Sometimes, people are deeply attached to their beliefs simply because they’ve had them for so long & they’re what’s familiar. So comfortable, that anything that challenges their belief system is seen as a threat. They might get angry or defensive & try to protect their point of view at all costs, even though your intentions are good in seeing things a “better” way. I used quotation marks because even if they are better, at the moment, they aren’t perceived as better by them. How do you show them that there is a better, more peaceful way? Education. Through Education comes Empathy. Through Empathy comes Understanding. Through Understanding Comes Forgiveness / Self-Forgiveness. & through Forgiveness comes Unconditional Love/Self-Love.
To think we can love someone into a different person is an overwhelmingly, burdening challenge. If you have pets, than you know how much you love them but you also know they needed to be educated (trained) on how to co-exist with you in your home, as this is an innately foreign environment for them. As humans, we’ve also experienced many cycles & different types of training as well- everything from basic school education, displaying manners, daily hygiene, to operating a vehicle etc.
At the end of the day, most people aren’t hung up on your ability or inability to love or accept them. They are concerned, however, that your inability to control your anger or hate towards what you can’t accept about them, might lead to harming (or killing) them.
It’s easy to become a part of the GroupThink that’s so readily available to generalize & stereotype. Especially because the more examples we look for to confirm GroupThink, the more we’ll find.. Watch what the brain does when unfamiliar with non-conformity to stereotyping with GroupThink:
All Hispanic people are:
All White people are:
All Black people are:
All Religious people are:
All Priests are:
All Atheists people are:
All Gay people are:
All Straight people are:
All Cops are:
All Lawyers are:
All Doctors are:
All Sales People are:
All Parents are:
All Teenagers are:
All Wealthy people are:
All Poor people are:
All Homeless people are:
All Actors/Models/Singers are:
All Entrepreneurs are:
All Corporate people are:
All Vegans are:
All Carnivores are:
It’s easy to justify your stereotypes & your fear/phobias surrounding them. It’s easy to justify your hate. It’s easy to justify your prejudice. It’s easy to start a war & have people submit into compliance. Breaking GroupThink requires courage & the willingness to free yourself from including ALL. Love is not the forced solution to this, it is the outcome. Love is what happens naturally when we understand through empathy, awareness & compassion- regardless of personal experience. Love is when you want to help alleviate the suffering in others because you know either by exposure, experience or empathy, that suffering is painful & you want to help end the suffering in some way. This takes lifetimes & generations for some. & for others, it happens over time or in an instant.
This doesn’t mean that you lose your sense of self or personal boundaries by letting people with ‘bad’ intentions walk all over you or bully you just because you ‘understand’ why they are the way they are- it means that you understand why they are the way they are & you choose not to follow their crumb trail because you know better. It’s important to be aware that not everyone will join you on this bridge of awareness. & that there will be people that will deliberately intend to misunderstand you or ‘troll’ you because they have no intention in seeing things differently, either at the moment or altogether. Your job is to spread your truth with the intention that your message is based on love, compassion & understanding in the absence of harming others. Don’t think it’s possible? check out the countries that are thriving based on this principle of “rehabilitation, not revenge.”
We’ve come a long way but still have a long way to go. As Dalai Lama said, “Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”
