I am attending an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy conference. And it really speaks to me and how I have viewed life for a very long time. I just always felt in the minority. Why can't we all just get along? We are all the same. No matter what you look like, where you were born, what religion you believe, etc... we all have lungs to breathe, hearts to pump our blood, eyes to see, hands to touch, mouths to eat and talk. We all have feelings and thoughts. We, human beings use language to represent most things in our lives; from objects, to thoughts, to ideas, to feelings. That language lets us communicate. We also have non-verbal language. We are cooperative in nature. We look for acceptance and we look for reciprocity. People want to help each other and people want to be a part of a group. It's human nature!
Our mind creates defenses from the experiences we have that stops us from being altruistic. And it's the language, that represents those defenses, from those experiences, that flow through our mind. And that language can't see beyond itself. Literal language is static. Literal language is limiting. Literal language is not flexible. And we are using that language to give ourselves messages-good and bad. We also use that language to compare ourselves.
Do you know we are the only species that can elicit a memory at a moment's notice? Like, when I hear a song by Santana; I think about the fun Saturday afternoons when I my sister and I were little, in the first house my parents bought, and my parents would blast the music and clean the house. Now, cleaning the house wasn't fun, but dancing around with my family after my dad waxed the old wooden floors and he would play drum beats on the wooden book shelves, that was fun! Of course, not so pleasant memories can be elicited from a sound, sight, taste, touch, or smell too. We can also hear messages in our heads at a moments notice. However, we don't have to listen to that message and make it our leader. We can accept that we hear that message, from that experience, but we don't have to wear it and make it who we are. We can watch that message float on by so we can keep moving forward in the direction of what we want. We can watch that message float on by so we can do what is in our heart. We can watch that message float on by so we can have compassion- compassion for our fellow people and compassion for our self. This will lead us to less suffering. This will lead us to love. This will lead us to acceptance. This will lead us to peace.