Oh, the boxes we can put ourselves in. I posted a video on my Facebook page by Goalcast called: Meghan Markle: The Princess and the Box. Before posting it, I watched the piece with my 11-year-old daughter. I was moved to tears, to the point where she asked me if I was o.k. I mean, there were waterfalls coming out of my eyes. On Facebook, I wrote, “Tears of inspiration, love, and hope ran down my face as I watched this story, reading it to my daughter sitting next to me. Thank you to all the women and men who teach their children not to compromise who they are to fit inside any box. Loving and accepting who we are is essential for a healthy and happy life.”  As you probably guess by the name of my blog and Facebook page, I write from a loving place. Some may call me an empath, others will call me sentimental, mushy or emotional.  Whatever the case, I have a deep love for humanity.

I was saddened to read a comment that made all the hype about Meghan Markle entering the Royal Family about race, and they were angry because there have been bi-racial people throughout time, “Why all the sudden no one recognizes that!!???” It made me realize just how many boxes we put ourselves in.

When I watched the video originally, I was so moved because I thought of all the metaphorical boxes we put ourselves into: Sex, race, sexually-orientation, religious beliefs, political beliefs, IQ, education status,  single parent, stay-at-home parent, working parent, and on and on. However, even with all those boxes I didn’t even consider the boxes we put ourselves in about our views as a whole. I didn’t think about how we can create so much unhappiness within ourselves creating absolutes such as, no one, all, everyone, always, forever, and never. Those boxes can be even detrimental to our very core. Am I holding myself back from a better life?

When we are speaking for entire cultures, races, nations, religions, men, women, LGBT, time, and so on, we lose. It is our loss because we’re not looking at individuals. We aren’t seeing humanity. We’re making assumptions of ALL and EVERY. I’ve caught myself doing this, and I’ve seen how others have kept themselves trapped in a box because of it. How many of us are exactly like our mothers, fathers, sisters, or brothers? Do you have all the exact beliefs as your best friend? Do you agree with everything everyone says within your church, school, work, home, or museum? If you look at a painting do you think you would interpret it differently than another man and/or woman? Do you ever change your mind based on new information coming in? How can we judge any form of “ALL”?  What do we know about the future an hour from now? How about five years, ten years, or twenty years? We have no idea, and when we think that we know it all, we are putting out negative energy. What we know is what is happening right now, for ourselves. That’s it. My children are at school, they may have left here telling me one thing and when they come home, I get a completely different interpretation of events and people. This is life.

This really opened my eyes to the pain we can create for ourselves. I see how when we think we can judge beyond what we know in absolutes, which is not much. We have the ability to hurt ourselves and others. I can’t speak for everyone; I can speak for me. I can question my thoughts, feelings, actions, and reactions to what someone else says or does. I can ask myself how I really feel about it. I can question if my thoughts are contributing to the life I want to be living. If the thoughts are NOT helping me be the best version of myself, I can change them.

With Love and Gratitude,

Rachael Wolff ©2018