My belief is that maturity is about establishing a base of sense of self, control, focus and experiences that are focused on community, focus on US. All the maturity lessons are designed to support people being able to not set themselves aside and focus on others instead of themselves, and not to focus on themselves instead of others, but to focus on all of us at the same time. That is not necessarily an easy task. Our society is not currently supportive of a stance of us. It is very much a push to the other or push to the self. It depends on which school you attended, not literally which school, but figuratively. Did you attend the school of self sacrifice for the benefit of others? Did you attend the capitalist school of me first?
So much of what is happening right now in our world is focused on separating us from one another and establishing a hierarchy of power over others. Whether you are focused on being in power or on having power, neither of those falls into the category of a plan for Us. We all have the same value and are equally deserving of a beautiful and happy life. We will not all get that because having that life is not about whether you deserve it or not. It is about whether you are able to create it. I believe that the only way to do that is by finding your way to maturity island and a beautifully balanced sense of Us.
To do that you can read the Journey to Maturity blog posts and lessons with lots of metaphors and details on achieving this life. I came to realize one of the key missing pieces to those blogs may be the only lesson that matters; Assume Positive Intent. In this world, we are looking out for ourselves or looking out for others. What are we looking out for? We tend to be looking out for those who are there to harm us. We become paranoid. Yes, it is still paranoid to think others are after you when they really are after you.
When you look around you and attempt to assess the beliefs, actions, statements, etc. of others, what is your assumption? Are you looking to see what they might possibly do to harm you, cheat you, or harm others or cheat others? Do you assume they mean to be hurtful? Do you have faith only in that others are selfish and trying to get what’s theirs by taking yours? I admit, I do see the world this way. I see greed and malice in many places, like everywhere I look. I think our world has fallen into a very evil place on the whole. When this is what I believe, then guess what it is that I see?
What if I took the time to see the beauty in others? What if I saw how generous people were with me and with others? What if I had the patience to see how hard people are trying to be kind and find ways to support each other? Well, I did that. I worked hard to drop my “guard” and see people differently, to assume they had a positive intent. Guess what I saw?
When you look for evil, you will see evil all around you. When you look for beauty, you will see it all around you. Your eyes are tuned to see what you want to see, what you are looking for is what you always find. What if we all assumed people had a positive intent and where not trying to be unkind, evil or selfish? What if we assumed people wanted to be mature and were trying to focus on something like Us? Do you think we might find more maturity, more kindness, more positivity than if we assumed the opposite?
I know many people who are afraid of being harmed by not being prepared for someone trying to harm them, being harmed because they were not playing enough defense. They are on their guard to protect their money, their heart, their home from evil doers. That guard puts out an energy of fear into the world. That low energy of fear will draw to it low energy of the things you fear. People are afraid to assume positivity because they are afraid of being hurt. When you assume negativity, you will receive what you fear. Assuming negativity will only bring more negativity.
What if we assume positivity and put that energy into the world. We just assume people are nice, are trying to be kind, have our best interest at heart? What could we draw to us with that higher vibrational energy? I suppose it is true that there are people out there who would take advantage of our positive view and use that to hurt us. Those people are able to hurt us whether we assume they have positive or negative intent though.
Let’s take something kind of universally thought of as unkind or evil, like stealing. I’m not going to tell you that stealing is kind or good. I am going to tell you that stealing is not good or evil, and it neither unkind nor kind though. Stealing is stealing. It is the act of taking something from someone else that doesn’t belong to you. In the basic reality, nothing truly belongs to anyone. It is all borrowed, but I’m not even going to focus on that aspect of it. Yes, if we truly believe in the concept of us, nothing is mine and nothing is yours. It all belongs to us, so no one can steal anything. I’m not even talking about that. I’m talking about why people steal. The act of stealing isn’t what we believe is evil as much as why we think people steal. We think people steal because they are bad people. We think, “How could that do that to someone else? They must have no conscience, no good in them?” or something similar. I will ask you simply to consider, “Is that true? and Can you absolutely know that it is true?” (questions from the Work of Byron Katie)
If we assume that people who do anything that is considered bad, like saying mean things, taking advantage of someone else, stealing, physically harming antoher person, etc. is doing that on purpose to be unkind, evil, because they are just bad people, we are going beyond seeing their actions to assuming negative intent. What if we tried to look beyond the action and judging the person based on the action, and really see the person?
I am more likely to see the beauty in others than the evil. I do still look out there and see evil and bad people. I’m not perfect, and I also see so much good. I do not think I am alone though. I was taught that skill by my parents, and you can learn it too. They always saw the good in me, no matter how awful I was being. They also always saw good in others, again, no matter how awful they were being. I learned that.
We can see actions objectively and can protect ourselves when we see something harmful coming without seeing evil people with evil intent. We can see that good people sometimes do things that are hurtful, and that does not mean they did it on purpose to hurt others. It does mean they might have lost their way. They might be off course on their way to the island of maturity.
It is true, that if you assume people are not going to hurt you, that they are kind, and have a positive intent, that people might be able to fool you and in so doing hurt you more easily.
It is also true, that if you assume people are not going to hurt you, that they are kind, and have a positive intent, that you will see more lovely people around you who have good intentions and who want to support and encourage you to be your best self. You will begin to draw more of those people to you because you can see them!! If you only see evil, then guess who will come to be seen? If you see goodness, people who are good know you can see them, and they will come! If you expect people to be evil, they will try to live up to that. If you expect them to be good, they will also try to be that.
What is our core? Humans at their core are love, pure love. All humans have love and goodness at their core. Many things can cause that love and goodness to be hidden away, even locked away for some people. It is still in there though. All it needs is to be seen. Can you see it in others? Can you see it in yourself? Try. Because the only hope we have in life is the faith we have in each other. We have to begin to trust each other to be good. We have to believe in the positive intent in each other in order for this world to turn around. The only thing you have to lose by trusting others and seeing their good, is things. Are your things worth the potential of losing faith in others? I hope not. I am going to try to turn my beliefs around and assume more goodness, love and light in others and try to be less judgmental about why people do the seemingly unkind things they do. People are human, what if we saw beyond that human being, and into their Divine souls? What beauty could we see then? Assuming positive intent does create vulnerability, and it is the only way to open yourself up to seeing the amazing beauty of Divine love. Have faith in people, including yourself. Believe in them. It will give you hope to do this. It will bring more love and beauty to you. See people clearly, and see into their core of love. We have to start trusting each other, even at the risk of being harmed. What kind of life is one of fear of protecting it? Being open to losing it, and see what amazing things can come to you.
Energy should flow, are you holding on so tightly to things that all you see is people trying to take it? Is your energy flowing so freely that it comes and goes easily, peacefully without fear of getting or fear of losing, just faith, hope, and trust that what is needed will come, and when it is no longer needed it will go, and that when it goes, that is what it is supposed to do.
Namaste –