What does it mean to be human?

That is a big question right? I was asked that at Madeline's school a few weeks ago.....Madeline was the one to ask it actually to the parents....and we offered up some ideas about what it means.....and working with my coaching client last night was also a reminder of what it means to be human.....navigating life's challenges......and we all do right? Woven together in our human condition.....but often feeling so separate.....like we are going it alone.....even though we never are and we all have STUFF......and to be human is to feel......to lose........to love.......to hurt.......to feel......to weep.......to smile......to laugh.......to survive.....to endure......to do so much.......and sometimes all in the same week;-) and as it came up for me last week again, I know we need to do better at supporting each other in our human stuff.....realizing that our humanness finds us all....and what we really want is to be seen and heard......validated and affirmed.....and understood......offering up a lecture to somebody when they are in their humanness is not needed.....that thought occurring to me before.....but then again and again......we must resist doing that, really.....haven't we all made a mistake or found ourselves up against it, and somebody offers us grace and understanding and it feels like relief.....because we already know the mistake we made, we need not have another person point it out.......I try and do that when I can with me kids....I am not always successful but it is always my goal.....and I am getting better at it as time moves along.....to be more gentle in their mistakes or shortcomings....not highlighting them........and certainly not shaming them for them.....it doesn't help.....it just doesn't........so I try and step back when I can, free of emotion or frustration....and offer up grace and support.....and when I am able to do that it makes all the difference.....it is why do unto others as you would have done unto you is a thing......nobody wants to be chastised in their human stuff....nobody.....or lectured......we do enough of that to ourselves if we aren't careful......and the times I let frustration win, and can't be as peaceful or gracious as I want to be that is my human showing, and I offer up grace to her too......so I was honored to sit with a lovely woman in her human condition last night.....feeling what it means to be human......through her lens.....and feeling honored to walk in her human condition.....alongside of her....and be in a position to be able to offer a listening ear, a validating ear......a compassionate ear......and a way forward......being human ain't easy....and it can become complicated so quickly.....but perhaps the way is to see the human in each other, to look for the human in each other...... and offer up a place for us to be just that.....our human selves in all of our forms....