The past year has been an incredibly challenging time for many people. When going through difficult periods it’s often easy to focus solely on the negative. But there was so much good that happened during the last year. While the story wasn’t always told, billions of people around the world came together and responded to the crisis with love, care, and compassion. Even though we were separated physically, people connected and reached out more than ever before.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Tim Shriver, the founder of UNITE, the long-time chair of Special Olympics, a bestselling author, and a founding force of the social and emotional learning movement. Tim views this time of our lives as an opportunity for people to come together. According to Tim, rather than seeing the best of us presented in the media, we were shown the worst of us. He believes this is the time we should unite rather than be divided.

“We can’t remain in a world where hatred and outrage and acrimony is the norm all the time,” said Tim. In an attempt to enact change, he reached out to celebrities, former presidents, musical artists, religious leaders, and every day folk such as doctors, nurses, and grocery store clerks, to hear their words of hope, wisdom, and inspiration. Their teachings were compiled into the book, which Tim co-edited, The Call to Unite: Voices of Hope and Awakening. The book was written as an invitation to change our minds about ourselves and who we are.

Below Tim shares his insights about the call to unite.

On the invitation:

If we’re struggling and in pain, if we’re frustrated, if we’re worried about the future, if we’ve got a lot of grief, this is a book from friends you haven’t met yet. Friends who are ready to give you the support you need to come through this time.

On rejecting “us” versus “them” thinking:

It’s a deep shifting of calm within ourselves – self-compassion. It’s hard to have compassion for others when we don’t have it for ourselves. We have to learn how to cross boundaries. That doesn’t mean we have to agree all the time, it means that when we disagree, we try to do so by first giving the other person their dignity, not trying to violate their dignity. Not contempt and hate and outrage.

On shifting from a “me” mentality to one of collective benefit:

My friend, Charlamagne, who is a radio host, says to take the word illness, which starts with an “i”, and change the “i” to “we”. What do you get? Wellness. It’s a pretty big shift. When we see ourselves as part of a whole, as belonging and participating in a whole, then the whole becomes more trustworthy, and more compassionate, and more just.

On helping our kids move forward:

Teach compassion. That’s the message of the social and emotional learning movement. Teach the gifts of inner life and the relational life. Children have seen loss in their families, they’ve seen all the uncertainty in the world. We’ve taken from them something that is one the most essential gifts of childhood, which is structure and confidence and safety. We’re gonna have to rebuild that safety now - the emotional safety, the relational safety.

Listen to my conversation with Tim: www.cyacyl.com/shows/tim-shriver

This interview was edited and condensed by CYACYL. For more information on the CYACYL Book Club and on how to become a member, visit CYACYL.COM/BOOKCLUB.