What if we changed everything?

A shift in perspective.

Looking around, not much outside of my beautiful little world, which I have created — my internal sanctuary — is working. Systems are not working. Healthcare is not working. Education is not working. Mass media isn’t working. Government, no matter which side you are on, is not working.

In a recent yoga class, my teacher instructed us to practice facing the opposite direction, toward the back of the classroom.

It was only for a moment.

She apologized, smiling, which made me smile, knowing a simple shift in our direction would throw so many off. Way off.

But that simple shift opened me up to a very different perspective. I noticed areas where I need to make changes in my poses, subtle tweaks that could lead to significant shifts down the road, and ways I could fall deeper into a pose that allowed my body to expand and open.

It helped me recognize the ways I fall asleep with my eyes open, even during a mindful yoga practice. I get too comfortable in routines, patterns and habits so that I can’t feel or see the way I am moving about my mat, my world.

While this changed the entire orientation of how I practiced on that mat in that room for more than 13 years and led to some discomfort, it was also liberating.

Who knew a simple change in direction would change so much, opening me up to a new way to bend and stretch and see?

If what we practice on our little rectangular mats is parallel to the ways we practice living our lives off the mat, then it got me thinking: Could a shift in direction, in perspective, change everything?

What if we changed the way we worked?

The way we connect to others?

The way we ate?

The way we get from here to there?

The side of the bed we slept on.

The way we elect leaders.

The way we lead companies and countries.

Our research processes.

The hand we vacuum with.

The way we manage employees.

How about we stop managing people?

The way we honor the whole yet imperfect human sitting across from us at our dining room tables?

Our mass media systems.

Patriarchal, Darwinian science of competition.

Profit-focused economies that neglect our humanity.

Energy sources used.

The way we talk to each other.

The way we listen to each other.

The way we love one another.

The way we raise our children.

The way we educate our youth.

The way we treat Mother Earth.

The chair we sit in every morning when we have coffee.

What if we could change everything?

What could we change, and why not?