HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

I hope you had a very joyful and happy holiday season. 

As 2020 wound down, I was very excited to share information about the  Trauma Informed Professional Certificate Program  with as many folks as I could so I shared a series of my posts (2 in total) to the various professional groups I am a member of.

I noticed that in one group, a member voiced their concern that my posts were  'littering' the site as spam.  

I was crestfallen.

I was so excited to share this information with the group I never considered the possibility that my posts would be considered spam.

Spamming  is the use of messaging systems to send an unsolicited message ( spam ) to large numbers of recipients for the purpose of commercial  advertising , for the purpose of non-commercial  proselytizing , or for any prohibited purpose (especially the fraudulent purpose of  phishing ) 

UGH! One could assume my message was unsolicited, after all, isn't that what every social media post is, an unsolicited message from the poster (unless it is in response to a query or a poll).  In truth, my tea wisdom posts could be viewed as spam, since no one directly asked me what did my tea bag tell me today.

I reviewed the guidelines for the group, my post seemed acceptable.  I apologized to the individual and received feedback from the group admin that maybe one post would have been sufficient.

This may not be a surprise to you, but, I am pretty passionate about the subject of trauma informed care. 

The more I discover in the literature and the more I experience and observe in my life and the lives of those I serve, there are very few that have been unscathed by early life adversity. 

And, for the unscathed, this topic is equally relevant to gain insight, compassion and understanding into the potential lived experiences of others.

What if life were a pie plate, and we were all slices of the pie that resided in that pie plate.

In reflecting on my experience I thought I would share my thoughts about life and pecan pie.

Her recipe has been handed down from her grandmother and heaven knows what the secret ingredient is to her amazing pie, but let me tell you - WOW it's wonderful.

I think of each of us as a slice of pecan pie.  We all have the same core ingredients, corn syrup, pecans, sugar, butter, vanilla extract and of course the pecans but all the ingredients are slightly varied in each slice.

Especially the pecans, they come in different shapes and sizes and contours.  This variability makes each slide distinctly unique to the other, even though they are cut from the same pie.

Each slice of pie is an individuation of the whole pie just as each of us is an individuation of our shared humanity our collective consciousness.

Becoming an individual and differentiating oneself is super important and critical to one's journey in becoming the highest expression of self, however, this journey must never sever one's connection to the larger whole, to the complete pie, to our shared humanity.

I lost myself and sense of connection with the bigger pie following the spam comment.  Similarly, the spam commenter walled himself off from any connection as well. 

It's easy to live life within the boundaries of our individual slice of pie.  From my single slice perspective I create a reality that hinges on my differentiation relative to the other slices of pie, but not the pie as a whole.

I can observe that one slice has fewer pecans, or one slice's pecans are broken and another's pecans line up perfectly.  But what does that mean?  We are all still slices of a pecan pie. 

Slices from the same pie don't compete with each other.

When we are unable to see our connection to the whole we cut ourself off from the possibility of truly being greater than the sum of our parts.

Thanks for reading me. I will continue to share my message, solicited or unsolicited with the world. 

I hope you will join me as we create a kinder, more connected and compassionate world that is greater than the sum of our Caring Essentials community.

I look forward to sharing the experience of 2021 with you.

Take care and care well, 

Mary