Teaching Each Other

In her book, “The Feel the Fear Guide to Lasting Love,” Susan Jeffers suggests that sharing what we know is a good way to show we love someone.

She was speaking about our traditional roles as men and women.  Men, easily, seem to know how to fix things. Where women are more practiced in the art of nurturing.  What if we made a conscious effort to teach each other what we know?

What a win-win situation this is!  I get to talk about something I know well and you get to learn something new.  Something in that process passes between us and strengthens our relationship.  Making us more than the sum of our parts.

I can think of no better way to give something of ourselves.  And won’t the receiver be so much richer for getting something so precious?  It is a yin-yang balance that just feels right. Doesn’t it just feel ancient and wise to pass along what we know?

This sharing of knowledge has plenty of benefits.  It makes us all more well-rounded, more capable people. It allows us to meld our complementary skills and talents.  Creating a better world for it. Surely, it would enhance the education of any child in the vicinity!

Even more importantly, it creates a bridge of understanding between us.  As I learn from you, I get a clearer picture of who you are and how you operate.

It’s a chance to show and tell how you see something.  Sharing your passion and wisdom on a subject.  People love to talk about themselves and their lives.  We all, in a way, really just want to be heard.  This transferring of a skill, talent or passion is a way to be heard while giving something in return.

Can we put a value on education?  On expansion?  The cost of a college degree or a certificate program?  What about a lifetime of learning, person-to-person, me to you, you to me?  As free as love.

The Unifying Lessons of Fiction

I feel blessed that I can do a variety of writing styles.  For a living, I write for business.  Marketing, technical, and content.  Which is, if I may say so myself, a nice range.

But I also really love writing from my heart for this Blog and some of my other projects like the book I’m working on called “Love Letters From Your Soul.”  I hope someday to publish a commercial personal/spiritual growth book.

Fiction probably brings me the most joy and delight.  I love to write rock fiction, or what I like to refer to as romance and passion in the exciting (and now relatively extinct) music business.  With, I always hope, a bit of growth mixed in.

I have to admit, more often than not, I am reading a spiritual/personal growth book.  I do get  into fiction now and again, though. I count myself as a Harry Potter devotee.  And I can gobble up books on Arthurian legend.  Not averse to a good cozy mystery either.  I have seen more than my share of movies and amazing films.  Soap operas have been my secret pleasure for years.  And am proud to count many fine story tellers among my close friends.  So I do know a thing or two about story.

For many years I held the notion that nonfiction expands and fiction is merely an escape.  But I am changing my mind about that.  I’m coming to see that fiction plays an important role in our growth as human beings.

Fiction, when done right, gives an intimate views into the minds and hearts of others.  We feel a connection with well crafted characters.  We see parts of ourselves acting through the story. And parts of others we know.  We may not like them all, but we can come to understand a little more about why they do the things they do. Good fiction makes clear the character’s motivation.  If you don’t buy that you’re unlikely to enjoy the story.  It’s like Science Fiction:  If they give you a good basis for belief, you will follow a good writer just about anywhere out there.

It is a study in understanding.  In the best cases, it can open us up to the experience of being the same. Seeing how we all share the same DNA and our motivated by many of the same things.  Even someone who appears to lead a live very different from ours.  It creates bridges into other worlds.  And has done so long before the Internet.

Story is a very powerful tool for learning, history, growth and motivation.  At the heart of all stories is a person, an entity, a living, breathing creature.  Relationship and struggle are the playthings of story, reflecting life as we know it.

At its best good fiction gives us a view of oneness. It talks of unity and how we are all the same.  The more we can feel that the better for all of us (for the one of us.)

Powerful Gifts

Just a thought ~ What if you could see every event, every encounter as an opportunity to give or receive a powerful gift? 

Instead of the usual stress around questions like:  Will I be accepted?  How do I get what I want?  What’s going to happen?  Wouldn’t it be better to see it as a chance to receive some knowledge, learn more about whoever you come in contact with?   You might practice seeing the other as a human being, just like you, trying to do his or her best.

You might also stay open for ways you can give.  How can I serve this person?  What can I do to ease suffering, spread love, practice more understanding?  What is it this person really needs?

There is a Japanese anime series called “InuYasha”.  In it a sacred jewel is shattered into pieces.  Each person who gets a shard of this jewel is imbued with special powers. What if you greeted every person as if they had a shard of that sacred jewel to give you? 

There are so many ways to give and receive when you are in contact with others.  What amazingly powerful gifts can be exchanged!