Want to expand your understanding and compassion? Travel

Travel awakens you, it opens your heart and your mind. It allows you to get out of the known, it makes you want to read, to connect, ask, listen and understand. Travel allows you to see that we are all the same, that the “differences” between the habitants of this planet have been programmed, constructed by ourselves to separate us from us and from others. Our love (essence), our needs and our fears are all the same.   

Traveling allows you to confirm the inequality perpetuated by materialism, of which I am part of, because I am part of everything. I am part of what works and of what doesn’t, I contribute to the “best” behaviors of our humanity and also contribute to the worst ones.

Now I understand that it is easier to disregard and criticize than to understand. Understanding requires me to get out of what I know and makes sense to me, and that can be scary.  Understanding and compassion go hand in hand- It’s that combination of the rational with the emotional.  I realize that I need to pause ...It is a lot of information and emotion to manage, and while that happens within, I feel uncomfortable, out of myself and have no other option than to apply what I just learned to my life: understanding and compassion.

(Pictures are from women in Puerto Rico and Argentina excercising their right to express themselves)