4 Practical Ways Of Dealing With Differences To Make A Difference In Your Life!
This week, next Sunday to be exact (the third Sunday of January), is World Religions Day. This is a day in which the world’s amazing collage of different religions is honored. It was started by Baha’i’s in the United States but has slowly been spreading throughout the world.
On this day throughout the world interfaith conferences, dinners and dialogs are hosted in order to promote communication and understanding amongst the world’s religions. According to the Baha’i website, the purpose is “to call attention to the harmony of the various religions’ spiritual principles and to emphasize that religion is the motivating force for world unity.”
As I pondered the significance of this day, I was struck by the intention behind this proclamation. As stated in the Baha’i writings, “Religion should be the cause of love and agreement, a bond to unify all mankind for it is a message of peace and goodwill to man from God” and “Religion is the greatest of all means for the establishment of order in the world and for the peaceful contentment of all that dwell therein.”
We know that this idea certainly has not always played out this way.
As women spiritual leaders we are faced everyday with differences. These differences in the people we come across can range from differences in age, race, gender, socio-economic background, cultural background and, of course, religious background. How can we be messages “of peace and goodwill to the world” and help to “be the cause of love and agreement” when faced with these differences?
There are four important keys to this process:
1. Introspection
First of all, we must take a good hard look at ourselves. It is important as spiritual leaders that we understand our Achilles’ heel – our personal wounds and sensitive spots. If we are not clear on these and actively working on healing them, it is probable that they will come out as judgment and projection onto others.
We also must remember to take nothing personally and we are wonderful beings. In the words of Ernest Holmes, “Nothing can touch us unless we let it touch us. Refuse to have the feelings hurt. Refuse to receive anyone’s condemnation. In the independence of your own mentality, believe and feel that you are wonderful. This is not conceit, it is the truth.”
We are in control of ourselves and our own pain. We must be able to not take things personally especially when dealing with “differences”.
2. Open Heart/Open Mind
Stephen Covey exemplifies this in the principle: Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood. (Seven Basic Habits of Highly Effective People (copyright: Stephen Covey Associates))
We should go into encounters with others with the intention of understanding them. This means making sure that we are truly listening to them – not thinking about how we are going to counter what they are saying. Our focus should be on them and what they are thinking, feeling and saying; and we should be doing this with open heart and an open mind. Listen and look for hidden wants and needs of the person and also look for their strengths and hopes. This can be done when encountering one person or even when attempting to understand an entire group of people.
3. Find the common ground
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” – From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks
So, it now follows that from knowing yourself and listening to others with an open heart and mind, you can begin to find some commonalities. These commonalities are the field Rumi is referring to where we can meet people who are different from us and set aside those differences so that we can connect with them more fully.
Leonard Pitts, Jr., a columnist for the Miami Herald stated in a speech made February 11, 2002, at the Friends Select School in Philadelphia,
“Unity is not two people clinging together because they both fear they’re about to be annihilated. Nor, for that matter, is unity two people standing together and pretending there are no differences between them. … Unity is respecting difference, honoring difference, valuing difference, learning from difference, but understanding that difference is not destiny. … And that, if there are 10 things that divide us, there are 100 by which we are drawn together. If there are 100 points of contention, there are 1,000 of common cause.”
4. Value the differences
So by this point we have examined ourselves and listened to others with an open heart and mind. Through this exercise we have found both commonalities and differences. We have met the others in our field of commonality, but this does not imply that we should ignore or toss away the differences.
What should we do with them? We should value them for it is through them that we can learn and grow both mentally and spiritually. We each do not have the corner on all knowledge and truth and it is in meeting others who are different that we can be charged with new knowledge and fresh energy.
“Difference must be not merely be tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic.” – Audre Lorde
This article was written by Patricia Selmo, an Interfaith seminarian, certified life coach, energy healer and entrepreneur. She is the co-founder of the International Association of Women Spiritual Leaders: www.iawsl.com, and is a practicing life coach, spiritual guide and healer helping people to live the life of their dreams: www.theblissfulsoul.com
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Tags: common ground, leadership, spiritual, strengths, valuing differences, World Religions Day