I have often found myself to be 50+ years ahead of my time. On the one hand I feel like I am more suited to a steampunk environment, but on the other hand I feel like a character in some futuristic space aged movie. This may be due to the fact that I am an Aquarius in the zodiac. Apparently we are like that. Although most Aquarius males need to seriously GET GROUNDED, I have worked most of my life to stay grounded and have been very aware of what my Aquarius brethren are like when they are not. It can get rather scary! Just ask anyone who has dated an ungrounded Aquarius male. You will find out!
Being forward thinking from early childhood, I have been full of sorrow at the state of our world on pretty much a daily basis. Racism, sexism, ageism, genderism, greed, wars, crimes against humanity…need I go on? All of that stuff disgusts me and I challenge it most days. There are, admittedly, some things that I have no influence over to change, but I do what I can…every day.
The fact, however, that people will judge us on our appearances does often get in the way of progress. I am an ally for all people of this earth. Not just the white folks, not just male folks, not just middle-aged folks. But often people will take one look at me and all they see is a white man with privilege. It takes some time, and will only progress to a more positive outlook if they are willing to get to know me. It is when they don’t even bother to try to get to know me and still place judgement upon me that it gets to be annoying.
The thing is that all humans do the initial judgement based upon appearances. I am more likely to talk to some scruffy dude in a worn out jacket than I am to engage with a woman in a chic outfit. I have a thing about wanting to assist the underdog. It is not that I am going to condemn the woman in the chic outfit. I just won’t approach as easily as I would with someone who looks rougher. I am a helper. And for me, poverty has been a thing as I was growing up. So if I see signs of poverty I immediately get triggered into compassion. It has taken me a long time to learn to trust people who come from money. But I have learned to do it. It just takes time for me, just like it takes time for someone who views me as nothing more than a settler.
Perceptions can be a tricky thing. We make assumptions about things when we are only perceiving them through one particular lens. This could be witnessed on a “multiple times a day” basis during the pandemic. People were so quick to judge and point fingers at others based upon what they saw as a threat to their own perceptions of the situation. Cognitive dissonance became a way of life for many. As soon as any evidence to the contrary of what they believed was presented, they would filter that out (at best) and attack it (at worst). I remember posting things on many different perspectives of the pandemic at that time. One of my social media “friends” ripped into me about being completely self-contradicting. He said he had seen enough and was unfriending me. My response was that it takes intelligence to see both sides of an argument, so if he was going to toss me aside for being intelligent, then have at it. I have never heard from him again, not that I care to.
So how do we safely challenge our perceptions? I have found a few things that have worked for me, and I will share them with you. And do feel free to share your ideas with me as well. So, first off, I ask questions. Some find me to be kind of nosey because I will ask a lot of questions. The thing is that I want to know what is going on around a person or situation that has possible influence on what I am seeing, or what is being presented. The answers to those questions will often lead to more questions for clarification purposes. Once I get the whole story from the person or situation, I then try to find the story as told from a different angle or person. I don’t do this to find blame for anything. I do this to find understanding. There is always information that is not immediately observable. Although I am telepathic, I don’t go around reading everyone’s mind every moment of every day. That would be disrespectful. So I ask questions.
I also do my best to not judge people for the decisions they have made in their lives. It is their life, not mine. Even if they make mistakes, I cannot hold that against them. Those mistakes can lead them to some profound learning, so who am I to say that the mistakes should never have been made? Wisdom comes from experiences. But many experiences often come from poor decisions. Those decisions are often what leads us to our greater growth. I am not one who lives my life cautiously. Yes, I can be discerning. But when it comes to taking chances I am pretty audacious about it. Sure, some of the chances I have taken have not turned out well, but I have learned and grown from them. A vast majority of the chances I have taken have actually turned out to be incredibly positive, so I have learned to discern and to trust my instincts. It has been a learning curve, for sure. So who am I to judge anyone who is in the middle of their learning curve?
I also like to get myself out of the way when it comes to other people’s experiences. We cannot make anyone live inside a bubble, no matter how much we love and care for them. So if they are going to head full force into an experience, I am going to step aside and let them try. How else are they going to find out if they will succeed or fail? Like a child approaching a hot stove, you can warn them that it is hot, but until they actually accidentally burn themselves, they do not understand the meaning of the word “hot.” Do we then condemn them for getting burned? NO. We help apply first aid. I personally do not like the feeling that there will be no-one there to catch me if I fall. I would not want anyone to feel that way, so if I can provide a safe place to land when they fall, then I will. But I would never tell them, “Don’t you dare take that leap!”
Getting myself out of the way of their experiences often also means that I have to deal with the fallout and how it ripples to me as a result of their actions. I look at this the same way that I look at driving a car. Yes, I know I have ranted a few times on social media about the horrible drivers out there. But that is just venting frustration, it is not actually trying to control them. When I am driving my car I cannot drive anyone else’s car at the same time. No matter what some other driver may do that can have an affect on me or my safety, ultimately I cannot control them and can only have as much control of the outcome as is afforded me as the driver of my own car. There is no point in road raging after them. There is no point in screaming at them from the confines of my vehicle. That would have about as much effect as people who scream at a T.V. during a sports cast. It makes no sense to me. So in life, there is no sense in screaming at someone for making a mistake in THEIR life (or their vehicle, so to speak). Even if the ripple effect is that I suffer in some way as a result of their poor decisions, that suffering is simply mine to resolve. Now, if they did something deliberately to harm me, that is a completely different story. But if it was just a ripple effect, then we just have to figure it out from there.
“Yes, Deerhorn, but what if the person is your own child?” The same applies. Age appropriate guidance is one thing, but controlling and dominating “in case something bad might happen” is absolutely smothering and will eventually lead to your loss of relationship with your child. And far too often people will have their own identities wrapped up in that of their children. They do not realize that their children are their own people, regardless of how they are related to the parent. Our job is not to control our children. Our job is to keep them alive until they are old enough to care for themselves…usually at 21 or so years of age. Most will make it. Some won’t due to unforeseen circumstances…the things that are completely out of our control. Whichever way it lands, we have to deal with both the benefits and the drawbacks. Although it is important for us all to just let our freak flag fly, it is equally important that we all let our inner control freak go. And when it comes to how we raise our children, trust me, there will always be some “Karen” out there who is going to judge us harshly. Frankly, people with sticks in their behinds need to learn to mind their own business. They usually have just shut up when I have told them, “When and if I ever want your opinion, trust me, I will BEAT IT OUT OF YOU.”
As we learn to trust our instincts and to challenge our perceptions we are also tasked with discerning what is intuition and what is discrimination. When someone is approaching you with the body language of aggression and hostility, of course you will feel afraid. But what if it is not that they are approaching you with this body language, but instead leaving some other interaction in which they had to defend themselves? They have no intent whatsoever to harm you, but the body language says something different. This is how our perceptions can trick us. The main thing here is to remember that YOU DO NOT KNOW what you THINK you know. So don’t let yourself be a sitting duck (just in case you are correct) but also don’t jump to any conclusions. There are some people who are so ego-bent on being highly intuitive that they will actually accuse people of things that those people have either never done or have never even considered doing. For example, someone who is insecure may be, on a daily basis, accusing their partner of cheating on them, thinking that it is their intuition telling them so even though it is just their mind playing tricks on them. They may have a serious wound from a past experience that is altering their perceptions of what is going on here and now. Until they can acknowledge that wound and heal that wound, everyone they ever become involved with will be the target for their fears and paranoia. And then to wrap that up in your so-called “intuition” is a form of abuse in and of itself. It only serves to push the loved one away, thus reaffirming your fear of abandonment and betrayal. This is one very powerful method of manifestation! The reason it is so powerful is because fear is a powerful motivator. What we need to recognize is that love and trust are equally powerful motivators, so why not manifest from THAT perspective?
Just as most people are only able to see a fragment of the available light spectrum, thus missing most on what is right there, many people cannot perceive very much outside of their personal history and experiences in life. The challenge with this is to expand the perception so that we can embrace what was previously unavailable to us. Until we learn to do that, we will always be projecting our own fears and insecurities onto everyone around us.