Peace and Compassion

 

I tend to take things personally - that is, until I finally begin to see that someone else's behavior actually has nothing Nothing NOTHING to do with me.
Do you do this?

This behavior (of taking things personally) probably began as a young girl with my sensitivity to the emotions of those around me and of the other external factors that influenced me as well. Most likely I learned to be self-critical and other-compassionate pretty early in life...because it's been one of those battles that I struggle with pretty often, as it turns out.

It would be one thing if this propensity only hurt me. Which it does. But I have also hurt other people with it. I remember years ago feeling that internal pain and confusion and other more physical expressions of the emotions about a friend of mine who, in my mind, was behaving in a certain way toward me. By the time I figured out that her stuff was, in no way, about me, I had really damaged that friendship.

This month I've been relearning this.
Again.

Some things have been feeling personally hurtful (sorry for the vague blogging) and, again, after about a month of dealing with it badly, I, again, realize that it's time to learn that lesson again, the one where other people's issues aren't about ME. I have to be vague about it because it's the right thing to do as it's not my issue, but believe me when I tell you that I need to post this particular meme on my wall or something. It sure makes me tend to damage things by accident...things that are already fragile, fractured, or simply burgeoning.

And so, as I learn this lesson yet again, join me in learning that when you finally learn that a person's behavior has more to do with their own internal struggles than they ever did with you, you learn peace and compassion.

And it changes everything.