Modeling

" Seeing is different from being told." -Kenya

A few years ago, I decided to study the Japanese language. I registered for a noncredit course at a local community college, and eagerly awaited the start of classes. On the first night of instruction, a teacher entered the class and immediately began to speak Japanese. I was thrust into the sounds of the language, but my visual preferences were denied until she went to the board and began to write as she spoke certain words. I remember vividly how I felt when I saw the Japanese characters written on the board. When she satisfied my visual sense, I began to understand. Within minutes of seeing the unfamiliar words, I became comfortable with the learning and the language. That experience was an instance of literal seeing, but there are other ways that we see. When we say, "I see, " we can also mean, "I understand." When we see, we are connected with something visually, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. As human beings, we can touch as a way to see, or use other senses to see, and begin to understand our experience. We see images of life with our eyes, and see the power of God with our spiritual awareness.

We sometimes want others to see things our way. We inform them of what we see, and then encourage them to see things as we do. The changes in perspectives that we encourage from others, don't happen as we expect. Sometimes we are disappointed in their apparent resistance to change.

If we want others to change their view, we must change our view of them. We live in a positive universe. People are changing according to what makes sense for them, what they see as part of their experience. How we see them is based in part on how we see ourselves, and how connected we are to who we really are. Since we are all spiritual beings, our capacity to change is not only possible but likely, given our ever-growing desires for well-being. If we want to have followers, we can model for others who we really are, and speak from the heart; we can behave in ways that are consistent with what others can see in us.

As we change inwardly, we open up our eyes, our minds, our hearts and our spirit so that others can see us clearly. We can then be a presence in the lives of others through our authenticity, our realness of spirit. We can be models for others only when we have done the inside work that makes our deeds as spiritually grounded as our words. What is the model you offer to others?