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So uh what is it day six I think um I'm feeling a little distracted now I'm actually in Washington DC about to help with one of my friends seminars um and I'm right in the middle of the city and as I was running uh I saw this little patch of woods so uh I felt at home like as if I was in North Carolina but really there's like a highway right where is it right down there and then right behind me up here is a road so it's literally it's just this area but um something that uh that I saw on the way in just like as I was coming into the the woods here um was just so much trash right and um I mean it's littered all over the place like just all over the place there's just tons of trash and as I was coming down here as it reminded me that ...
... I was I started the um the practice of like when I was coming back from I'm so distracted right now um when I come back home back in North Carolina when I come back from my jog I'm I'm noticing the trash that's on the side of the road and um I started to bring you know plastic bags with me um cuz I started picking up trash and before I knew it I had like whole bagfuls of trash to bring back home and recycle what was recyclable and throw away everything else and I don't say that to say like hey look at me I'm Mr Green but really the point of that is that I noticed myself getting angry and looking at this nature and just getting angry at all the people that would throw trash here and kind of ruin this for them and and everyone else and me and I'm remembering too that I ...
... would catch myself when I would be picking up trash back in North Carolina and um realizing like asking myself am I enjoying this like if I'm not enjoying this then I shouldn't do it wow there's a blue jay he seems angry um and I started enjoying it more and more actually from the very beginning I was enjoying it but then I would I would catch myself being like Oh God this is disgusting like why would people do this this is this isn't right you know these those stupid ignorant people throwing away trash and I realized I could focus on that I could focus on the people who threw away the trash and be angry at them or I could focus on the joy that I get from cleaning it up from actually actually making my area around like the walk back to my house making it clean and making it beautiful and serving nature like ...
... that and even if even if my focus is on the people who threw away the trash maybe even having compassion for them like what kind of a world do they live in where they can just throw trash out the window and not think twice about it I would I would imagine that you would have to be pretty disconnected from the world around you to just throw trash so I say all of that to say this that it it seems really similar to me to hate on to hate on people who have stigma about Herpes and believe me I catch myself doing it too oh gosh those ignorant people who don't know that this is just a simple skin condition like this is not a big deal people why why are you thinking it's such a big deal and then I realized that I used to be one of those people who judged those dirty people ...
... over there with herpes and I feel like this is just a constant reminder of where I choose to focus my attention actually impacts my experience of my own life and does it serve me to be angrily picking up trash or angrily wishing that the stigma would go away and those ignorant people would get a clue or would it feel better for me to look around and say wow this nature would be so much nicer if this trash weren't here let me pick it up and actually have fun doing that or wow those people out there who believe that herpes is a huge deal and judge the hell out of me and everyone else who has it what kind of a world must they live in I realized I I forgot to say something vitally important about that last piece a continuation of of the whenever I can have compassion for all of those people out ...
... there who are judging me or um regardless of herpes or not like the people out there who are judging me and um me having compassion for that and me actually loving myself regardless like not needing all of humanity to validate me and say that I'm okay if people judge me that's okay because I know me I know who I am I know my worth I know that my worth isn't taken away by some silly little virus named herpes I know better than that and when I know better than that then from that place all of my disclosures come from that place when I disclose to somebody hey I have herpes and it's not a big deal to me but I I want to let you know I think it's important that you know if it comes from that place instead of a place of Shame and buying into the stigma that's out there then that's what will actually have the stigma shrink that's what will actually kill the stigma is all of us getting okay with ourselves first the stigma is not going to change out there maybe a few people who are ignorant about ...
... this might go on Wikipedia one day maybe a few but for the most part the stigma stigma is going to be there it's not going to change from the people who are already ignorant out there it's going to change with us first what is that uh Be Be the Change you want to see in the world that applies here if you want the stigma to change then change it in yourself first actually see where all of those places in yourself where the stigma still exists and learn to love those places so that the stigma can go away and the shame can go away that's what this work is all about getting to the point where I'm whole and in that wholeness shame can't exist stigma can't exist
On my walk back home from my morning exercise, I started picking up the trash that I saw littered in the forest and on the sides of the road. I would catch myself silently judging these faceless hordes of people ("They are so ignorant. How could they? What's wrong with these people?"), but then I saw that there was a better way to focus my attention that would serve me and my future better. What we focus on truly does grow. What we focus on and how we focus on it directly impacts our experience of our own lives.
