Our relationships offer a mirror into ourselves. What we admire in others reflects the qualities we have within our self. Likewise, what we judge in others is often what we judge in ourselves. We’ve been compared to an iceberg. 10% of what we see is above water. This is our conscious self. This is what we portray to the world. 90% is our subconscious, below the surface. This is where our emotional body lives and this can control our view of the world as well as our decisions.

This might also be described as the software that programs our hardware. This software is embodied in us from early childhood and social conditioning. I wrote about this briefly in my book, “Savvy Secrets, Eat, Think & Thrive: Seven Steps to Optimal Health.” The good news is that as an adult, we get to choose whether this programming still serves us or whether we wish to upgrade our software.

One of my beloved clients gave me a beautiful analogy. She said she felt like she was a garbage can growing up. Everyone dumped all their sh%t on her. As an adult she learned that manure makes really good soil and that she could decide to plant whatever she wanted in this dark rich soil. She decided instead of being a garbage can, she was going to be a flower pot and plant beautiful flowers instead. This was a successful, outgoing and beautiful woman who liked to wear beautiful jewelry and drive a beautiful car. She chose to go from fear and scarcity to love and abundance.

This morning, I woke up early from a dream. I dreamt of a brief and beautiful passionate love affair between a divorced man with two children and a single woman. The next day the man started to question the morals of the woman. His fear tainted his view of the relationship. Instead of reveling in the love and abundance, he chose to let his insecurities around his own lovability turn to judgement and shaming of the woman.

My immediate and extended family are divided on political viewpoints. Some of the family view Trump as a fascist. Some of the family view the Democratic party as communist. Both sides are mired in fear and scarcity. The reality is that the morals, desires, and values within my family are all similar. We all value lives, all lives. Black lives, white lives, immigrant lives, people. We all value our freedoms. We all want good schools and safe communities. We want fairness and equality. We value our earth. We value our health and wellbeing. We love and value each other.

It’s when we are stuck in the dreaded drama triangle that I’ve written about before, that we live in fear and scarcity. This is when we choose sides and point fingers and shame the other person. This keeps us stuck in the problem.

No one can deny that we have problems. No one can deny that we have a lot of work to do. But we cannot fight our way out of this. History has proven this fact time and time again. We cannot win by blaming others. We can only create a new paradigm.

We have a choice. We can be paralyzed in fear and scarcity or we can be empowered through love and abundance. This is an inside job. Love has to start within each and every one of us.

I invite you to take an honest personal assessment. Ask yourself in every moment. “If I truly loved and honored myself, what would I choose?” If all of our choices were made out of love versus fear, what kind of world might we create together? What possibilities might arise? What kind of solutions could we create?

Food for thought.