Shared humanity: I may not know what it’s like to ________ but I do know what it’s like to _________. 

Shared humanity allows for curiosity which is the gateway to a problem solving mindset. Shared humanity is win-win energy. Win-win energy allows for a feeling of connection and belonging. Persons who feel a sense of connection and belonging may naturally feel life experience is abundant in that which is possible. People who feel opportunities and resources are possible do not have a desire to harm themselves or another. 

The title of the first book I self published is The Story I Tell. How to make the Age of Disruption work for you.

In part three of storyitell, I share a series of strategies. It is these strategies, along with the 8 steps of the checkIN, that I have begun facilitating to 16 – 19 y/o who are on track to graduate from high school. It was in the second semester (current) where I realized that the students I am interacting with do not have context for what I am referring to as the Age of Disruption. It is simply their life. It’s like a fish and a lizard. The lizard thinks it needs to explain dry land, but the fish has no context. 

As I reflect and try to make sense of what’s happening (within the variety of roles I weave through regularly, or want to weave through), I realize that there is a linear interpretation of life. Using the fish and lizard example, the wisdom comes in the evolution of one’s linear experience of life (with age and experience comes wisdom). I think of the evolution of the fish, lizard, frog, wolf/dog, gorilla, human; and human being the advanced form with a frontal lobe that can think, reason and problem solve.

Check out this series of yoga poses I created for kids that attempts to capture the evolution of the nervous system, with the help of Jamie from Cosmic Kids Yoga:

I was not a smart student, but I did go to school and was exposed to ideas in Math and Science that seem to make more sense as I try to unveil the underbelly of what it means to feel good – and how to sustain a good feeling state regardless of situations, circumstances, and events that don’t feel good. 

I find that there is a lot to be curious about in the x/y axis. I think it’s the x axis that is linear. So that’s one direction. But what about the y axis that goes up and down? Now, only consider the fish and its evolution over time and space. Continually adapting and evolving to experience the environment it inhabits. In this example, the new fish is equipped with more natural ability and intuition to live and grow in the environment it is born into. The older fish dies out, and the new fish comes in new and improved to adapt and thrive, but over time will die out as well – and the cycle will continue.

How does this connect to the human? The new human enters into time and space equipped to adapt to the environment in the space and time it is born into. 

How can a human hold the opposing views of being relevant in a linear sense of time and space considering the wisdom of lived experience and context; AND allow for new and improved ways of existing in an evolving/expanding time and space (?)

As for the third axis that creates the sphere and a third dimension…(?) I’ll just reshare a video I made a year or so ago…

And now for today’s excerpt from Something More. Connecting to the pulse of a Shared Humanity…

There are three reflective questions embedded in this post:

1. What does ‘fresh and new’ feel like? or, what does the feeling state of ‘capable’ feel like?
2. What story do you tell about the possibility of good things happening to you? If you could be, do, or have anything without money, time, or other resources being of issue or concern, what would you want?
3. Would you use 1% of your day doing something that would make 99% of it feel more purposeful and meaningful? (hint: 14 minutes of Quiet Time with yourself)