In the past few months, I’ve been putting myself in new social situations. I’m interacting and exchanging energy with people I wouldn’t have allowed into my life years ago (actually, even just months ago). And it’s illuminating how complex human beings can be. There were greater exposure of pleasant surprises and rich experiences. Inevitably, there were also challenging situations that brought up difficult emotions.
I learned some things about myself while reflecting on these situations:
I hold on to unpleasant feelings about another person who I perceive to have inflicted harm on me.
The unpleasant feelings come from stories I make up in my head.
While these stories may or may not be true, they have a chokehold on how I feel in those moments.
And that’s not how I want to live.
I want to make life less difficult.
For most of my life, I’ve chosen difficult paths, thinking that more effort equals more reward. This is not useful at this stage of life where time and energy is precious.
I want to learn to be kinder, and more compassionate towards my self and others. Choosing to see things as they are, not marred by my interpretations and negative judgement.
This way of living leads to being more at ease with discomfort of things happening out of our locus of control. Also, quite a Buddhist way of seeing things1.
When I was writing the draft of this piece, the title I gave my note was - ‘being kinder in my expectations and judgement of others’.
Upon further reflection, I added ‘AND MYSELF’.
I can’t speak for all, but I know many of us are willing to treat others with more kindness than we treat ourselves. In examining our judgment of others, it’s probably likely that these are things we think of ourselves - and maybe worse if we tend to be self-critical.
Years ago, when I learned how to be a peer helper, the first lesson we were taught in active listening is, “Do not give advice”. The second? Suspend all judgement. They are two of the most difficult things to do in a conversation when someone is presenting another with a problem.
Judgments are natural instinctive reactions. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a judgement of a situation, another person, or myself. They aren’t true. They are merely perceptions. They are useful in reinforcing the beliefs we already hold, not of what is true at the moment.
As I was going through some uncomfortable emotions that I was not familiar with recently, B did an exercise with me from the book Radical Compassion by Tara Brach.
Using a mindfulness approach - RAIN:
Recognise
Allow the experience to be there, as is
Investigate with interest and care
Nurture with self-compassion
The last two steps were the toughest.
To subvert the over-analytical mind and have gentle compassion for myself and my emotions.
Gently investigate what comes up.
Asking myself,
What is the worst part of this; what most want my attention?
What is the most difficult/ painful thing I am believing?
The second question hits hard when I uncover the core belief that I’ve been trying to shake for years, still rears its head. Or the seemingly ridiculous things I made up, but rang true in my mind.
Instead of allowing myself to spiral out of control, I’m welcoming the thoughts and emotions like an old friend.
Oh hi, you’re back.
Allowing them to visit, not resisting, not willing them to go away. Eventually they’ll get tired, and leave.
My job then is to let it go.
Letting go of the stories. Letting go of the negative core beliefs. Letting go of the emotions that were present and nonetheless valid.
This highlight was resurfaced by Readwise and it was so relevant to what I’ve been thinking about. When things don’t go my way, how do I react? I want to create space in my world for differences and alternatives.
When things don’t go my way, I used to be unable to compartmentalise and crumble under pressure in the other areas of my life. One thing breaking means my day is more or less ruined.
When things don’t go my way, it means I held some expectations about how it should have panned out.
Building up my house of cards, I now see these situations as ways to learn about myself and what I’ve come to expect from others. It’s not easy to fully embrace this, but expecting things to always go my way is unreasonable. I don’t have to allow these breaches to break my day, and let go.
What situations do you find yourself having expectations but they were not met? How does that make you feel?
I’ve been reading a book called When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron. A great book with advice drawn from Buddhist wisdom. I found it helpful to read while I’m going through those difficult emotions.
“The unpleasant feelings come from stories I make up in my head.” IMO that would make a fine description for trauma!! That’s all it is really, our “ugly” thoughts and behaviours are just either conscious (or often subconscious) stories that we tell ourselves, and our emotions serve as a guide to for us to look deeper :)
Incidentally, at the Stranger Gathering pre-meetup yesterday, I met a beautiful soul who talked about how most of human beliefs, systems are just stories that we have grown to accept as fact — she strongly recommended the book "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari" which illuminates this topic very well. I'm going to read it next!
"And that’s not how I want to live." This is such a powerful sentence, I got chills from it. The strength, conviction, and commitment behind those words. Bravo!!!
"What situations do you find yourself having expectations but they were not met? How does that make you feel?" I'll be writing about something similar for my next two posts! :)
Also, I don't think you need any help with this, but remember to "process" before letting go!! :)