RETHINKING SOCIALITY part 2

If you did the mindfulness exercise in Part 1, you
may have noticed that being socially appropriate
(i.e., doing/saying the "right" thing) frequently
requires you to be inauthentic.

For example, in certain parenting situations you
may feel social pressure to *control* your child
when you'd rather be relaxed and accepting.

Quite often the real purpose of "being social" is
to protect others from their own small-mindedness.
Such is the case when mothers are pressured to
avoid nursing in public.

So being authentic -- even when it seems "anti-social"
-- may actually be *more* social, because it creates
opportunities for others to question their limiting
beliefs.

When you honor Who You Really Are -- *and* you
look beyond others' disempowering beliefs to honor
Who THEY Really Are -- you contribute to the greater
good of society.

Today, whenever you choose authenticity over
conventional sociality, decide that you *are* being
social... They just don't know it yet! :-)

http://dailygroove.net/sociality-2


Personal Note: I have often found the reverse of this to be true in the radical unschooling community. Feeling pressured to 'not' pull the reigns in on your kids when you normally would like to request that they 'control' themselves. So while I am around say...my parents for example, I feel more pressured to 'control' my kids; but while I am around some extremely radical unschoolers, I feel pressured to let them run completely wild, at times without concern for safety or consideration of others.

What I am coming to at the root of this, is that we are all on our own paths at our own pace, and being authentic simply means being true to where we are NOW. Trying to act in a way that would look like we are where we WANT to be, rather than where we ARE NOW, is just as disrespectful of our individual journey as reverting to where we used to be in an attempt to appease others.

ACCEPTANCE and GROWTH are counterparts.