Waking Up: Ep 13 of Evolving Democracy

People don’t usually wake up all at once. They wake up with each conversation, each new piece of information, and every time they’re willing to be curious about their perspectives.Think about how we wake up in the mornings. There’s the sudden, startling alarm clock waking us up, and then there’s waking up gradually, with the sunrise. When we start seeing the world differently, it usually happens more gradually, with new information and ideas entering our consciousness a little at a time.We don’t have to try to change someone’s opinions who believes the polar opposite of what we do. That would be counter-productive. But helping someone become more resolute — moving from indifference to concern, or from concern to motivation to act — can work. We have the most influence on people who share some point of commonality with us.We also talked about not shaming someone for not “waking up” sooner, or for “waking up” only when the issues personally impacted them. Every crack becomes an entry point for the person to begin to see the world differently.Changing your opinion isn’t automatically growth. We defined growth as moving towards greater wisdom, greater compassion, choosing love over fear, and being more concerned with the common good than with their own personal welfare.Let’s put love into action. Together.Joni Miller, Ph.D., is a writer, researcher, spiritual coach, and speaker who uses her knowledge, education, and love of all things spiritual to help spiritual wanderers find a place they can call home, navigating by the light of Love. www.SpiritualGeography.net Get full access to Spiritual Geography at jonimiller.substack.com/subscribe