choose to get curious

What do they fear?

What and who do they love?

I wonder what connective tissue could be forged if we chose to wonder about one another more than react to one another.

When we are feeling frustrated, exasperated, angry, disappointed, and even hurt by someone, rather than reacting from these emotions, we chose to get curious.

Dare I say lovingly curious about what is behind the words or actions that we are finding frustrating, exasperating, angering, disappointing, and hurtful?

Not to make excuses for. Not to allow hurt.

Rather, to create the space for connection and to seek understanding of one another.

Because perhaps it is here that we are able to set healthy boundaries, know where we end and they begin, ask for what we want and need, and walk one another through it, even if at times from afar.

There is so much to be in an uproar about these days, and I am tired. I suppose it is these questions of what we fear and love most that are helping me remember that we have way more in common than we don’t, remembering one another’s humanity and choosing connection because it’s the salve that we all desperately need.