People are the biggest mystery and one which cannot be solved. Ones path is constantly readjusted by the people that one comes in contact with and those people are swayed by yet another situation brought about by another person. If you were to follow the chain there would be no end.
I believe in the power of consciousness and being aware of yourself and your thoughts. However this has been hard to reconcile with my experiences as I become more social and interdependent. When running into one person takes over your thoughts and disturbs the peace hard won with meditation, yoga, psychology and wellness exercises. When everything seems to be aligned and someone has other ideas about the conclusion and disappears. One can learn to live with, accept and control or manifest reality with imagination but when It comes to relationships, knowing you are not the body and we are all one does not help.
Social psychology is often the analysis of the situations effect on an individualised self. There are well known cognitive biases that bring to light the errors in judgement people make when they do not take the situation into awareness. The familiarity with another increases attribution of outcomes to situational factors as you learn the multifaceted nature of their personality and that they do not always act in accordance with the lazy stereotype you assign to them based upon appearance.
So what is the equivalent of meditation for the social self? For every thing there is an opposite, if self love can only come from the individual and the social self is the opposite. then love of others no matter the outcomes can be the only peace found. Desire is the enemy of outcome independence however people do not understand a desireless person and much of social convention is based upon it. So how do we maintain a level head and avoid a rollercoaster life of the ultimate social being? how do we desire to be the sexiest, wealthiest and most popular yet be happy with a run of the mill encounter and not be disappointed and frustrated?
Everything is temporary and changing. Time is the other factor that has tremendous implications on social conditioning. Missed opportunities, complicated intertwined lives that maintain committed ideals which just appear like prisons defending against any change of status quo and at the opposite end of the spektrum, quick relationships that adjust behaviour to that which is less understanding of any other position, narrow pigeon hold and terribly systematic. It's time to rise in consciousness from yellow to turquoise. From root to universe. From blame, hate, anger, shame into forgiving, loving, smiling and freedom.