agree to disagree

Politics in the media have never really interested me. I have a bit of an aversion to things that feel tense or dramatic to me, or that seem as though they stem from fear and competition. As such, I respectfully bowed out of paying close attention up until the 2008 election.

A few months ago on a flight to California, I watched one of our Presidential nominees on the Today show with family by their side and found myself silently lashing out the same hateful, combative comments I claim to happily unidentify with.

Thanks to yoga, I have learned what it means to literally check yourself before you wreck yourself, so I shut down the peanut gallery comments and experimented with watching the remainder of the interview with a more open mind. 

The result was interesting: instead of frustration and panic, I felt compassion in the form of hope. I hoped for the most beneficial outcome not only for our country, but for the nominee and supporters I strongly disagreed with. I noticed we were all passionate about things like the wellbeing of our nation, even though we might express that passion very differently.

I hoped that we could all return to the sense of peace we are born with; that we might act from a place of clear, whole hearted discernment instead of unclear influence and ego, whatever the circumstances.

This does not mean checking out and being completely passive, shunning the need vote, letting the world do whatever it wants to do, and saying good bye and good riddance. It does mean taking responsibility for our thoughts and desires, and how that dictates our re/actions. Watching that interview without letting the devil on my shoulder spit expletives at the screen actually made me a better listener; it helped me put my thoughts together on my personal stance, values and goals.

The practice of listening with a less biased perception made me recognize similarities like the resilience for what we believe to be true, even if I was not privy to what the other person believed in. In a weird way, I found commonalities in our differences, much like discovering a shared trait in a person we might not get along with, and it felt so much better than ranting about it all.

Click here to read the full post, including what it means to me to consider agreeing to disagree without judgement or combat, and to check in with ourselves first.

Haters gonna hate, debaters gonna debate, I know many of us just wanna shake it off by word vomiting on each other on social media until one of us is proven "right." Hold your own; agree to disagree. All is well.

What values do you identify with or against, and how can you use that to hold your own in a way that reflects how you truly feel, whether you agree or disagree with someone else?

Read on for a clean ice cream recipe [I think we can all agree that healthy food does not have to suck], Breakti workshops in NY and California!, my Costa Rica retreat in February!, good music and more.

Photo: Renee Choi.