Declaring My Peace

The last couple days which have been filled with the election,not really the election, but of the individual rantings of who is the worse of the two people, which one election day will be chosen as our next POTUS. I have watched and listened to the ongoing tirade of each other realizing I have also been a part of this free for all. I found myself last night thinking of the many negative and often cruel posts. This morning as I made my usual peruse of social media I realize I have allowed my thoughts to be guided by others more than by my own convictions and feelings. I allowed past experiences to creep into my here and now, triggering very old and painful memories which were the catalyst to the eventual work I would find myself very dedicated to.  I am appalled by the way women are objectified, belittled and written off as a second class and sometimes not even that, but as belongings and property. I feel I have a responsibility to myself to maintain my own character within my statements and affirming of others. I can and must speak out, but rather than doing so in away that is negative, which is what gets us pulled in, I capable of disagreeing with integrity. I can speak my truth and only my truth, I make a choice to speak a positive truth (I believe she/he is the person for the job based on their attributes and strengths) and not on mud slinging and bashing someone. If I am focused on negative, I bring more negative by participating in it.

So here we are in the mist of it. How do I speak my truth without berating someone else? By stating what I want for myself and the world rather than what I don't want.  Though many believe it is of little use and even futile in practice, I have my own evidence to the contrary how speaking the positive impacts our lives. My spirituality says "thoughts held in mind, produce light kind".  Over and over again I have evidence it is true. Over and over again when I do not stick to my truth, I step into the past with all that it held while I watch the effects of old behavior creeping back to wreck havoc on my present. For nearly two decades I have also worked in the field of domestic violence providing my learning and understanding to others seeking to find a better way. I not only owe it myself to continue to seek truth, I also owe it to those I counsel and future generations. It can most assuredly be a challenging quest but one worth taking.

If I  go about my day blindly, randomly affirming this and denying that, at the end of the day I have to look at myself and ask what is important to me, what is mine to do, what is really at the very center of my conscience?  I have spent much of the last fifty or so years defining and refining my truth, building a good conscience to guide me.  I sit here realizing that once I step over that so very fragile line of conscience I risk loosing myself in the complicit pool of non-direction and confusion.

No matter how many times I denounce another as worse, the outcome of my reality will rest in my actions.  I have a responsibility to apply this learning and these conscience driven guidelines to my decision for the up coming election. While slogans, lies and truth about differences in the two candidates are tossed around, the final decision will be made on election day when each of us step into the voting booth expressing our voice with the vote of own conscience.

To live in peace and harmony, I must first declare it within myself.