Lifeletter #132: The Restoration of our Human Dignity

I heard a true and beautiful story the other day:

A family on vacation goes into a cafe for lunch. The waitress comes up with her pad and pencil to take their order. When it’s the young son’s turn, he says to her, “I want a burger, with fries on the side, and a large Coke.” The mother laughs and says to the waitress, “Bring him chicken with vegetables, and some juice.”

When the waitress comes back with their orders, she places in front of the boy a burger with fries on the side and a large Coke. He looks at her, looks at his food, and then turns to his mother and says, “She must think I am a real person.”

The happy ending of this story is that the parents were able to witness and appreciate a moment in which someone gave their son some real respect. A moment in which their son experienced his essential dignity. They received something important from that waitress.

So did I. Having spent most of my life devoted to spiritual practice, with a focus on who we are beyond the personality, beyond our human nature, it’s amazing for me to realize, again and again, how important it is to give full respect to who we are as human beings. This may sound like a simple and obvious thing. In my experience, it’s really not. Because in order to give you respect, I have to be able to see you, hear you, include who you are in my perception. And you are not the same as me. You are radically different, on this human level. The experience of dignity comes when my unique being is seen and recognized.

I can’t give you respect unless I accept you, just as you are, right now, with a being and a life and a path and a destiny of your own. You have your own intelligence, your own interests, your own way of loving.

Our parents, even if they loved us deeply, did not always know how to respect us in this way. Many of us missed the experience, when we were young, of being given full dignity for who we were. Just as our parents missed it, and our grandparents. So the loss of this essential dignity gets passed along, from generation to generation.

Until we see what happened, and are moved to practice something quite different: to hold ourselves and others with real respect. This capacity to give respect waters something deep inside us and in the people around us.  Respect is like medicine-it helps us to stand tall, to find our own voice, to face difficulties, to develop real integrity. It allows us to become ourselves, instead of getting lost in trying to be someone else.

No matter how evolved I may be spiritually, my basic capacity to hold my own humanity and yours with deep respect will always be necessary. In order to learn how to do this, we have to do our human homework. We need to understand how easy it is to avoid this part of our human journey, to escape from it using spiritual practice, and all sorts of other distractions. Respecting our own humanity is not as easy as it sounds. Human nature is very messy. It’s full of intense feelings, and awkwardness, vulnerability, loss and regret. Along with all of the beauty and brilliance and kindness. To embrace our human nature takes a lot. We have to expand and grow and soften in order to open to this possibility. As a woman in my ‘Soul Window’ course said recently, “This is a re-wiring of our human brain. It’s not a small thing.”

Without this basic respect, all kinds of things can go wrong. Terrible mistakes can be made, in families, in organizations, in whole cultures, if we forget about how essential it is for each human being to feel this fundamental dignity.

 

let it be

like the vulnerable beating of a heart

like the wondrous flapping of a wing,

and then slowly, gently admit:

I am enough.

                                 Katie Teague

 

I dedicate this Lifeletter to my beloved friend Jen Davis, with whom I have walked this long, difficult and beautiful path about restoring our human dignity.

 

 

with love, 

Shayla