We are connected. All of us. The world is our home. The division, the fighting, the suffering, the joy, the love, the hope—all of this is our place.

Each day we have a choice. We can get up and act out to take down those around us. We can use our past suffering to fuel our hatred and rage to destroy all around us. We can perpetuate the dysfunction and create another generation of children who are frightened and traumatized by our actions.

When we are hurt and then take revenge to hurt others, we might feel good at the moment, but the pain that we carry is only numbed for a while.

What if we take steps to open our minds and to embrace our past, grow beyond it, and then to move forward to let the past go?

What if we see the opportunities around us each day?

We are connected.

Through music and art, we can transcend time and be connected together and take part in a shared experience. Last night I watched David Byrne’s American Utopia and through music and dance he connects us through the stories he tells and allows us to see that we can take steps to understand one another.

What I liked about his show is that he represents the other. There are those in our society who are conformists and follow what they are told. They do what they are supposed to do.

But there are others who are independent and strive for creativity and art.

To dissent and to express ourselves through art is one of the most powerful experiences we can have in our lives.

To see others who are different from us and to reach out in empathy is the bridge that connects us together.

As I write this, my country is consumed with division, hate, fear of “the other,” and people who cling to power and wealth. They want to maintain the world as they see it because it allows them to maintain a semblance of control.

When I think back on the microcosm of my family life, I can see how my father used alcohol and drugs to escape the world he lived. He used his power to try to control my mother and out of fear he fought to keep his world under his control.

But for all his trying, he failed.

Each of us has a choice. We can perpetuate the pain and suffering that we grew up with, or we can connect, heal ourselves, and then share our stories (through music, art, dance, or words) to broaden the world. The telling of my story heals me.

When you speak yours, you not only free yourself of your own past, but you give hope to another who is struggling with the same pain.

That is where our connection is strongest.

That is how we can be free.

Like what you’ve read? Be sure to check out my other posts in my Let Go and Be Free blog.