates that while we all may be living in the same world, our experiences, thoughts, and feelings towards and within that same world are vastly different based on how we take in information.
I think about my other neighbor who is color blind. To him, my house is beige, and he may have an opinion. To my non-color-blind neighbor, my house is green. My mother sees it as gray.
Everyone then has a feeling or thought about it that I cannot control or convince otherwise because I’m not seeing what they see. It’s not my job to change what they see because I cannot; it’s impossible to do so.
Using Discernment to Create Reality
Now consider this - we cannot change someone else’s created reality. How someone perceives something is their own experience. Their perception then changes how they think, behave, believe, make choices, and develop relationships.
Right now, things feel divisive. Media outlets feed us information (true or untrue) that tries to manipulate our thoughts and actions. We cannot always control what we see, but we can use discernment in interpreting information and what we do with it.
We can find a shared experience as humans when we understand that we all have different realities. Knowing our vulnerability, we can instead find awareness that each person is unique in their perspective because there is no other way. This is not an excuse to center our own experience; instead, it’s a call to action to observe how easily we center ourselves, step back, and witness the collective experience.
Respecting the Shared Experience
Knowing this, how can we learn to empathize, understand, and respect our differences and different versions of reality?
Father Richard Rohr wrote this week about the principles of nonviolence. In his article, he shared, “We three-hundred-plus million people of the United States can be healed of our fears and animosities, our hurts and our pains, but that can only happen if we adopt a nonviolent perspective, daring to put the issues on the table in front of us no matter the pain, walking through them.”
He asks us if we dare to confront the reality that our neighbors may be right in their own eyes. Rather than insult and attack, can we come together to listen and understand with compassion that our neighbors, too, have pain and perspective that have created their beliefs and behaviors? We do not have to agree, but we can demonstrate tenderness, even love, toward the experiences that have shaped their reality.
Kindness, compassion, and empathy—not judgment, hatred, or disconnection—signifies change. A “more perfect union” is one that learns to live in this shared humanity with dignity and respect.
No matter what side of the aisle, we can extend a hand. We’re all human, after all. Imperfect, fallible, and all trying to find our ways.
Thanks, as always, for being here. You’re never alone—big, virtual, 20-second hug.
This week’s Tools, Gratitude, Innovation, Feels
Tools
Despite the not-so-great media coverage lately, perhaps you’ve heard of Ketamine-Assisted Therapy. I had the opportunity to study this mode of practice last year during a 10-month program. From all psychedelic and non-ordinary states of consciousness work, I have learned that the heart opens when the noise drops away, and we soften into our essence. These medicines and practices create profound connections to all living things. I’m excited to share these Deep Healing tools with you all now.
Gratitude
This week, we had a full moon, and I made a point to stand in my backyard to be in awe and gratitude for it. Witnessing “outer space,” as my 4-year-old says, allows you to ground down in the tiny humanness that we are, just a speck of existence in something so much bigger than ourselves. Nature has a beautiful way of reminding us that we are so much more alike than different on a cellular level.
Innovation
When my kids were younger, we loved listening to kids’ musicians. One favorite is Tim from Tunes with Tim, a Chicago artist. When we speak about being human, I can’t help but refer to his song, written during Covid, and the lyrics he shares. Music therapy is one of my favorite mental health and wellness innovations, especially during challenging times. Music soothes, music understands, music speaks when we cannot.
Feels
We have new team members! We are so happy to keep adding to our team, bringing more availability to help serve our community. This month, we welcomed Ari and Sarah into our Ann Arbor office, and Amber will start in Northville next week. Check out their profiles and submit a request to work with these outstanding colleagues of mine.