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Picture this: you’re sitting on a bench in a beautiful state park on a glorious sunny day.

Everything around you encourages your body, mind, and spirit to be relaxed, happy, at peace, and free.

As you gaze out at the lake, you visualize how you are going to spend your “being time” and how you are going to spend your “doing time.”

“Being time” will involve sitting in silence, inhaling and exhaling deeply and slowly, meditating, enjoying the present moment, and taking in the sacredness of nature.

“Doing time” will involve tasting all the assorted flavors of the food you brought with you and eating more slowly and mindfully than usual. Afterward, you’ll take a healing walk on just the right trail.

You feel so good. Life has been crowded with endless lists of to-dos and you are proud of yourself for carving out self-care and healing time. What a magical day…

Until it isn’t.

As you are meditating and relishing the silence, you hear a man on your left swearing at his dog. He goes on and on, ranting and raving. “Stupid animal. What the hell are you doing? You’re such a pain in the ass.”

On your right, you hear a woman talking to her dog in the kindest and most loving tone imaginable. “Oh, sweetie. Good job. Way to go. I love you so much.”

Surprise. Meditation time just became a real-time exercise in detached observation, inner questioning, and non-judgment.

Do you observe the two different attitudes neutrally?

On the surface, the man with the terrible attitude seems to be “the bad one” and the woman with the loving demeanor seems to be “the good one.”

What if you suspend your usual judgments of people for a moment? What if you choose to detach yourself from assumptions, send vibrations of love to both of them, and see what happens within you?

What if the woman is only nice to her dog and not as loving to all the people in her life? What if she abuses them and only feels stable when she is with her dog?

What if the man just found out that he has cancer, or his partner wants a divorce, or he is lonely and frustrated because his kids don’t call him? What if he is a good soul who doesn’t know how to manage the tough stuff life is handing him?

No one would fault us for assuming that the woman is kind and the man is mean, but the truth is that there is usually more to how someone behaves than what we see on the surface.

Everyone has a story and an intricate background of generational history and personal experiences.

In the deepest part of your inner mind, send all our global brothers and sisters vibrations of healing, light, and love. Suspend judgment. Discard assumptions.

Simply love.

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