People are just people

People are just people.

The other night I had the privilege of being at a dinner table with people from diverse backgrounds. From different parts of the world brought together to help to understand human kind and what makes us tick. How we can right some of the wrongs in our society not from a top down, superior perspective but from a place of understanding and peace.

The dinner was very conciliatory. Each one of us polite but at the same time trying to break through the veneers we sometimes put up to protect ourselves from people knowing our real story. From people seeing the real us. One thing that has always been true about me is what you see is what you get.

I am the same person I was when I was a young girl to the person I am today and because I am that way I attract people into my life who tell me their real stories. The stories usually hidden from everyone else. The stories many want to forget but need to talk about because they are carrying the burden of their real selves with them.  The reason they feel safe with me is because  I tell my story over and over again because I realise in doing so it opens me to other people’s stories.

Opens me to be able to hear their stories and to understand though our backgrounds may differ, our stories carry a common theme.  A common thread. That our experiences are not unique. They are often quite common. They just happen to different people in different parts of the world at different times in their lives. And we survive, thrive or stagnate based on how we react to our experiences.

I know each person comes into our lives to help us to remember the whys and what fors of our stories. To help us to understand more about who we are and who we are not. Because what we discover when we tell our story and listen to the stories of others is people are just people no matter where they come from. No matter how wealthy they are. No matter how influential they are. At the end of the day, we are all born of a mother and father. We all learned to walk and talk. We all learned to go to the bathroom in a civilised manner. We are all growing and exploring and becoming closer to who we asked to be when we came here.

 I listened the other night to stories about people who have been in far off places and despite their varied and privileged experiences in life, beneath it all, they are just like me. As I am just like them. Spiritual beings having a human experience. Sharing the same desires and feelings to be acknowledged, validated and loved. To matter.

Because at the end of the day, as one of my fellow dinner companions and I discussed, people are just people and it doesn't matter where we come from or what we do. We are all people experiencing this journey called life. We come here the same way through being birthed into this world taking our first breath of life when we are awakened by our new human form. And we all go out – though the circumstances may differ as to the how, the result is always the same - taking our last breath of life before we go back to our spiritual form.

Spiritual beings having a human experience. Human beings having a spiritual experience. People just being people. Telling our stories. Opening ourselves to other peoples’ stories. Enabling me to see we are more interconnected and  interrelated than we think.Because we are as we are.