SEED QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION: What does taking a stand mean to you? Can you share a personal story of a time you took a stand? What practice helps you find the courage to take a stand?
This is the secret sauce of creation, of divinity, enlightenment, and authentic leadership. This piece is brilliantly written, and encapsulates grains of wisdom and truth that are available to one at all, constantly, every day, in every part of the world.
My hope is that the message of love, peace, harmony and truth embedded in inspirational stands will take on new power and life in contrast with the confrontational edges forming across the Earth by unscrupulous, corrupt, unenlighted thugs who sieze control and weaken democracy everywhere.
My stand is to enlighten the way toward "We the People" empowerment and supreme governance over all nations and institutions. Everything else is backward, backwater thuggery and old world violent business and exploitation.
Taking a stand means what you believe is what you become.Its a strength within you that no amount of discouragement cannot beat. There are a lot of ups and down in life that sometimes pushes me to go and pushes me to slow down but in every phases of each struggle, taking stand on what I believe to where I am going remains.
In this really powerful passage, I find the distinction between stand and position very important.
In the social change space, finding my own voice (in presence of so many beautiful and authentic voices) has been a journey in itself.
As I do that, the 'stand' is a choice that I am makig...how close is it to Universal principles and how close it is to what the local 'me' embodies?
And from that stand, am I comfortable taking a range of positions on issues, consciously choosing the tones and framing of what I communicate?
This is a delicate and nuanced journey that I have found can't be copied or faked....it is lots of digging and meeting the implications of different choices.....it is all a wonderful work in progress :)
Taking a stand means to firmly assert in words and/or action a position. We are often taking a stand on small matters. I recently took a stand on a major issue and I did it with trepidation as to the response I will get. I wrote a couple page statement about an issue about which I have strong feeling, and for me it took courage. I expect some agreement and a good deal of disagreement. I debated with myself whether to do it, I even lost some sleep over it, and I did it. My action is so new that I haven't yet received any response, but it will come. What helped me find the courage to take the stand was my strong belief in my position, my belief that it's important that it be said, my wanting the issue to be more out there to be thought and talked about, my knowing that my position is my truth and I have a responsibility to express it, and knowing that my regret for not taking a stand would trouble me more than taking the stand.
I deeply resonated with Lynne Twist's differentiation between taking a stand and taking a position. So many of us believe that if there is a winner, there must be a loser, that uplifting a truth means making others wrong. I've loved learning that this does not have to be the case. By taking a stand, I speak my authentic truth and honor that others speak their authentic truth as well. It's creates so much space for all to be heard. And it is actually in speaking my truth that I create that safe space for others to speak theirs; that's the deep irony here.