The Healing of a Wise Heart

My heart is open to the almost 40,000 people who have been killed in Gaza since October 7th, two-thirds of them being women and children.

My heart is also open to the almost 400 Israelis who were killed in the massacre at the music festival in the Negev desert that began the war.

My heart is also open to Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet, along with the Hamas fighters whose core commitment is to destroy Israel.

How can that possibly be? How can my heart be open to those who have died and to those who have killed? Because all these people, as they are dying and as they are taking lives, are revealing the insanity of war.

War wasn’t always viewed this way. For most of the time humanity has been on Earth, war was glorified. But we began to get inklings from the Vietnam War that maybe this wasn’t so when we saw videos of what happened in the jungle and heard the soldier’s stories.

But we weren’t as technologically connected as we are now, and it takes time for a deep belief held by the collective mind of humanity to grow and mature.

We are at a shifting point and the Israeli Gaza war is inviting more and more of us to see the irrationality of solving our challenges through conflicts. As a D-Day veteran said, when asked what he hoped people remember, he said, “War brings nothing but misery.” When the interviewer then asked if he felt like the world had learned its lesson, he said, “No way. Too much conflict between people.”

It amazes me that Hamas thought it was a really good thing to go to the music festival and kill, rape, and maim. It also amazes me that Netanyahu believes that war will eradicate Hamas when in reality he is single-handedly creating tens of thousands of more terrorists.

Hamas and Israel are committed to the destruction of each other. Irrationality! There is no good outcome from this! This war also reveals the insanity of revenge – you did this to me 200 years ago or five decades ago or yesterday and that means I have the right to try to destroy you.

But life is a constantly evolving process and for most of the time humanity has lived on this planet we have been caught in the kind of mind that sees them and us, I am right, and you are wrong, I am better than you because of my religion, the color of my skin, my gender, my sexual orientation, my political beliefs. This has caused untold heartache in every nook and cranny of our planet and is now fueling the political polarization we see happening all over the world.

It is time for humanity to grow up!

More and more of us are maturing into the kind of mind that sees we are one family, brothers and sisters living on a beautiful jewel of a planet. And there is so much more we share in common than there are differences.

Can you imagine a world where challenges are taken care of through communication rather than conflict? Can you imagine a world where people feel empowered not by overpowering but by reaching out, listening, and caring? Can you imagine a world where every person is valued exactly as they are? Can you see a world where immigrants are valued rather than being seen as pariahs?

You are reading this blog because you are a part of this healing that is happening on this planet. It is showing up one person at a time, one interaction at a time. For you, it will show up when you no longer see people through the lens of good/bad, right/wrong. Each person operates out of the set of beliefs whose foundation was formed when they were a child. And they don’t need our judgment, they need our understanding.

So, are you willing, every morning, to hold the intention that your interactions come from your wise heart rather than your reactive mind? And are you willing to stay with your heart when you fall short on this? As Gandhi once said, “Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man whom you may have seen and ask yourself if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him.”

I would add, ask yourself if your action is going to help bring humanity beyond their addiction to war, not only between countries but also in relationships, and the messiness of political discourse.

Just like the ocean was made out of drops of water, your life can make a huge difference in this very challenging but also possibly very healing time for humanity.

If you connected with this blog and want to explore my message further, I invite you to listen to my upcoming radio show on Dreamvisions 7 Radio: Finding Peace, No Matter What is Happening. It will air on Thursday, June 27th and July 4th at 5am and 5pm HERE. After the 4th (Happy fourth!), it will be available on demand, along with every other radio show I’ve ever done HERE. Please feel free to explore my catalog and listen to topics that call to you.

Offerings:

It’s TOMORROW! The Free Live Call: Shortcuts to Peace and Ease (June 25th from 5:30pm to 7:00pm PDT)

We all long for the deep peace that comes when we are no longer struggling with life. Join Mary in exploring some powerful tools to cut through struggle so you can know the joy, the ease, and the peace of being fully alive.

It’s not too late to sign up! Don’t forget, if you can’t make it on the day, you can still send in questions, and listen to the recording after the event. I hope to see you there! Click HERE to learn more and register.