Hi, This is Wayne Brown from Life Back On Track. Welcome to the latest episode.

This is an episode that I've sort of been over before. However, I feel it's something that's very important, and I'd like to go over it again, address it again, maybe look at it from a different angle just so you can start to understand why I wanted to go over this again.

On the weekend, I was talking to some friends and we were discussing the situation of various people, and a couple of statements were made that I felt needed to be pointed out, and I said to the rest of the group, "They're racist statements" and they said, "How are they racist?"

Oh, now I recall they were talking about seeing people of a particular race on the street, and they would avoid them due to previous experience of people from that particular race, and I said to him, Well, "that's being racist". And they said, "No, it's not. It's making sure you're safe". And I said "No. When you take a group of people and you base that experience, you're generalising and you're judging those people from that previous behaviour that makes it a racist statement or a racist behaviour".

Now a lot of people get up in arms about racism and all of this sort of thing and carry on like it's something that only a few people do. However, we all do it, and it's not just racism, and this is the key to what I'm trying to get to. Is it something that every single one of us does? We might do it to a small extent. We may do it to a large extent, but we all do it. And it's not just with race. We do it with all sorts of people. If we look at people of a certain age, we will make a generalisation about them. So for someone like myself who's in their fifties, they can be inclined to when they look at people that are younger, view them in a way that could be judgmental or minimising them or negating them. And that's being ageist. It could be someone who's in their thirty's. Who looks at an older person who say in their eighties and says well, they're a waste of space, they're not contributing to society. Why are they even alive, that's being ageist.

We operate from a generalisation. If we are a man, say, like myself, and I'm looking at a woman and I make a judgement about her. I have generalised based off her gender, which means I've been sexist and vice versa. Women can look at men and make a statement based off a generalisation, and that means they're being sexist. Now we all do it and one of the keys to resolving any conflict, so whether it's an internal conflict or an external conflict, the key to resolving it and moving forward is acknowledging the truth. And if we all admit it, I'm racist. I'm prejudiced, I'm sexist and ageist on whatever it is. If it's a particular generalisation that you do of a particular person, that is one of those labels.

Now, it's not a bad thing to admit this. You get people who have a shame or guilt around it, and they don't want to admit that they are that. What I have found with my journey is being brought up as I am as a white person in Australia, a male, middle class, I tend to be one of the most comfortable people, you could say, because I don't tend to have a lot of those judgments that others would have now being raised with that, I didn't think anything of it having these viewpoints of racism, sexism, ageism, etcetera, etcetera because I had been subject to my society, my culture exposing me to that point of view advertising, TV shows behaviours of particular authorities to these people.

To me, it was just 'normal', and I placed that in inverted commas to indicate that it was the commonly accepted behaviour. Now does that excuse it? Does that make it good? No. However, I cannot fix that within myself until I acknowledge that I am it now. Do I still have these thoughts of racism, sexism, ageism, et cetera. Yes, they flit through my mind, and they are a reminder to me, of what I am trying to work on within myself. So if I have those thoughts, those patterns that pop into my head, that gives me an opportunity to address that so that I can reduce and minimise that behaviour within my own mind set.

Now for other people, there will be people listening to this. Who would say I'm not racist, I believe, and to use a fairly recent example. Black lives matter. I believe that black lives matter. But these same people who espouse to believe that black lives matter are only focusing on a particular sector of those type of people. Now, if you view everyone with a view of humanity in as much as we are all entitled to having fresh food, fresh water, shelter, clothing, good medical care, all of these things in education, if you believe that we all deserve access to all of them. Most of the developed world is being racist because we ignore the people that are suffering in other places the world and do little to help, even though we can. As individuals, we can't help. But as a nation, we can.

We hide our elderly people away. We ignore the wisdom and the knowledge that they have acquired over their lifetime, and we ignore these riches that we could mine and benefit from. But we don't, we hide them away, so we're all ageist. We all agree on hiding people away, so if you can start to acknowledge that within yourself and acknowledge it without guilt or shame, or any of this sort of rubbish.

Using those two things, guilt and shame. To acknowledge something that allows you to grow is self defeating. You need to just acknowledge to yourself I have these thoughts. I may believe that black lives matter, but there are other races that I see being denigrated, minimised put down and all of this sort of thing, and I unconsciously agree to it because I do nothing about it now. Thankfully, as a species, we are slowly speaking up more and more for everyone who deserves these basic rights.

Now for myself, like I said, it's been part of my journey, and I acknowledge that I've had these thoughts quite strongly in the past, and I have been voraciously working on them so that every time those thoughts come into my head, I examine them. I look at them, where they come from so that I can address them and rewire them so they become less so. By constantly working on myself. I become less racist, less sexist, less ageist, less judgmental. I become more accepting now. Does that mean I'm perfect? No, I'm not perfect. No one's ever nailed this. And if anyone ever says I'm not racist at all is probably deluding themselves because they may not be racist to a particular bracket of races or cultures or whatever, however, they may have racist attitudes towards others.

So regardless of where it's directed, if you have it racism, sexism, etcetera, you have it, end of story and you cannot fix it until you acknowledge it. So that's what I wanted to talk about today. Look at it from a couple of different angles so that hopefully you'll understand and maybe start to work on yourself, maybe start to pull up other people. When you see that behaviour because we all deserve what some of us have, we all deserve it. We all deserve to be healthy and happy and loved, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah, so that's it for today. It was something that was big in my journey, is still big in my journey, knowing that I need to work on still not judging, accepting people for who they are, not what I think they are or what society tells me they are. That is my constant journey, and one that I'm glad to have, because it makes me more humane, more understanding, more compassionate, more empathetic, and I feel makes me a better human being.

I'm hoping you, too will join me on this little journey and admit at least to yourself that you are these things so that you too, can work towards your humanity. Anyway, That's it for today. I hope you've got something out of it. I really do. So until the next episode, before I go, you will see in the show Notes. There are a few links. One I've mentioned a number of times, and that is a little link where you can leave me a ninety-second voicemail because voices are always nicer than written. So if you want to send me feedback, questions, support, whatever you want to send, I'd love to hear your little voice. You can do it anonymously, or you can let me know your email address when you do the recording, and therefore we can have a dialogue and I can get to know who you are, and you can learn more about me and what I do.

Also there's a link to join my subscription group, which means you can join at any level, try it out for 30 days, and if at the end of it you don't like it, I'll give you your money back. The level you pick is up to you because it's 30 days money back guarantee you may as well go all in and try the highest level. You can have access to everything then, which is all my recordings, et cetera, as well as coaching calls and check it out. You can click the links, find out more and then decide which level you want to come in on.

And it would be great to get to know you as well as your knowing about me through these podcasts. So share them with people that you care about that you feel will benefit from what I'm talking about. Uh, other than that they keep up the good work. Thanks for listening and helping me expand this bit by bit and helping me help others. So until the next episode, look after yourselves. And remember, here's to a good life

You can listen to the Life Back On Track podcast on your favourite platform by visiting our podcast website. Click HERE to check it out. 

You can also listen to my radio show “All About Relationships” which has its own podcast on your favourite platform by clicking HERE 

Thanks for listening.