I got a text this morning from a friend with a screen shot of a post from someone she follows on IG. In the post, the woman (not my friend) was denouncing all energy work as the devil’s work. She was warning her followers about the evilness of ‘new age energy healing’ like Reiki, etc. The funny thing is that this woman used to call herself a ‘healer.’ She used to practice energy work with clients and from what I understand was a pretty big deal. (I never knew her or what she did.) But then, apparently, she found God and now considers herself a good Christian. And according to her, good Christians should not participate in anything energetic.
For sure there’s a MASSIVE amount of unpacking I would love to do in regards to her post, but I’ll try to keep it simple…and keep it to what I find to be true to me.
(Side note: That “what I find to be true to me” is key. In my post about having covid, I spoke about what I found to be true to ME. Unfortunately, a reader felt I was pushing an agenda and said I was “most likely killing someone with my post.” Fortunately, she unfollowed me so know longer has to listen to what she does not believe in.)
But maybe that shouldn’t be a side note after all. Maybe that’s the whole point of this post. Why is it necessary to reach out to someone with whom you disagree just to make sure they know you think they’re wrong? Why do some feel so compelled to broadcast that a certain group of people are bad? Why is it impossible for some to just scroll on by?
Fear. Fear is a very powerful thing, right? If we believe something, but someone we know and thought was like minded doesn’t, does that mean we’re wrong? Let’s face it, no one wants to be wrong. Most of us feel ‘safety in numbers.’ So the more people who believe what we believe or practice what we practice, the safer we feel. So we do our best to convince everyone to believe what we believe. I will admit, I’ve been there too. Looking back, I know I’ve tried to convince people to believe what I believed so I felt vindicated for believing it.
But what if we could find that safety in numbers regardless of what we believe? What if we could find that safety…that lack of fear…because we simply love someone and believe that they are a good person?
I’ve spoken about my tribe, my diverse group of friends before. We are conservative, liberal, gay, straight, young, older, vaccinated, unvaccinated, cat people, dog people, Christians, Spiritualists, introverts, extroverts, wine lovers, beer lovers…and I drink White Claw.
But these are the people in my life. These are the people I love fiercely. These are the people I feel safe with.
No matter what they think.
Live and learn with love…