The View From Here

I have practiced Family Law in Orange County for over 17 years. I’ve been a single Mother, raised teenagers, lead Girl Scouts, held a positions on the Little League Board and PTA when they were younger. I love politics and ran for political office in 2010. I'm currently elected to represent the 55th A.D. on the OCGOP Central Committee. I have learned from politics, litigation and parenting, that there is almost always some greater good to be pursued and fought for, and that there are many important things in life that can not be purchased. I have learned that my own voice is far too valuable to compromise. In my professional life, I have been with people in the midst of their most life altering and dark moments. I have traveled a path of transformation with them and right beside them. On this blog, I candidly share some of the mysteries that have been revealed to me in the context of my different roles in life. May these thoughts and experiences illuminate the paths of others as they have mine.

My words to live by:
Live by the sword, die by the sword. Never confuse reasonableness with weakness. Always believe you can lose. Judges are human and appeals are expensive. Peace is priceless.

“What if” and “If only” are phrases I work hard to keep out of my vocabulary. (Yesterday is forgiven, Tomorrow is not promised)

Judge not, that ye be not judged, Matthew 7:1. We each have our own journey.



Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Are you the Same or Different?

Why is it so hard for us as humans to see things other than through the lens of our own experience. Simply, it is because that is our experience. Experience that is colored by the animosity, anger, hatred, reproval, injustice and prejudice. Our experiences color, taint or enhance, our perception of the things we experience and perceive in the world.

What if, we took control and command of our lenses. What if we decided not to judge. Just for one day, what would happen. If we looked at, perceived and sensed things that occurred in the world or in our daily life, without attributing a value to it.

You would be surprised at how many things you judge. Not just the things that you think “offend” you, but simple things, like colors, like speech, words, gestures. You attribute meaning to many things. The meaning you attribute comes from you, your choice, based upon your beliefs and your experiences. Once you get in tune with your judgment and how often you engage it, your perception of it, or everything, of yourself and your world, will change. Your level of engagement in negative emotions will also change. Your level of comfort, peace and safety in your world will change.

You choose to respond. You choose to react. None of it is required, or inevitable, it is chosen. You can chose forgiveness. You can chose peace. You can chose safety. You can choose non-judgment daily.

There is so much bias in our world today and it fosters so much strife. Every person on every side of every debate, blames the people on the other side for being so imminently unreasonable and biased.

They all miss the point. You will never convince those who disagree with you. You will never win over those whose ideals and lifestyles are opposed to yours. How bad would it be, how would it really hurt you, to accept their diversity and difference? Not join it, just engage in non-judgment and accept. How would it make you better, would you feel better, sleep better, have greater peace, if you shared with them your animosity and hatred? Does holding onto your animosity and hatred, help you....?

A quote attributed to Nelson Mandela is something like this, holding onto hatred and unforgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting your enemy to die. This great thought, comes from the man who embraced his prison guards when he was released after nearly three decades imprisoned.

Yet most of us can not even muster common courtesy to those whose political and religious views are different than ours, and certainly to advocate for those different than us to maintain the right to be different than us has become almost unspeakable.

So, if you are not willing to try acceptance as a path to inner peace and you remain intent on staying in your corner of animosity and hatred, consider a broader perspective. It was not all that long ago that we were burning people at the stake for being different. That’s okay, so long as you are not the one considered to be “different”. Now that we don’t do that, is the fight to make others “different’ and be part of the same-ness group really working for you? How long till your not same-enough?

Freedom must be for all or it is for none. Peace is priceless, but it is also free. Non-judgment would cost you nothing. Releasing animosity would would harm no one, but it will bring peace to anyone who simply chooses to release it.