While reading my blogs today I came across this article about loving unlovable people. As always an odd chain of events led me to this page. The synchronicity is, that I spent my morning ride to work thinking about this exact thing. My CWG email this morning reminded me that" no-one does anything inappropriate, given their model of the world "and I have found the actions of some people at work challenging lately. I was angry and upset, but tried working on elevating my mood. I still believe that only I have the power to make me happy or not, by choosing how I respond to my circumstances. Until then, I was choosing to wallow in my judgement of this person. So I had to remind myself, that they are only doing what he feels they needs to do to preserve their wellbeing.
We all have situations which we believe would justify us to do things we would normally find unacceptable, for self-preservation. These boundaries are decided by our experiences in life, and what worked for us in the past. Our beliefs are changeable and can be replaced with ones that work better for our circumstances. We can choose to let go of habits that are not serving us, if we see our actions for what they are.
This means that these methods have been successful for them in the past, and they believe the consequenses are acceptable, or that they haven't yet realised their methods are ineffective in achieving their goal. Either way, they are acting in the only way they know how, given their current life experiences, and lessons. Thinking like this enables me to have compassion for someone who would normally be unlikable to me. A bully may have grown up in an eat or be eaten environment, where bullying meant you survived where others fell. A victim type may have learnt that sympathy was their only ticket to improve their lot. I can't hate them for their circumstances, even if I hate the behaviour. Separate the person from their actions. I guess it works in the same way as separating our own mind from our soul. Our mind thinks it needs to protect itself at all costs. Our soul already knows that it cannot be hurt by anything. Nothing can be taken from it and it has nothing to lose. Your soul doesn't care if you are dumb, or poor, or ugly, or shy, or weak, but your mind certainly does. Our mind fears, when our soul does not. It is out of fear that we are "less than", that we attempt to gain superiority over others. To be smarter, stronger, or more powerful than a person, we make them feel smaller. We all do it to some degree. Any time we judge someone else, we feel superior, but that person is just acting out on a different set of beliefs and coping mechanisms than us. Their soul is made of the same stuff as ours though. I settled my mind this morning, but relapsed again once I got to work and was faced with more challenges. I think that article was a timely reminder, and has calmed my mind once more. I will be able to let this go for a little while at least. Being able to notice and observe the illusions created by my mind to protect itself, allows me to shed them for a little longer each day. I'm grateful for the insights that keep pushing this growth further.
We all have situations which we believe would justify us to do things we would normally find unacceptable, for self-preservation. These boundaries are decided by our experiences in life, and what worked for us in the past. Our beliefs are changeable and can be replaced with ones that work better for our circumstances. We can choose to let go of habits that are not serving us, if we see our actions for what they are.
This means that these methods have been successful for them in the past, and they believe the consequenses are acceptable, or that they haven't yet realised their methods are ineffective in achieving their goal. Either way, they are acting in the only way they know how, given their current life experiences, and lessons. Thinking like this enables me to have compassion for someone who would normally be unlikable to me. A bully may have grown up in an eat or be eaten environment, where bullying meant you survived where others fell. A victim type may have learnt that sympathy was their only ticket to improve their lot. I can't hate them for their circumstances, even if I hate the behaviour. Separate the person from their actions. I guess it works in the same way as separating our own mind from our soul. Our mind thinks it needs to protect itself at all costs. Our soul already knows that it cannot be hurt by anything. Nothing can be taken from it and it has nothing to lose. Your soul doesn't care if you are dumb, or poor, or ugly, or shy, or weak, but your mind certainly does. Our mind fears, when our soul does not. It is out of fear that we are "less than", that we attempt to gain superiority over others. To be smarter, stronger, or more powerful than a person, we make them feel smaller. We all do it to some degree. Any time we judge someone else, we feel superior, but that person is just acting out on a different set of beliefs and coping mechanisms than us. Their soul is made of the same stuff as ours though. I settled my mind this morning, but relapsed again once I got to work and was faced with more challenges. I think that article was a timely reminder, and has calmed my mind once more. I will be able to let this go for a little while at least. Being able to notice and observe the illusions created by my mind to protect itself, allows me to shed them for a little longer each day. I'm grateful for the insights that keep pushing this growth further.
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