Practicing Love

Which means that I consistently caught myself thinking, “this is so obvious, why aren’t more people up in arms about (x)? Why aren’t the people I know more passionate about this problem like me?” One day, when as an activist, things were feeling very critical, I expressed that I was feeling frustrated that individuals I knew weren’t moving to action! Then my life guide said something really profound:

“Don’t you think they’re already trying their best?”

Silence.

I realized in that moment, of course everyone is trying their best. Some trying to achieve something remarkable, others just trying their best to survive in this, sometimes hostile world. It brought me down immediately. I cried. It became obvious that I had been doing things backward. In an effort to help others through my activism, I created more frustration for myself and possibly dis-empowered people by working tireless to convince them to join me – that they weren’t already doing enough. In essence, that they themselves weren’t enough.

I then made the decision to shift my approach. That I needed to focus on empowering others and even myself. I believe that the way to empower people is to help them see that they are worthy of love. The way to empower myself, is to make myself believe that I am worthy of love.