Roots Matter
Without roots, a majority of plants cannot grow. While you and I are not bound to the soil, we are bound to our history. History, doesn't have feelings, moral, or ethics, it's just a past that we've lived through. The important part about our roots is that they have directly helped define who we are today. History can be ignored at the peril of the ignorant.
What do our roots or history have to do with empathy? Well, empathy for others starts with empathy for yourself. Empathy for yourself involves who you are today and who you were yesterday. Yesterday matters whether you like it or not and it has directly influenced who you are today. I cannot ignore that I was short with my son yesterday OR the fact that I watched my kids play amazingly together. By recognizing the yin and yang of what brought me to today, I am now more empowered to use this self-empathy inventory to be better today.
Evolve, one day at a time.
Care for your roots, acknowledge them as they are part of you. For me, my tension lately has been trying to be someone other than myself. My vision is in conflict with my roots. I feel the need to be a buttoned up academic and not a nerdy athletic team captain. All of those around me that study and share empathetic practice are academic, well written, and seemingly calm. Their amazing mold fits them. My roots, history, and life energy isn't supposed to be fit into their mold. I must appreciate and create my own.
So, yesterday was about seeds and today is about roots. I am an always recovering decathlete, my roots are deep there. I am almost 20 years past my last competition and I still dream about the dedication, camaraderie, practices, and competition. I've been struggling to figure out how to bring elements of this into Empathy Lab and have recently sown a few seeds to grow.
Today I lead my first official weekly Empathy Practice. I was the only athlete because I wanted to see how it felt to lead, I was nervous, and I knew that if I didn’t do it by myself right at 9a, I would procrastinate and talk myself out of it. It was a quick, 30 minute session to get myself moving, thinking, and back into the practice of self-care for greater things. This is habit that I am going to keep and invite others to join. Practice sign ups coming soon, email me if you are interested.
So many thoughts, but I better end this.
With energy,
sD
PS. From some VERY short research. Air plants have roots, they just do different things like hold on to surfaces. Moss and liverworts are non-vascular plants which means they don't have roots either. The more you know!! Biophilia!
