Tuning into Positive Frequencies

Coming attuned to my own inner dialogue (writ: excuses, bad theories, mental bantering with self-lobbed abuses), makes me oddly well tuned to hear the frequencies of others' self-limiting beliefs.

Given my current choice of residency, I find myself regularly seeking out the frequencies at which people describe their experiences in this atmosphere so imbibed with conflict. First comes the body language. Stepping off the plane in Tel Aviv, I find myself always greeted by a sea of unsmiling faces. How sad is it to be in a place where people don't smile? I thought it might just be an American thing to smile so much, but friends of various cultures agree that it is an oddity here. I remember it being the same way in Russia so it certainly isn't unique to Israel either.

Next come the bad theories. Ones that dehumanize (they don't want peace, they are all out to kill us) – on both sides. Ones that justify a person's inability to strive for things greater than their unhappiness over their current conditions ("I am a refugee", " My family are holocaust survivors"). Ones that people use in order to express their internal conflicts via external conflicts ("We have to protect ourselves against all threats", "They are constantly trying to kill us"). When whole nation-states are caught up in these bad theories, it never really bodes well for the future.

Bad theories limit, disempower, and stagnate. They don't allow for transformation, for improved conditions, and worst of all they don't allow for that beautiful human emotion of possibility called hope.

I have difficulty finding patience and compassionate for the bad theories that I hear from the parents of my son's classmates. The majority of families are households with one non-working spouse. A few weeks ago I bumped into the parent of one of my son's classmates. I had not had more than a 5 minute conversation with her before that, so we decided to have dinner together. We were having our getting-to- know- you conversation and she starts describing to me how difficult her situation is because her husband travels overnight about once a month to a neighboring country. She proceeds to detail out how emotionally debilitating this is for her 8 year old son, how difficult it is for her to do things on her own during those two days without her husband there, etc, etc. She then asks me, "What is it that your husband does for work?" With all the compassion I can manage for myself at that moment, I look her straight in the eyes and say, "I don't have a husband, just me!" And she stares back speechless before commenting on how good her pizza is.

There is another non-working spouse of Omar's classmates who begins every sentence with the phrase, "Because I have a two year old, it is difficult…" I wonder what will happen when her child turns 3…or 4….or 5….or 18. Or another parent who I've heard many times says, "I really cannot take on a job responsibility, because I have to be anywhere at any time for my children."

The problem is not that I don't fully understand how easily it is to adopt these bad theories, the problem is that I hear echoes of my past-self in those theories and still question if I am any happier having combated them. I am pretty certain that tuning into a better frequency means silencing the static of those bad theories.