Check your inner Big Brother
By Nancy B. Loughlin
Published in News Press on June 27, 2017
We need to be free to say what’s on our minds.
That isn’t always the case.
In the United States, as long as we aren’t threatening people, our comments generally do not result in jail time.
Yet, when The Powers That Be can’t suppress, often, the mob will raise its pitchforks and detonate a dose of playground justice.
The oppressor can be either the government or the public. To the victim, the distinction between the two is trivial. Both oppressors have chilling effects. Both oppressors can inflict hardship: emotional, professional, physical and financial.
Both are powerful jailers regardless if the imprisonment is behind bars or via social ostracism.
We live, indeed, under the tyranny of the majority.
Spiritual beings do not participate in this bullying, regardless of the posse’s demands.
We may disagree, but we do not push to punish nor literally or metaphorically incarcerate anyone for their opinions. Both Ted Nugent and Kathy Griffin are safe.
Checking Our Inner Big Brother
- Stop being offended.
We are not our opinions. When we forget this, we are less likely to change our points of view when offered better information. The opposing viewpoints become threats to our very identities. When we feel vulnerable in this way, we have negative, sometimes violent reactions to others’ expression – and we fight to the death.
- Seize the opportunity.
When someone articulates a point of view, one revolutionary or ignorant, whether it is elegant or crude, it isn’t necessarily the moment for persuasion.
Ask, “Why do you think that?” Listen. Really listen. Allow yourself to be unsure. If this person doesn’t ask for your thoughts, don’t offer them. Say, “Thanks. That’s interesting.” If this person does solicit your opinion and you smell a confrontation, you don’t have to accept every duel challenge.
- Focus on you.
Instead, step into your light, and be the loving example of the principles you embrace. If your light is bright enough, people will join you. But they will only do so when their dignity is intact.
Spiritual beings do not punish people, consume our energies with retaliation and terror, organize boycotts or call people idiots. We don’t force people to crawl. None of that comes from love. It’s aggressive, brutal, and impatient. It’s the triumph of war and a celebration of force.
Spiritual beings don’t shut people up. They give all a chance to talk and to be heard.
When people are sagging under the heavy loads of forced silence, it is only a matter of time before they explode.
