Tuesday, November 16, 2021

James O'Dea: When We Really Put Ourselves In the Shoes of the Other


 
Wisdom Quotes from James O'Dea

How we behave is influenced by what we see within the limits of what we know.

Your values were packaged by religious, national, racial, and cultural identities, and the package contains both outmoded and very relevant material that you have to sort through.

Those who recognize our essential qualities are the true peacebuilders: they let us know that they see the significance of our lives. Meanness of spirit stems from a place of neglect and the absence of nurturance and love. When we have not been seen and loved for who we are, we can turn sour and even violent.

The intergenerational transfer of wounds is the greatest threat to peace, just as it is the greatest cause of war.

When you see what interrupts or aggressively assaults peace in your world, make a choice not to meet it in the form of equal but opposite aggression. Rather, meet it with insight about the cause of its condition, the way a doctor looks at disease or a scientist looks at a phenomenon.

We are, in fact, designed for movement, progress, evolution, and new stories, even as we must recapitulate the wisdom transmitted to us by our forebears. As we gain new information, different perspectives, and fresh insight, we fire and wire new neural pathways; this phenomenon is referred to as the neuroplasticity of the brain. We are wired to explore, initiate, and create.

When we can really put ourselves in the shoes of the other, when we can reach new depths of empathy, then we can be effective ambassadors of peace.

Love is solar; it radiates.

 James O'Dea
From Cultivating Peace: Becoming a 21st-Century 
 Peace Ambassador
 

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