I grew up learning to be a people pleaser, punished for using my own voice and questioning cult teachings. So I learned at a young age to keep quiet. Don't rock the boat, stop with the questions, keep quiet if I disagree.
Unfortunately this translated into my adult life. While I'm certainly not a wallflower sitting silently in the corner, I've often found myself silent and not speaking up on extremely controversial issues for fear of going against the majority and being shunned.
I've seen a lot of people these days keeping silent on what's going on simply because they have different views than the majority. On the other hand I've seen a handful of people unafraid to speak their mind & go against the majority to show more than two sides, more than black-and-white, and more than what we're seeing. 😦
I have more respect for those few people than I do for the hundreds of others who aren't saying anything different. It doesn't matter what their beliefs are, they know where they stand and they don't care about the majority. ♥
These people taught me about resilience and toughening up. This doesn't mean hardening my heart, but changing my mindset from appeasing and defending to standing by my convictions and beliefs.
There will forever be a little girl inside of me just wants to be liked and accepted. It may seem easier just being nice, but those days are gone. I learned that I can't always be liked, but I can always be respected. 🌠
So I decided I'd much rather be respected than liked. 💯
All is not what it seemed...
My experience leaving the desert of New Mexico, and the people I encountered
I want to talk about my experience on a plane when I left New Mexico. As I think it’s a great example of how skewed our view on the world could be. My initial impression of the world outside of my safe, secluded, lovely abode in New Mexico was complete chaos, fear, selfishness and political divides, based on what I've seen on the news and experienced on social media.
The plane was fairly full, we all boarded and sat down, masked up as usual. A woman across the aisle from me started having a severe panic attack as she wasn't seated next to her husband who was behind me. The woman who sat next to the husband offered to switch seats as the wife was clearly having a difficult time. The wife thanked her and sat next to her husband.
I was in front of this couple, next to a respiratory Doctor. As he explained his experience with COVID and patients, I could still hear the woman behind me having a very difficult time with having to wear a mask on the plane. She hyperventilated and panicked even more, so much that the stewardesses didn't know what to do. It got so bad that the husband offered to leave the plane and not fly at all.
I decided to offer the woman what little help I could and gave her my bag of lavender seeds to smell to help calm her breathing. The respiratory doctor next to me confirmed that lavender is actually in a lot of the medication he gives his patients, particularly for the calming effect. He then helped her with some breathing exercises to calm her body.
As the plane took off the woman was still in a slight panic though she had calmed down a bit by sniffing the lavender and doing the breathing exercises. After takeoff a young couple sitting across from the woman gave her oil to put on the back of her ears to help w her nerves. We joked at how all the "crazy" holistic health people are crawling out of the woodwork, exposing themselves to help her.
Surprisingly, the woman actually fell asleep on the plane and slept the entire time, even during landing.
As we disembarked the woman thanked us all profusely for helping and doing what little we could to help. The young couple gave the woman her oil, I gave the woman my lavender seeds, & the respiratory doctor gave the woman his card so she could call him if she had any other difficulties on flights.
This small interaction of kindness between a total group of strangers gave me so much faith for humanity. Of course, not single person filmed this incident to post on social media. Why? Because it was calm, peaceful, and loving. These type of things don’t go viral on social media and they don’t make the news. It’s not outrageous or something to debate and divide people. But it was real life and it was wonderful.
Sure, flying on planes with masks is horrible. Sure, the extra precautions are annoying. But the people? They're not annoying. They're scared, confused and frustrated like everyone else. These strangers just chose to use those emotions not to shame or shun, but to help and show empathy.
This experience and others on my trip showed me a different perspective of humanity. It made me remember that we're all just doing the best we can with the resources provided to us at the moment.
Good people and experiences are out there, y'all. You just gotta turn off the TV for a sec, step away from the conspiracy theories, and go out to find that it for yourself.
Have you experienced moments like this with strangers in this time during the pandemic? If so I want to hear about it! Leave a comment below and let me know. Let's share the good news as well as the bad!
xx Serena xx