I found myself today.

Speaking with students, professors, and in general, people, lately; I've returned to a conclusion of moving proportions.

I noticed that short phrases, quips, connectors lead my current and future understanding of how beautifully our interactions fuse what is and what is to come. As an example... yesterday in a group counseling class we discussed the use of the phrase, "I'm sorry." 

Within the context of empathy, "I'm sorry" functions in a variety of ways. When spoken sincerely, "I'm sorry" acts as a catalyst for connection between parties. In other forms, the phrase leads to a promulgation of avoidance. Fear, pain, and shame top the list of motivators for disconnected use of these words. From within, subtlety becomes reality: collective and individual reality.

Courage --> Vulnerability --> Trust --> Confrontation

Many anxieties and depressions stem from a deep sense of shame. Often conditioned, sometimes through the cognitive self, shame acts as a even-weighted slammer to the pogs of life experience. Brene Brown speaks eloquently about the courage associated with vulnerability. 

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html 

Vacuuming empathy potentials, self-judgement stealthily creeps and jabs our awareness of ourselves; often leaving a survivalistic shield of defense up to the world. Freud called this phenomenon "defense mechanisms." 

As we evolve towards higher consciousness, awareness, and creativity together; we must not forget to gently foster self-compassion in the side-car of our speedy existence.

"Be a best friend to yourself"

"You are in control of your perspective"

"Control is relative"

"Through challenge; opportunity"

"In each breath, an evolution"

"I am as we are"

"Change changes"

Courage --> Vulnerability --> Trust --> Confrontation

Truth & Beauty

Lucy Grealy's Truth and Beauty confronts the truth about beauty... or is it the beauty about truth?

At times, I yearn for understanding truth: and then I feel it. At others, beauty peeks its head out from under a fallen leaf, and I am comforted. My understanding and passion for experiencing truth and beauty lie together in a bed sewn of patience, love, and wisdom. Without acquiescing the cynic within, I experience life's moments with an unfolding and dynamic conceptualization of what it means (to me) to live with, through, and in these idea-manifestations. Un-truth is to truth as ugliness is to beauty. I argue now that un-truths have truthful aspects as ugly-perceived exudes beauty. The question behind truth is whether or not it is begotten from a singular root or perceived through the variety of senses that species with "thought" conceive. Again, in my experience, it is both. Ideas are not essentially exclusionary to me: rather, ecological and interconnected. If I believe there are ultimate truths, then it is a level of reality for me. When we experience truth, you and I... does the context in which the experience occurs influence us towards a singular moment, or rather separate perceptions of that moment? I posit that the intention of those people involved in an experienced moment supports the foundation of which singular truth is constructed. In this sense, if I am living on an island and experience pain (i.e. stepping on a coral in the ocean), this pain is a real, tangible, honest moment that no one else experiences on the island. If, by chance, a visitor views my pain, how much can s/he emphathize with this pain?

I suppose empathy and experience live under the same roof in the understanding I hope to communicate. If someone shares with me a story that is "true" to them, I can choose to engage myself in that truth. Whether or not the truth that person shared is "true" to someone else (e.g. perhaps the other experienced the "truth" through a different mechanism) influences that "truth" on a variety of levels. Again, intention influences truth. Weaved winding-ly through a web of individual and collective cognition, truth and beauty are inclusionary in nature. Wherever and however you experience truth and beauty in this world, you have a choice. A glass is half full of water: half full of air.

Bazinga,

http://www.ted.com/talks/fabian_oefner_psychedelic_science.html