4.1
June 18, 2020

We’re Living in a Dirty Diaper World—& it’s Time to Change.

Do you ever feel like you don’t belong here?

I’m not talking about in your family, or in your country. I’m talking about living on planet Earth.

I’ve had this feeling since I was born.

As a child, I would observe people. Those in my family were unhappy, violent even. I grew up in a sterile suburb, outside of Los Angeles. I looked at the houses and people living separately in their homes and fighting for more sh*t. Materialism. It just did not seem right.

My parents used to love to say, “If you don’t eat everything on your plate, we will send it to Africa. You should be grateful.” I likely asked them to send it to Africa once, and was hit for having a “smart” mouth. In my family, there was not enough food for the children in my home, and we were given any food we dared leave on our plate for future meals, sentenced to our room, and sometimes hit for not eating everything: as an added bonus.

I just did not get it.

As a child, I used to see orbs or spirits. I stopped seeing them for a long time as this was considered crazy, and not something to mention to anyone in my family, or outside of it. Seeing and hearing spirit was crazy. Living in fear, hunger, and anger was considered normal.

I never understood the makeup of our planet. Certainly, I did not understand the environment surrounding me. I did not understand why it was okay for some to have a lot, and most to have little. I was told, as I grew up, that those with a lot picked themselves up by their bootstraps and got on with it. They were to be admired and looked up to.

Of course, I was also instilled with the belief that “money does not grow on trees,” which is a rather odd saying since without trees and plants we would not be able to breathe—we would not have oxygen. Trees actually give us our greatest currency on this planet. They give us life.

The teaching of the separateness of humans did not resonate with my child self. It made no sense to me when I was small, for I had been born on this planet knowing that we are all connected. We are energy and connected.

Though I was brought up in a repressed and angry Catholic home, I did not buy into this notion that we were born in sin, had to repent, and that the priest only could save us. Well, and God of course. Though, the God I was taught I should believe in I had massive misgivings about. This God would beat the sh*t out of you for any infraction.

In Catholic Catechism, I was taught that looking at a new dress in the window and wanting it was a sin. You look at enough dresses, you will go straight to Hell.

The weird thing was, I felt I was already living in Hell. I used to ask the stars in the sky (my connection to God) to take me home, I had had enough of this planet.

Fast-forward to adulthood.

After many years and many lessons, it came to me that we will keep coming back here to this planet. I was having a hard time understanding why most people did not act like, let alone understand that, we are all connected as one: we are energy. Even quantum physics backs up this oneness: not just Buddhism, Hinduism, or other belief systems.

So here is the thing that I realized: we as people are in charge of our inner environment, which is connected to our external environment, and if we don’t take care of our inner environment, will we ever fix our external?

Okay, perhaps I am being a bit selfish.

I don’t want to keep coming back to this planet. At least not the way it is now.

But, if our internal environment changes our external environment, why is my external not as I would wish you may ask. Actually, a lot of it is. But not as much as it could be.

Here is the thing: as more of us realize that our internal environment helps to change our external, we will reach a tipping point. We are already in the midst of a tipping point, I believe.

We are tipping now.

So, if enough of us realize that we need to work on ourselves, we will rise to another level of living on this planet, which, in a way, means we would be off this planet.

The dirty diaper metaphor refers to this: do we really want to keep coming back to a planet where we expect others to change and take care of us? Whilst we still refuse to change and take care of ourselves?

You want peace in the world?

Great! Do you have peace in your own life?

You want to be treated with love and compassion?

Great! Do you treat all beings and Mother Earth with love and compassion?

You don’t want plastic covering the earth?

Great! Have you stopped using plastic?

You are angry at others’ behavior?

Great! Have you addressed all your shadows, and anger inside of you, and come to accept and release them in love?

I’m not asking for much, just that we have some personal insight into ourselves, and how we can be the best person we can be.

Now, I totally get if you are born into oppression and starvation in a war-torn country—you are just fighting for your life.

For those of us born with more chances, I think we need to use them. I think we need to work on cleaning our own dirty diapers and, once we have a clean diaper so to say, we can move out to those around us. We also owe it to those born in Syria or Iraq or those with fewer opportunities than us. Don’t forget, we are all connected.

I sometimes wonder how the rich, who hoard for themselves, will do next round born as a poor woman in, say, India. Or, how the one who thinks Black people have it easy, will do born Black in a ghetto next round.

If we stink of dirty diapers and are trying to change the world, then we likely won’t have much luck with that. Well, we may have some luck. I mean, I read Trump wears adult diapers, and he has done pretty well for himself on the backs of others. But, I don’t think we really want to continue down that road or have that as our ideal.

I mean, maybe you do?

As for me though, I am tired of coming back to this planet again and again, and living out these lives that are separate, when in fact we are all connected. I know I can shout this from the rooftops, trust me I tried a bit of that. It doesn’t really work.

I just know I need to be the best version of myself: peace, love, empathy, and harmony.

I’m tired of the dirty diaper.

I want to graduate to at least grade school next round.

~

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