The People in Your Life Are There For You To Help Them. That Is One Reason They Are in Your Life...

...and vice versa. And The people in my life are there for me to help and vice versa. We are our brothers and sisters keepers. Do not believe those who tell you otherwise. They are lying to you. They are trying to deceive you. I believe this with every fiber of my being. I believe that once we reach a certain level of personal, psychological and spiritual maturity, this idea of being our brothers and sisters keeper becomes a natural awareness that also becomes all but impossible for us not to gently move into. This awareness is available to anyone. It is not reserved for saints and martyrs and mystics and gurus and people "The Empire" consciousness will label as having poor boundaries or poor ego strength or poor self esteem or a poor locus of control.

Some people will immediately allow themselves to move into a place of defensiveness after reading the above paragraph. They will automatically and reflexively go to the place of  immediately thinking, "but what about taking care of myself first." Or, "but what about putting on my own oxygen mask first." Or, "I can't really do anything for someone else until I get my own house in order first, right?" I understand the impulse to go there. This however, is not an either/or situation. It is a both/and situation. This is where a high number of people lose their way. It is in this black or white thinking. And to be honest, it is also probably fueled at least to some extent by a certain degree of selfishness as well. It is extremely difficult to be a part of American culture and not be selfish and considerably so. Much of advertising, pop culture, television and politics is filled with both overt and subliminal messages that encourage selfishness on every level. This culture also teaches us to be hyper aware of and concerned with being taken advantage of by others or being manipulated by them or being hoodwinked by them, etc. So what needs to happen is that people have to actively work to suppress or ignore all these messages or to at least put them in some sort of rational contextual reality. Doing so will inform us that not everyone in the world is out to take advantage of, manipulate and hoodwink us. These are all meme's placed in our awareness by "The Empire" consciousness.

I am an optimistic person. However, I am imagining there are large numbers of people in America who are not really open to suppressing or ignoring these messages in their lives. They don't see any reasons to do so. Or they do not have the consciousness necessary to have the awareness that doing so is an option and a very beneficial option at that. That statement is not one borne out of arrogance. It is a statement that comes out of watching, in the last several years, the growth in movements such as The Tea Party movement, the rise in bias based crimes in America and the steady move to the extreme right in the American Republican Party. I am highly encouraged by the outpouring of support Troy Davis received, The breadth and reach of The Occupy Wall Street Movement and the Rebuild the Dream movement. I just don't know if the people who are participating in these movemenst are the same progressives that have been working for social change in the last decade or if there is significant new blood in the mix. I hope there is in fact new blood and lots of it. Those of us who have been doing this for years will welcome in, with open hearts, anyone who sincerely wants to join us.

But its easy to talk in abstracts. Lets get less abstract. Look at the people in your immediate lives who are hurting. Look at family members, friends even acquaintances. Who among them really could use your help--spiritual support and help, financial help, psychological help and healing? Who needs help getting some place or another? Who could use your help baby sitting? Who needs some food in their refrigerator? Who needs help balancing their checkbook? Who needs some simple companionship? Who needs financial assistance. Now is the time to act. And I'm not asking people questions I'm not asking myself as well. I'm reviewing my family, my friendships, my acquaintances and asking myself, "Who needs my help?" Don't be shy. Don't be afraid. Don't let your sense of scarcity or judgment or entitlement or privilege derail you. Open your heart and let that same open heart guide you. You will not be led astray. No one who truly follows his or her heart ever is. And that's the truth.