I declare today a day of dependence on loving kindness, civility, healthy boundaries and compassion.

As most stories go, they are but interpretations and point of view of one person. If a group of individuals attends an event, even for 5 minutes, they will each tell their own unique story. Stories influenced by many factors.

It is entirely possible that I interpret “independence day” as one that not only declared a parcel of land and the people who parked their butts on it as independent from tyranny but also incorrectly assumed the parcel of land to “belong” to a very small group of individuals.

I read the Declaration of Independence and my interpretation of it was that it is a document written by a group of people that were coming together as a group of like-minded people to protect themselves from the tyranny of an individual. It names an individual but an individual cannot act alone. As a human beings, the founding “fathers” sought, as we all do, safety, intimate bonds with others, nourishment, sources of strength, creativity and loving kindness. And when the basic needs are met, we also develop and share our wisdom, recognize our intuition as a connection to our divine light within us and become the ultimate version of ourselves on all dimensions.

I recognize my interpretation does not align with everyone and that’s perfectly ok.

The Declaration of Independence is an example of creating healthy boundaries. “I am worthy of wellness and for the stated list of reasons, I declare that I act to ensure the wellness of my being.” Now, in this moment, I create healthy boundaries and I now enforce them consistently for the greatest good of my being.

At the same time, compassion and acceptance exists so that the act of forgiveness further demonstrates the healthy boundaries. Recognition of the reasons why others act is an observation and when they are objectively placed in a container, the person now becomes human again. I’ve recently experienced this very thing. There are people in my life that acted out of a need for survival. And, instead of me constantly feeling angry, I chose to embrace and love the person for who they are in this moment. But at the same time I also have healthy boundaries in place so that the treatment that harms does not become an issue.

That’s a bit abstract. I’ll leave it there.

Thank you for reading this post. It is one in a series call the “S.H.I.T. Chronicles.” where I flip concepts upside down and let go of that which is no longer needed.