We all have relationships in our lives that have become strained by polarized politics. The hardest ones seem to be our own family members––we can’t just walk away from them, they’re “forever.” I am estranged from one of my siblings because of that, and I’ve been wondering how I could repair this split.

It’s not really helpful to rehash the past, is it? Unless you are reflecting on your own behavior and making adjustments, the past will just re-ignite the painful ego reactions that brought you to your current place. It is helpful to understand how you behaved in the past as a template for change. Think about your own reactions to your family member’s behavior.

In my telling of our history I tend to put my attention on his behavior. Probably because that’s the trigger for my own reaction. I feel angry that he assumes he is entitled to take up so much space. I don’t feel seen or recognized as having an equal voice, or really any importance at all, in our relationship. It’s all about him.

This goes back to childhood issues and a parenting style that valued males over females, which is a reflection of broader cultural issues. He is a trigger to my frustrations with patriarchy. He is also a product of that system, not just me, and his inflated ego probably can’t be helping him navigate his own higher purpose. 

What if I had some compassion for that? My immediate reaction is then: where’s the compassion for me? He seems incapable of seeing what the patriarchal system has done to females, and people of color, anyone who is not a white male. Which is part of the cultural effect on him, isn’t it? I’m getting lost in the weeds here…

Only because you touched on compassion but then circled right back around to the injustice of the situation. This has been a theme of your life: where is the Justice? Frankly, there is no justice. There is no justice baked into the system and all you have to do is uncover it. Justice is something that is created by humans. As is injustice. Look up ‘Justice.’

Justice is the principle or ideal of fair treatment or right action, a concern for peace and genuine respect for people, the quality of being fair and reasonable. So it’s a quality, or an attempt to maintain this quality.

Yes. It’s not concrete or objective. It’s subjective. 

My last argument with my family member was about what’s ‘fair.’ He thought he was being treated unfairly. His complaint was that his ‘earnings’ (what he thought he had achieved all by himself) were somehow being degraded by the recognition of his white male privilege. I’ll never know what it’s like to be a person of color in this culture, to try to exist in a racist environment, but I am aware of my white privilege. And I can relate to oppression through the lens of sexism, which I have experienced every day of my life.

He thought he was being oppressed as a white male. I thought he had no idea what it really means to be oppressed because oppression requires a power imbalance. But maybe he was understanding how it might apply to him, for the first time ever, and of course that was disturbing. I missed the opportunity to connect with him emotionally because I could only see how my own experience was being discounted, and I reacted to that. 

Exactly. You are demanding that he see your point of view while discounting his. If you truly want to be compassionate, you have to be able to set aside your own viewpoint and try to see the other person as they see themselves. 

It is only from this position that you will have any chance of moving compassion in them. They will not be able to move with compassion if they do not first feel your compassion for them. It is how you move Love energy, by stirring that feeling, that vibration, first in yourself and then in the “other.”

As you know, there really is no “other.” We are all connected in the end. All of these traits that make us think of someone else as Other are really just mirrors and triggers for our own learning and growth. We are all trying to move in this direction, it is what we come here to do. All of the things that we think of as distractions are really messages pointing us back to our original purpose—moving Love and experiencing compassion. 

Feeling compassion, true compassion, is a shared experience. Both the giver and the receiver must feel it. If only the giver feels it, then that is just pie-in-the-sky egoism. It has to come down to a two-way exchange for it to work. By ‘work’ we mean that it nourishes the field of consciousness we all inhabit. 

The We is not limited to the plane of consciousness that is defined by five-sense reality. There are so many more realities. Not layers or tiers, which imply a hierarchy, but concurrent dimensions which share energy movement collectively. 

That can feel like a lot of responsibility, but really it is very easy: recognize the vibration of Love and practice it in every interaction. Not just with other humans but with Nature, the Cosmos, the Everything. In every moment that you travel. Embodying Life Force. It requires nothing on your part other than recognition, choice, and practice. Enjoy the improvements it provides!

Beautiful. I’m not sure who is speaking today, someone new?

I only want to tell you that it does not matter who this is. Of course, people will want to know. It creates some kind of identity, which I am not. Just call me Love.