I have had the most wonderful and engaging conversations with people who disagree with me this week. We’ve been in debate, we’ve sat on opposite sides of the table and we’ve learned from each other. At the end of the conversation, we were clear that we disagree on some things, and agree on others. We found more in common than not.

And what I took most from these conversations, was recognizing the depth of their character. Their ability to be in the conversation. To seek to understand, before they sought to be understood.

These conversations didn’t involve name calling or anger. They were just that…..a conversation. It truly shows the depth of someone’s character, if they can be in the conversation, without closing off.

That’s what I’m here for. In my coaching work, in my yoga practice, in my writing…..it’s a conversation. I’m here to learn more and I’m here to understand. Closing ourselves off with harsh opinions and stances without a willingness to learn get’s us stuck. Stuck in our thinking. Stuck in our progress. Stuck in our relationships.

Free yourself… with conversation.

Seek to understand first.

Below is a writing I came across from Dr.Cassie Huckaby that echoes this lesson.

I hope you sit at a table full of people who disagree with you.
Even if you cannot be with with them physically.
I hope you sit with people who do not understand the way you think, cannot see the world as you do, cannot feel the ways that you feel.
I hope you do not run to those who simply agree and call that love.
I hope you can sit at a table full of people who disagree with you.
I hope you can see and feel how you love them still.
I hope you can see how maybe most of the argument isn’t even real.
Love has nothing to do with with agreement.
Love has nothing to do with the mind.
Love in the mind is empty and easy to lose.
Love in the mind is an agreement, a mental position, not a truth.
See in these moments how the mind can cover the love.
A million different stories, a millions different meanings, a million different beliefs, a million different feelings.
You’re here because of love, if you’re unhappy here it is because of the mind.
Love is loving the person not the story.
Love is loving yourself and not a version.
Love is truth. Love is.
All the mental positions are subject to change.
If you love only if they agree,
If you love only if the conditions are met, if you love only if they do and say what you want, it isn’t love.
The love that heals is not the love at the hand of “you are doing everything and saying everything in the way that I want.”
The love that heals is offered in the hands of “you can be and think however you want, change as often as you want and be exactly as you are now.”
Choose to stay in love,
Let yourself feel love and loved under disagreement.
Do not change you to feel love and do not demand change to love.
I hope you sit at a table full of people who disagree with you.
I hope you fall in love with them today.
When you offer that love, you will feel that love and that kind of love will stay