politics

I am afraid that so many people seem to be swept away in admiration of Sarah Palin. Today I read that they have created a new Sarah Palin doll. There are three versions of the doll. One in a business suit, one in work-out clothes, and one dressed in black and toting a gun.
It is so scary that people would be grabbing up gun toting dolls to give to their children. In this culture we so value the "everything is fine" mentality. No matter what we are sweeping under the rug we can make it look like everything is fine. Sarah Palin can smile and warmly pretend not to be who she is. She can speak charismatically and sidestep her extremist views.
It seems so important to get the word out that she gave a talk at her church in which she said that building the Alaskan pipeline was God's will. She is against a woman's right to chose an abortion even in the case of rape or incest. She supports hunting wolves from helicopters. As a mayor she attempted to fire a librarian who refused to comply with Palin's list of banned books. The community rose up in protest and Palin backed down.

Maybe the opportunity I am being presented with here is to learn to express my political views. I want to listen to other people and really hear them. Then I want to be able to respond in a way that lets others hear me. I want to learn to set aside my outrage and participate in this political process with my "being" experience intact. I can take a deep breath and be with my fear so it isn't the energy I am coming from when I talk to others. Feeding that fear isn't helpful. I deeply care about Barack Obama becoming president and bringing change to this country. I want to be able to speak in a way that enables that passion to be a possible influence. Maybe I don't have all the information I think I should have before I talk to people. Anything is better than nothing. It's better to risk not having all of my ducks in a row and speak from my heart than not to speak up at all. (Do those unruly ducks ever really get lined up?)
Where are you with this political process? Are there people you want to be talking to about this? Start with the easy ones. That builds confidence. Thanks for giving me this forum to be real and share who I am. I think it's important to stop pretending that politics is an impolite subject to talk about and tiptoe around not mentioning it.

Validation

I am waiting to hear Sarah Palin speak. It feels important to me to experience her directly. It is good practice to be in my circle and be with her. I will practice holding my center and using my breath to come back to myself when I wander off into thoughts or judgements. Can I use my circle to openheartedly protect myself from the inside so I don't need to shut my heart down and create walls? What can I learn about myself from listening to her? What I can learn about her? What can i learn from her and her speech?Where is she coming from? What do I notice about her personality strategy? What will be useful to understand about her?
Sarah Palin has given her speech. She had a clear message and she delivered it well.
I'm glad I listened to her speech. It is easy to focus on supporting Obama and shut my heart down to everyone else. It felt good to listen to Palin's talk, disagree with a lot of what she said, and understand that she feels the way she does.
When I work with couples, I teach them validation. It is such an important tool. It is based on the idea that each person has their own truth and that truth is valid for them. Any truth can be validated by saying," I can understand that you feel that way, or "I can see that's how you see it," or "It makes sense to me that you see it that way, or "Knowing who you are I can see how you would see it that way." It doesn't mean that you agree with the other person's truth, to validate their truth. It only means that you are validating their right to have their truth, whether you agree with it or not. Letting the other person know that you see their truth as valid, lets them know you care about them as a person. It goes a long way to heal the adversarial quality that can develope between partners who only respond to each other if they are in agreement. Validation gives each person some breathing room to pause and see where to go next. A really bold move is to validate and then say ,"Tell me more." That is such a caring invitation and is often perceived that way. Validation and invitation can heal the attitude that partners feel unheard, misunderstood and uncared for.
Make a point to practice validation in your daily life tomorrow. It is especially helpful in political discussions to enable people with different truths to actually have a conversation.

A poem for 2008

Focusing on the good
The good appears
It was always there
Now I notice.