Love All. Trust Few. Harm None.

I've been off Facebook again. Don't get me wrong here - I don't hate Facebook or social media. I'm actually quite hopeful that social media will one day realize its great potential to help humanity realize our own greatest potential. I think we just haven't quite harnessed the ability to use social media as tool for collaboration and connection. It seems we've gotten caught in using it to generate waves of righteous anger, and as I've watched that chapter of the unfolding, I've felt my own desires for expression in that space wane. There seems little chance of being heard, understood, or having a real and authentic exchange of ideas.

As part of my close down of Facebook this time around, I deleted all my public showing pictures so no bots could grab them and masquerade as me, and I deleted my bio which linked to this blog. As winter started this year, I felt such a sense of hibernation, and I wanted to slough off all the pathways going out or coming in to my space. Without a thought, I replaced my bio with these six words, and it brought me a surprising jolt of tingly joy to look and see them as a title on my staged face out to the social media world.

The first time I saw these words they were written in Sharpie on a speaker sitting next to our table in a popular pizza place back in the early to mid-2000s. I read the words out loud to my husband, and I immediately resonated with them deeply. In the time since, "Love All Trust Few Harm None" has ended up a guiding philosophy of mine.

In 2020, these words served me more than during any other year since they first showed up in my life. As the pandemic ignited fear and created isolation, as the horrific view of an officer killing George Floyd in broad daylight opened a deep racial trauma wound, and as the election fed an already out of control sense of division in the U.S., I looked around at the ideas, energies and words floating in this sea of chaos, and so little of it resonated for me as truth and so few of the messengers really seemed worthy of trust. Whether I sensed shadowy ulterior motives, or if I merely noticed some innocent confusion or fear, the unsettling feeling was the same that there really wasn't much to trust on these information highways.

And "Trust Few" showed up for me in this drought of reliability. It helped me realize how grateful I was that I had those few who I did trust, those people who created a space where I felt welcome to share without censoring, who enriched me with their own open sharing. And it reassured me that it was ok to feel that I couldn't really trust much in the world. My speaker etching guru felt it too.

And more, "Love All" and "Harm None" sat on my left and my right with their reminders. Love All coaxed me to stay connected to the insight that there is a worthiness of love in each and every person - no matter their deeds, no matter their thoughts, no matter their offensive behaviors. And Harm None kept focusing me on my truest calling to always seek better and better ways to live without causing harm - to other humans, to other living beings, to our sacred Mother Earth. How the evolution of lessening harm is what opens the space for creating real and sustaining Good.

But with the shift into 2021, I started noticing Trust Few getting a bit rowdy. It was becoming this mental anthem within me, fueling a sense of needing to stay disconnected from the madness and of judging others as untrustworthy. These fantasies started filling my head about checking out of the insane world. I found myself daydreaming about disappearing, living off grid, changing my name. I noticed myself beginning to really devise plans of creating a lifestyle unhindered by the clunky identity and attachments of my former life.

And at some point, Love All and Harm None weren't jiving so well with Trust Few anymore. Rather than bringing me to focus on what I do trust in the universe and around me, holding on to this Trust Few idea was actually causing a lot of focus on the untrustworthiness all around. It was turning into a suspicious sort-of separation energy that didn't feel true or helpful.

After a covert mission back to my Facebook page to delete Trust Few, I felt myself exhale some tension I'd been holding, and since then, a deeper nuance about trust came into view. The important trust is in my own intuition, moment to moment. I can trust that to guide me in what is right for me: in what information I consume, in what I share with others, in when to accept an invitation. Someone else's reliability or trustworthiness isn't my business.

For now, Love All and Harm None have plenty of business to keep me occupied all on their own.