Hi, I'm Doug Motel, and this is Art Spirit Sunday. This is where I talk a little bit about being a creative person and how it overlaps with being a spiritual person. It's loosey-goosey. I talk about different things that relate to the spiritual life of creative people. You don't have to think of yourself as an artist necessarily, but the slant tends to be about creating stuff.

Today, I wanted to talk about how Aloha Spirit taps into the concept of The Golden Rule.

When you say the word "Aloha," it incorporates an element of mutual regard and affection. Thus, when you say "Aloha," you are saying, "I extend warmth and caring to you with no obligation in return."
That made me think last week about the idea of "the golden rule," you know, the "do unto others, as you would have others do unto you," which has been around for a very long time.

They have papyrus from the ancient Egyptians where they dispense wisdom that includes, "Hey, you know, if you want to be happy, treat people the way you would want to be treated."

And of course, we know that from the new Testament, we know that from Confucianism it's in Buddhism, it's in all of the major paths, the idea that, if you treat people the way you would want to be treated, you're going to be good to go.
This has become such a cliche. It becomes like, "well, duh, so obvious." And yet, it's incredibly provocative.
I had an experience of it myself this week. I just found myself really, how should I say this? "dispensing,
helpful wisdom" to my wife.

I was basically trying to get her to change some things that are a part of her personality. Things that, on some level, I was attracted to and why I went after her so many years and years ago. But I found myself just trying to change her.

And I had this moment where I realized I would SO NOT want her to be doing this to ME. I would want her just to love me and give me space for my own discoveries about myself. And I had like another out-of-body experience, and I saw the way that I was treating her. It made me think more about this whole idea of the golden rule of treating people the way you would want to be treated.

If you stop and think about it, can you imagine if we did that? If half the people in the world just really woke up and they thought, "there are a lot of spiritual ideas that I have been thinking about, but I'm going to devote myself to this one. I'm going to treat everybody; whether it's the person in the supermarket or it's my children or my spouse or my coworkers, I'm going to say the things that I wish they would say to me. And I'm going to refrain from saying and doing the things that I don't want people to do to me."

Just imagine what that would do to the world.

And I also think an essential part of that equation is knowing how you want to be treated and treating yourself that way. But, again, it's a two-way street, so it's not just about treating other people with respect, but it's both ways.

The idea is that we start by treating ourselves with respect, treating ourselves with love and understanding; what does that look like?

What does loving ourselves look like? What are the things that we do? What are the ways in which we redirect focus away from the things that aren't working? Away from the things that we think are broken and wrong and onto the things that we love about ourselves and then ultimately connect that to how we treat other people.

Though I'm saying that I've got this one down, I see so clearly right now the value in this, and how it could just change our lives instantly by choosing to treat everyone the way we would want to be treated and treating yourself the way you would like everyone to treat you.

Thanks for listening! Thanks for tuning in. Please follow or click all the likes. I will come back soon with more things that I'm discovering along the way. Thanks so much.