The biggest mistakes I’ve made in the last 25 years of self growth have mostly been around how I treated, reacted and responded to the people in my life.
One night, I had just crawled into my bed, snuggled into my cozy grey sheets and pink duvet. I was about to turn my phone off when it rang. A dear friend was calling, and I chose to answer because I was worried about why she was calling so late. It had never happened before. I picked up the call and I could tell she was frazzled and agitated. When I asked her what was going on, she told me she’d seen something disparaging about me online and was feeling agitated by it. I don’t know if it was because she believed it or because she was concerned by the contents, it doesn’t really matter.
That day I was feeling grounded and settled; it had been a hard few months for me but that night, I felt like I was in a good place. I listened and for most of the conversation I was able to stay in my body and not get caught up in my head. I was able to remain grounded and unfazed by the news. I can’t always do this, and there are times I could become destabilized by such news, caught in the drama and pulled into anxiety. But I was feeling self-regulated and well resourced that day so I didn’t take it on and slept soundly.
It’s taken years of practice to learn to resource my well-being and sense of calm and understand the difference between who and what gets to take my energy and what doesn’t.
As we fumble through the experience of self-growth and self-exploration, we experience some big ‘a-ha’ moments; we can also become misguided with how to use our newfound knowledge and life experiences.
Since I was little I knew I wanted to be of service and help others. I have had many erroneous ideas and behaviours that negatively impacted those I wanted to help. I’ve made mistakes and burned bridges with people that I was trying to grow closer to. I’ve learned to accept those botched experiences in my process of learning to be conscious because I still have them, we never perfect this being human thing, but we certainly can learn from our missteps.
I’ve learned a few key things that have helped me fumble less and respect other people’s boundaries more:
- If you hear a story about someone that’s shared in a gossipy way, don’t trust it. Build your relationships with people based on your experience with them. Be willing to have difficult conversations as a way to grow individually and in your relationships.
- A difficult conversation doesn’t include micromanaging someone else’s experiences or telling them what they are and aren’t allowed to process and express.
- We don’t get to tell someone stories or perceptions about them that we’ve heard from others. Imagine someone doing that to you.
- Avoid thinking you know what’s best for someone else.
- Assuming the worst in someone’s actions or behaviours. Assume the best and find out how to shine a light on that, again everyone is learning how to be human.
- Making a diagnosis about someone’s life and sharing your thoughts without asking their permission.
- Losing patience with someone for not being where you think they should be in their life or processing life experience.
- Thinking you know what’s best for someone else. You have no idea of anyone’s whole story or what they’ve been through. Even if you do have an idea, you haven’t lived their life and you likely do not know as much as you think you know.
- Stop thinking the worst of others.
- Keep yourself out of others’ experiences and watch your reactions, your need to feel calm, your pain, and your desire to quiet someone to feel better.
The biggest lesson in self-evolution is to watch your desire to believe your thoughts and ideas are right. That you’re all-knowing and that, in your head, you have the stories about someone else figured out, because we don’t. It’s an enormous breach of respect and crosses boundaries when we make these assumptions and act in these ways. You only know what’s right for you, not what’s right for someone else. We can only offer support, warm hugs, lovingly prepared food, and an ear and patience for the discomfort in them and us.
This being human is hard, but if we can be gentler with how we treat ourselves it will be visible in how we respond to others.
With love
Noelle