I have been feeling very discombobulated recently about the divisiveness running through our country.

Conversations and media focus on vaccinated/unvaccinated, racial differences, employer/employee, landlord/tenant, Kiwis at home/Kiwis overseas…

Today I caught up with a group of close friends who have similar values, but different political views and ideas about what is and isn’t working.

One of them shared that when she used to counsel parents in conflict, she popped a picture of their child/children in the centre of the table, and that is what they kept coming back to as they worked towards an outcome.

So I asked “What is at our centre?” We agreed it was something like “Healthy communities.”

For me, a healthy community focuses on:
– social cohesion, a sense of belonging and contribution, the valuing of diversity and the ability to have healthy debate
– physical health and wellbeing, how we care for our bodies
– mental and emotional health, what energises us, how we connect, how we deal with trauma, how we heal.

So what IS at our centre in Aotearoa NZ right now? What do we dream of for our beautiful country?

It’s possible that a small minority may want to destabilise for their own agenda, but I suspect most of us want something similar.

Maybe if we start having a conversation about what that is, we may be able to start moving towards it 

Image: Shane Rounce, Unsplash