What Would You Do?

I know that it could not just be me who know people who comment about everything and everybody....."Why does she have that outfit on?" "Why does she wear her hair like that?" "Why are they dancing like that?" "Why would they put that sign right there?"....blah, blah, blah, blah!!!

Now there are times when we see something or someone, and we can't help but say something. For instance, when Whitney Houston would come out in public looking like something just wasn't right, many of us had something to say:

"Bobby got her on crack." "She looks a hot mess." "She is destroying her gift."......

We are all probably guilty of making comments about people and things...However, when it is habitual ...IT DRIVES ME CRAZY!

In my all time favorite book, The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle talks about the idea of trying not to judge everything. Like, just eating dinner and not thinking about whether or not it is good, or maybe looking at a person and not judging them at all. This is called just letting everything and everyone BE. I consciously try and practice this, and it makes life so much more enjoyable.

For instance, I was in Wholefoods on Sunday, and there was this older lady with a huge butt. I'm not talking about a big butt, but she had a HUGE butt. Yea, I looked at her butt, but I refused to let myself say one word. I just looked at her butt, looked at it again, and kept on waiting for my omelet to be prepared. Why would I waste my time worrying or talking about that lady's butt when I have lots of things going on in my life that I need to focus on and work on?

Really, take one entire day and try not to judge anything or anybody, just let things and people BE and see how much more peaceful your day will be. 

When I'm talking to someone who seems to have something to say about everybody and everything, in my mind, I am saying things like "Why do you care about the dress that she has on?" or "People can wear their hair anyway that they want to."  Eventually, the negativity dampens my mood, and I am literally ready to cover my ears and run away:

So, there are two questions on my mind when this happens: Why do some people feel the need to make comments about everything and everybody, and what should people do who are subjected to this negativity.....

I have lots of theories as to why people feel the need to judge everything and everybody...They are trying to find something to talk about, they are unhappy with themselves, maybe they were raised in a negative household and are unaware that they do it, and my theories go on and on and on......

However, maybe we should ask people who do this WHY?

My second question is what should people do who are subjected to this. And, I have some theories about this as well....Maybe we could say "Why do you care about that?" or we could smile and not say anything, or maybe we could counter the negativity with something positive. These are the only solutions that I have come up with, and I am not sure if they are solutions.

Normally, I will limit my contact what that person; I won't hang out with him/her much, and I make sure that my conversations with him/her are short and sweet.

Please, help me with this.. What do you do in this situation?

"The Power of Now" in action

In another one of my post titled The Third Jesus, I mentioned a book by Eckhart Tolle titled The Power of Now. In this book, Tolle talks about being present wherever you are. For some people this concept is foreign, so let me show you what it looks like.



The Bay!

One of my best friends, Deitrea Martir, met me in San Francisco for a short vacation. We really didn't have a plan; we were going to see what happened.

The first afternoon, we went to a roof top and had lunch. We really didn't talk much about the lunch, the restaurant etc. We mainly just sat there for about an hour or two and were present in that moment. We were on vacation, there was no where that we really needed to be, so we just sat there and savored the moments.

During the stay, we had an impromptu dinner with an old college friend, biked the Golden Gate Bridge, shopped, and sometimes we just sat. I don't know about Deitrea, but I felt present in every moment and did not feel the need to label everything as good or bad; it just was.

Here are someone of the images that we noticed and appreciated on our biking excursions:




This big hill that we biked! I thought we would never reach the top!





That big hill behind us made our bodies notice it.

 


Cathedral of Art



The Golden Gate Bridge



The Bay




The boat that took us back to the starting point. We were going to bike back,

but we thought,

"What the heck?" lets boat back.



To get to the place where you can be in the Now is a process, and it does not happen overnight. But, if you practice being where you are, it becomes a habit, and we all know that habits are hard to break.

The Third Jesus by Deepak Chopra

(The statements in this post only represent my thoughts and the thoughts of people like me. I am not writing The Truth, but I am writing MY TRUTH.)

I've been on a spiritual journey for quite awhile. It started when I was quite young, 25 or 26, living in the big city of Detroit, real far, it felt, from everything that I knew. For me, this was great. I got the opportunity to really think about me and the life that I wanted to live.

In the beginning, I started by reading several books by Iyanla Vanzant and Dr. Phil. Yes, Dr. Phil from the Dr. Phil show. His book, Self Matters, is awesome. I was also attending Word of Faith Christian Center led by Bishop Keith A. Butler where I learned more about The Bible during the three years that I attended his church, than I did all of the previous years of my life, and know that I was raised in the church. Boy was I reading and studying. Finally, In Detroit, reflecting back, when my spiritual journey had gone as far as it could go there, I moved on.

In DC, I continued to read and study. Because there are so many people in the DC area with so many different stories, I began to become more accepting, tolerant, and appreciative of different people, ideas and thoughts. Once I got to this place, life really became more fulfilling and meaningful. It's so freeing to allow people and situations to BE instead of trying to change them.

Some of the books that have been instrumental to me on this Journey is The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle who states in his book that " Realize deeply that Now is all you ever have. Make The Now the primary focus of your life." I try to enjoy wherever I am and not judge every situation. Some things just are. They do not have to be good or bad but is. Sounds crazy, but try it, if only for a few minutes, just be wherever you are with no judgement.

Another book that really fed my spiritual journey is Love and Awakening by John Welwood. In this book Welwood states: "When we are cut off from something inside ourselves, then it feels all the more urgent to get it from someone else. This urgency often has a life-or-death emotional charge. And we direct that at others, it pushes them away. But when you give yourself what you need, other people feel less pressured and that lets people move toward you."  WOW!  Stop and read again. This man is deep.



The Bible has been the primary source on this journey. Now, I love to read Old English so I prefer the King James' version of The Bible, but this year I have been reading The One Year Bible where a person can read the entire Bible in one year. I love it!  I don't have to give much explanation for The Bible, it speaks for itself: It is the master blueprint for life.

Excuse me for going around the way to get to The Third Jesus, but I needed you to know how I came to read this book in the first place: Andrew Young, former Mayor of Atlanta, mentioned it in a speech, and I thought that maybe it could add to my spiritual journey.

This book takes biblical scriptures and look at Jesus from different perspectives.  He discusses the idea of us raising our level of consciousness to a God-consciousness. For example, he states that in order "to bring peace to yourself, you must quell your own violence; the enemy outside serves only to mirror the enemy inside. Your ability to remain nonviolent depends on a shift in consciousness, and if you are successful in changing yourself, reality will mirror the change back to you." WOW!!!!

At the end of the book, Chopra offers fifteen steps to God-Consciousness. If you are at the beginning or the middle of your journey, check this book out, but if you are not into abstract thinking, then this might not be the book for you.

Not sure where you are on your journey or if you are on a journey at all, but I hope that you are living the life that you like and is living it consciously.