Image by griffert
Narrated by Lawrence Doochin.
Video version
“At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money we have made, how many great things we have done. We will be judged by, ‘I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat. I was naked, and you clothed me. I was homeless, and you took me in.’” -- MOTHER TERESA
Being in a forced type of isolation like we have been with the coronavirus crisis may not seem like a blessing, but it has forced us to be still and go inside ourselves. At the same time it has allowed us to see how we are truly linked as one humanity, for we are all undergoing the same experience.
We are meant to be social creatures living and helping each other as one community. Doing this through technology is better than not at all, but it immerses us in a false world, and it's not the same as being in physical relationships in the natural world.
As shown by the Mother Teresa quotation, community puts us in a place to look after each other. Community and empathy are closely interlinked, as community means not only physical but also emotional support and bonding. The coronavirus crisis has naturally created empathy because we can understand exactly what most everyone else is going through.
When we are in community, we automatically fall into service to those in need because we know them and see their need up close versus judging someone from afar and condemning them. “Community” comes from the Latin for “fellowship,” meaning “with unity.”
“Compassion” comes from the Latin “suffer together.” We have a passion to help those with whom we share unity and suffering. This is our God DNA and will arise naturally with great joy, unless we have suppressed our spirit.
It has only been very recently in our history that we have not lived as family units. Many people have moved every few years for their career. My wife and I built our house almost 30 years ago and all four of our children have grown up in this house. When our children are in difficult circumstances, regardless of where they are living in the world, they can come back and sleep in their childhood bedroom. Sleeping in their childhood house is grounding for them and allows them to go back out and face a world which has become very tough.
Before coronavirus, many in business chose to take new opportunities and climb the corporate ladder by moving every few years, which has consequences both positive and negative. Will this desire be as strong as we come out of this experience?
Many grandparents do not live in the same city as their grandchildren. When we lived together, the grandparents were considered elders because they had accumulated wisdom. While the parents worked, the kids were raised by the grandparents and other elders in the family and community. It was a system that worked well, and we had wise and open young adults ready to use their gifts for the whole.
Now we have marginalized the elderly and stuck them in retirement communities instead of gleaning their wisdom and having them continue to contribute. Our society is paying the price. No wonder so many are depressed. Again, someone doesn’t accumulate wisdom because they are a YouTube sensation, can code an app at age 22, or because they can throw a football well. This is popularity and adulation, not wisdom.
Community is also in our DNA
When we lived as hunter-gatherers, and even when we moved into agrarian communities, if we were kicked out of the group we would die. So we each have a fear around this. Many allow this fear to control them and do anything so they will be liked, including giving their power and authority to others.
But we are being called to stand on our own two feet as well as to be part of communities in which everyone is empowering everyone else, and where love, respect, and gratitude are forefront. This is, we hope, what will come out of the crisis we are in.
The workplace is another community, but it’s a critical one because we spend so many hours in this community setting. Ideally we will see many changes in this arena since it’s geared to separation and a profit mentality.
Thich Nhat Hanh said, “I love to sit and eat quietly and enjoy each bite, aware of the presence of my community, aware of all the hard and loving work that has gone into my food.” Most companies are not preparing food together, but they are aligned in a common goal, hopefully one of making a product or doing a service that’s of great help to others.
As part of this, CEOs and leaders must search for the elders in their companies and give them greater roles, giving employees the ability to access their wisdom, both business and personal. Maybe they can write blogs or have community gatherings. Business can be so much more in terms of reflecting the true nature of community and bringing us together as one.
Functioning, true communities understand that no one in the community is better than another and that everyone must be provided for. The queen bee cannot do her job or even be fed without all of the workers. Communities truly function as a whole unit.
Being of service and doing “works” for our communities can mean any number of things, from uplifting the world with light and prayer, to showing up at a rally, to providing financial assistance to one individual. All are important. God will lead you in the way you can best serve, and this may change over time. But we must do service from the perspective of “be in the world but not of the world.”
As we help others, we hold the highest perspective that we are all one and those we are helping are not victims. They are temporarily experiencing difficult circumstances. When we see them as a part of God and ourselves, this will help them to see themselves in the same way, and this is ultimately the answer out of their circumstances.
When we consider something like reparations for historical wrongs, are we reinforcing the idea of separation and victimhood, and are those who are giving assuaging their guilt, which is also reinforcing separation? We can’t change the past.
What we can do is acknowledge that certain actions and perspectives in the past came from a separatist view, and this did not serve certain individuals, groups, and especially the whole of humanity. If we stay in condemnation, hate, and victimhood, aren’t we creating a future that is the same as the past?
We create a different future when we each become a vessel of love and compassion, which will raise the whole vibration of humanity and allow others to recognize also that they are One.
When we finally understand at a deep level that we are inherently one community, we will no longer see through eyes of separation and we will no longer live in fear.
MAIN TAKEAWAY
Community connects us and helps us to see from a unity perspective.
QUESTION
What can you do to foster more community
in your workplace or other settings?
One candle can throw off a lot of light in a darkened house.
Copyright 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Publisher : One-Hearted Publishing.
Article Source
A Book On Fear: Feeling Safe In A Challenging World
by Lawrence Doochin
Even if everyone around us is in fear, this doesn't have to be our personal experience. We are meant to live in joy, not in fear. By taking us on a treetop journey through quantum physics, psychology, philosophy, spirituality, and more, A Book On Fear gives us tools and awareness to see where our fear comes from. When we see how our belief systems were created, how they limit us, and what we have become attached to that creates fear, we will come to know ourselves at a deeper level. Then we can make different choices to transform our fears. The end of each chapter includes a suggested simple exercise that can be done quickly but that will shift the reader into an immediate higher state of awareness about that chapter’s topic.
For more info and/or to order this book, click here.
About the Author
Lawrence Doochin is an author, entrepreneur, and devoted husband and father. A survivor of harrowing childhood sexual abuse, he traveled a long journey of emotional and spiritual healing and developed an in-depth understanding of how our beliefs create our reality. In the business world, he has worked for, or been associated with, enterprises from small startups to multinational corporations. He is the cofounder of HUSO sound therapy, which delivers powerful healing benefits to individual and professionals worldwide. In everything Lawrence does, he strives to serve a higher good. His new book is A Book on Fear: Feeling Safe in a Challenging World. Learn more at LawrenceDoochin.com.
