Episode Transcript
My name is Ken Hanuman and this is my wife, Dr. Anne O'Hare. We both work in healthcare and have been meditating for many years. We also enjoy a happy and fulfilling marriage. Come, listen, and see how to demystify spirituality and bring it into your home, your hearts, and in all your relationships. We will share our experiences and how we use these principles in everyday life. Welcome to the spiritual relationship. Hello everyone. Welcome to the spiritual relationship podcast. My name is Ken Hanuman and this is my wife, Dr. Anne O'Hare. Today's topic is protecting each other's dignity. And I think it's a, it's a really very important topic because like I've seen, people, can't stand when someone close to them is being disrespected. Or their country is disrespected or their religion is disrespected. They will stand up and die for that. But, when you talk about protecting each other's dignity, especially in a family, you might find that within the family, people tend to say and do things that, and over years, that might come off as a joke or not meaning what you say. But it does affect the self respect or the pride in self is self worth of each other. On the one hand, we help each other, and on the other hand, too, we can tear each other down without realizing we're doing it. So, this topic of protecting each other's self dignity, I think, is the greatest expression of love. I love that. I, I, uh, yeah, I want to say something about this too, because this is something I never saw growing up in no, no relationship. I never saw anyone protecting somebody's dignity. I know Ken's going to define dignity. I wrote down a little definition for myself. Dignity in a relationship means, or protecting somebody's dignity means that I'm making sure that the other person doesn't feel a loss because of the circumstance So for instance, I have a very strange example of this. I hope it's okay to give it but I will know but I went on a job interview once And it was for a nursing job and I was having my monthly situation Feminine monthly thing going on and while I was sitting there in my suit, everything perfect, I had it leak through the clothes onto the chair. I was absolutely mortified. So this is important because this is dignity, right? Like I could really physical dignity. I could, I was absolutely mortified. I felt terrible. But the person, the woman who I was interviewing with is a nurse. Okay. There was no way I could feel bad. The way she was being with me removed any possibility of me feeling bad about this. It wasn't just what she said, but it was how she was being with me. And that's a nursing thing. Like we learn about that too. So that's an example. Like I remember feeling on the receiving end of that. It was like, she took away the possibility of me feeling bad. And to me, that's what, protecting each other's dignity means. I'm going to make sure that you don't feel bad. That's my job to make sure that he doesn't feel bad to the best of my ability. I mean, at least not for me, you know, that, I know his weaknesses or I know his soft spots. He knows mine. I'm protecting them. Not only from out there, but from me, like, right? I'm a human, but anybody look, anybody could do something at any time, protecting somebody's dignity, protecting each other's dignity means that you're keeping a very close eye on your behavior. And your feelings and your attitudes and you're going to make sure that they don't feel bad. It's, it's something that I never saw growing up, never, not in my family, not with friends. And no, anytime anybody had a weakness, it was fair game. Anybody went after it. Yeah. People make jokes of people's mistake or, and not only always jokes, but sometimes mean feelings or. One time I remember I was, I was a singer. I remember going for an audition and I remember hearing that the other people that were also going for the audition were actually plotting a way to get me to get upset so that I was, I was like, how could anybody think like that? But anyway, whether it's joking or whether it's insensitivity or whether it's actual plotting to hurt somebody, That's all going on right now. And this insensitivity, and joking. Like I remember being like, if you have, a physical attribute that, that is unusual or something, people would make a nickname about it or something like that. So you're constantly being reminded and then you feel bad. Maybe you'll take it like, Oh yeah. Ha ha ha. But inside, do you really feel like it's funny? No, other people are. Taking advantage of you. Yeah, I talking about nicknames, the way we grow up, if you made a mistake, people give you a name based on that. Yeah. I'd be surprised that name sticks with you for the rest of your life. of course. So it's like you're constantly reminded about one, I want particular mistake or something. Mishap or whatever happened. We we're laughing about it because obviously there is some. Fun that can come out of that. There is some fun that can come out of that, but I'm going to say right now, maybe you'll agree with this. It's not spiritual. It's not. It's definitely not because spirituality is about nonviolence, so we say that the supreme religion of nonviolence, you don't want to hurt anybody. So you have to learn This thing that we play around with, Oh, poking each other. Ha ha. Isn't that funny? Isn't that funny? Ha. And we're all like laughing. So on some level it is fun. I mean, let's face it. Yeah. On some level you could take a joke. A lot of the comedians that sort of, of course, but on a deeper level, is it helping me to feel content with myself or dignified or self respect? Absolutely not. Yeah. And in an a world where everybody's struggling to, To express themselves or they're, they're trying to, be self actualized if you want to say that. It's essential that especially in your home that you are at least creating an environment where everybody feels comfortable and feel like they understand the power of love or support. Or stability in the times of, challenges. Because in, in a family, you're gonna be going through all kinds of struggles, maybe, and ups and downs, and, the kids are growing up, and then you want them to be greater than who you are, you want your children to do better. So, you can't do that by always attacking them or making fun of them or something. Yeah. And be careful. Is it not more important that rather than saying something in jest and joke that is demeaning and then later on you have to apologize and say, I didn't mean that rather than actually saying something positive, like just say the actual thing. Yeah. Can I, can I share something about us? Like, if it's okay, I'm going to call you out and I'll try to call myself out too. But when we first got together, like as a couple, he had that joking thing. Yeah. Like he had that a little bit of that joking thing. And I made it clear. That's not going to happen with me. I was sensitive to it from my past and I didn't want it in my home. You know what I mean? So he stopped. I mean, That's one way of protecting my dignity. If I'm, if I'm sensitive to it and I expressed, I'm a sensitive to this. I don't like this. He stopped it. I had to change a lot of things too, to help him. Like, I grew up in New York. There's a lot of cursing going on. Like I had to stop the cursing. I had to, not because of him, but it, he, His sensibility helped me to uplift my behavior. My sensibility helped him to uplift his behavior. That's what we can do for each other. But he doesn't, you don't miss joking around, do you? Oh, no. Right. I don't miss cursing. Actually, I find that, that, that sort of let me do a little bit of soul searching and realizing, wait, my vocabulary has been really very limited based on your cultural upbringing or whatever. And there's so many other options. There's so many different words or, there's so many different things that you can, that is available to you that you can use all because you grew up a certain way, speaking a certain way. Whatever the jargon is, why you have to stick to that when it is making you feel ordinary when you can actually speak differently in a way that uplifts somebody else. Or bring out the good in them or make them think about themselves in a different way You know, there's so many different options. One of the other things just quickly was I grew up in like it was very emotional everything was emotional. Everything was like an emotional outburst, and of course, he's not like that. So Because we're both on a spiritual path and this is where the spiritual path comes into it's not just you that's making me stop being emotional. It's also the path Yeah, so i'm getting to see That whatever my behavior is and however, I am it impacts Other people I need to be responsible for that .So protecting each other's dignity means that i'm Aware of my own behavior. I'm consistently trying to improve it and make it real and authentic and harmonious And also truthful like Uniquely me. It's not like I'm becoming not me. I'm becoming me. Yeah, it's better than doing the other. Who wants to be you know emotional all the time and Angry or upset all the time. That doesn't make any sense that you would want that Does it make any sense that you would want to like joke around and never feel close or never be able to express your real feelings or whatever like that doesn't make any sense either Yeah, so I find that being close Being able to To have such a look at how a loving grandmother and a grandchild will get so connected, right? And if you really study the energy exchange between the two of them is there's so much love And there's so much a sense of responsibility and the child feels Like they're worthy in the eyes of someone who Is looking at them with this high vision, right? So closeness comes from when there's a, similarity, like a closeness in heart, you know? And this is also that brings us to the spiritual, the value of closeness with God, to the higher power, because you can only grow close if you are very similar. Yeah. And you, it's difficult for somebody who is very arrogant trying to be close to somebody who might be humble, right? It's not, it doesn't match, or you might have a husband and wife where the husband only value may be going out and this or drink, whatever, certain habits or the wife had, then there isn't, there's a disconnect. There has to be a match. You have to match like your energies, your, some, some, I don't know. What do you say? Some aim or some, Some understanding. There has to be some understanding in the relationship. Like, what is the relationship for? Right. I mean, what are we together for? Yeah. You know, there has to be some kind of reason. Yeah. It shouldn't be just about kids and wealth. It should also be about personality traits, about character, about getting to know, everyone should get to have enough space and solitude to be able to be in touch with themselves. And we have to help each other to do that. It's not that the other person has to enslave themselves to the other person's wish and desire. It's really, say one last thing, maybe we can get ready to wrap it up on this thing. Men enslave women by enforcement. By the way they treat them and enforce women in slave men by being unhappy By being emotional so that you we gotta think about these things. Like we should maybe call it like protecting each other's dignity, but also protecting your own. Yeah And what you were saying to we were saying why would you come into the relationship? Well, we're coming into a relationship because we want fulfillment. Yeah, isn't it? We want to feel fulfilled. We want to feel What other reason would you want to be close to somebody? You want to feel good. You want to feel fulfilled and you want to grow, right? Yeah. And, and that's the whole purpose of life. You know, it's really about connection. Where does, where does like a spiritual aim come into this? Cause you and I have a spiritual aim and we didn't have children together. So we didn't, we didn't, raise a family together. Although we he helped raise my son because my son was 10 when we came together. But he knew joey from when he was four So he was around But so he helped me raise my son, but we didn't raise a family together so to speak. You didn't you didn't work. I didn't just stay home. I work, you know, like it's kind of like an equal A kind of an equal footing. Yeah, but the fact remains that as whenever you're together try to You Take the time out to understand everyone in that group. Yeah, and try to Not be selfish You don't have to sell your soul. You don't have to give up who you are but there are a way to understand other people in that group and then build on that and You will actually some it's a challenge, but it is about Selflessness. It is actually a challenge Uh, the purpose of relationship, I mean, the only reason why we're together and anybody in a community or in a family or, culture in a country, it's about sharing shared values, so it is, but that can be spiritual values too. It doesn't have, it can be whatever you agree that it is and my experience, and maybe you'll agree with this, spirituality is the best thing. For it to be, I mean, I feel like it could be a religion too. It's fine, but let it have some kind of a universal connection that your relationship is not only about the day to day, and it's not only about the two of you, it's also about the world. It's also about community. It's also about creating something. I would venture to say that the difference between spirituality and religion is that. The, the basic, the fundamental, uh, belief in spirituality, is that if you know yourself and you take care of yourself and you start to empower yourself, that becomes self evident that these positive qualities or virtues are actually really, really helpful. I feel it. I, I feel it within. Then you feel empowered to share it with others and you're sharing it with conviction. And your relationship with God is actually not that I have to blindly follow dictates Or rules or anything like that but it is to understand that Even with God He will never allow you to stray from your innate values. Actually He will help to awaken that and to, not allow the world to stray you away from that, which is important and close to your heart. And don't you think, don't you think that in a relationship, I'm saying this to the audience too, don't you think that it's worthwhile in a relationship to protect that, to protect that in yourself, and also to protect that in the other person? That I should feel self respect and I should feel good about myself and so should they. So should the children. So should my parents. So should my co workers. So should everybody. Eventually, when we get the hang of it, it's like I can expand my caring or expand my sensitivity to others as well. I'm not interested in being selfish. I may be doing it unknowingly, but I can grow to learn that, oh, well, maybe this, affects somebody the wrong way? Or how do I feel when I say that? Yes. Do I feel good about myself? I think that's why meditation is helpful because you really are just you're testing yourself with yourself. Yes. You're not taking somebody else's idea. You're actually looking. Do I feel good about this? Well, I don't. Well, maybe I need to make a change, but then that can be trusted. But again, back to this thing about protecting. It's a sensitivity to my own self respect and the self respect of others. That's why meditation is not so much about having some fantastic, brilliant flash. Meditation is really about realization. It's about developing understanding. It's actually about bringing, about knowing yourself at a deeper level and being able to, develop an intellect that allows you to choose things that are more in line with your happiness and your growth and your self esteem. And isn't that what we all want? Isn't that what we really all want? So should we leave it there? I think that's a lovely conversation. I hope that you, can cherish the relationships that you have. And maybe if you want to make some adjustments to make them even more valuable and more uplifting to you and everyone else. So thank you very much, and we'll see you next time. Bye bye. When you walk into a room, life gets little sweeter. When I look at you, I see you are my, you are. My life. My life. My life.
