Soulful Sonder

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, granting women the official right to VOTE in the US. But that didn’t mean all women in reality could vote. Many NON-WHITE WOMEN were still blocked from voting for years and even decades after 1920. Which brings us to the concept for today...SONDER.

SONDER is the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and COMPLEX as your own. Full of their own ambitions, struggles, biases, history, thoughts, families, interactions, feelings. Their own ecosystem of reality.

How often do you think about another person’s true felt experience? How it would actually feel to look out at the world from their eyes, their version of reality? How might it have felt for those women in 1920 who tried to vote but were denied? What went through their minds? What were the different ways they reacted, internally and externally? What ripple effects did that experience have on their families and communities?

We only know what we know. And we sure do know OUR OWN EXPERIENCE! And sometimes get wrapped up in it. It is not easy to step outside of ourselves and contemplate others’ experiences. The invitation is for you to join me in contemplating SONDER. When you see someone in your everyday life (mail person, co-worker, spouse, grocery store clerk), remember the word SONDER and reflect on their universe, their felt experience. Drop me a note and let me know if you have any aha’s.