Oh, the Humanity!

I often pose the question: 'Can you soften to your humanity?' But what does that look like in practice? I offer the following questions to contemplate.

• Can you feel affection for yourself? For your life?

• Can you feel tenderness for the 'you' who is living through her experiences? Her challenges? Her intense emotions?

• If you have made a mistake lately or acted in a way that hurt another person, with what emotion are you holding yourself, with what judgment? How might you loosen the grip of that holding? Who is held in that holding? Can you feel affection for her?

• Can you open your heart to accept the parts of you you find difficult? The one still grieving that terrible loss? The one holding onto that grudge? The one who gets shy at meetings? The one who...

• Can you appreciate the courage, the effort, the tenacity this human life asks of us? And then can you find affection for the 'you' caught in its currents, or tangled in its weeds, who is doing her best?

I invite you to add your own questions. What helps you open your heart to yourself?

Credit: friend of Pierre Bonnard, pictured.