This week has been incredibly reflective.
I have not only been able to understand the different books and advice that I have been recieving, but have been able to use it as well!
A few things(and their sources) that I believe I am finally starting to get a handle on.
Not taking things personally. I first really read this concept in a book called the four agreements. His essential premise is NOTHING people do are because of you! While I saw the logic, I was really struggling on how to truly internalize it. Especially with guys and with work. My friend Liz, in the classroom is a perfect example of this. She doesn't see the kids as being against her. She sees them as needing different support that we need to provide. Our job is to teach them, and of course they are going to get it wrong. But the more we take personally, the more tenuous it gets. She did remark that certain people are born/nurtured with that quality and it might be hard to learn. However, I realized, I do know it. I've always known it with parents, with customers as a waitress or a retail associate. I've known it with most professional endeavors and recently have internalized it with friends. Once I realize that I have very little to do with an interaction, I can look rationally at it and then figure out how to solve it/work with it.
Going in hand with that are two other principals that often get me in trouble, and that is don't make assumptions(also from four agreements) and very little of what goes on you have control over(Untethered soul). There is a peace in truly understanding both of these things.
Also directly related, is the idea that Eleanor Roosevelt says "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." My friend Troy in highschool said something quite similar, and I never could figure out how, but he lived it through his example. It's taken me 10 years, but I think I finally get it. Once you decide nothing is personal, you decide, or make a choice on how things affect you. I didn't think it worked that way and didn't realize I had that power (which is really the only power you have).
And to add to that, realizing that people don't make you do anything. You choose to do it. I choose my anxiety everytime it comes, by not acting on it. I can self-talk my way out of it. Where I used to get trapped was that I said to myself "I shouldn't feel this way" which only fed it more. Instead, I need to do what I've been teaching my kids, "Figure out what it is, and isolate it. If you can know it or change the situation do so. If not accept you can't and move on." It's oftentimes really as simple as that! But the more you accept that you choose everything, you will help yourself out so much more and stop blaming others. You can't change other people, you can only work on changing your own thought processes. And the goal is to make yourself as happy and peaceful as possible. Or at least thats my goal!
Finally, which my friend Aimee helped me to discover, that niceness or goodness is not always necessary. I've lived my whole life with this ideal that I want to and want others to percieve me as good. This is why I didn't drink in college, or mess around, or swear. Yet, I did alot of probably not nice things, and put ALOT on other people in order for me to call myself nice. The more I realize that, what I really want to live by, is "always do your best"(another four agreement). And, if I'm always doing the best that I can, and aknowledging when I'm not, I can finally have the confidence, not to rely on my niceness or charm to get me through.
I know this is 150% stream of consciousness and might not make a whole lot of sense, but I just wanted to get this down. I might edit or expand upon next week. But I'm on the cusp of something big, that I truly believe will bring peace to myself and make me most able to help others.
