By Noura. Follow: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.
The inspiration for this article was the following conversation I had with someone on Twitter about a tweet I posted:
Tweet: Non-judgment has a loving quality to it that says “I see you”. What does non- judgment mean to you?
Here is his first response: Being honest, it’s the only way you can be.
My response: Sometimes, honesty requires courage.
His response: True, and there are times when the person feel they do not want to rock the boat.
My response: Yes, and yet the boat is probably sinking. A system without integrity is doomed.
His response: You’re right, should it get to that stage, but then again that does take a lot of courage, which sometimes the person doesn’t feel, should he /she be in that situation, maybe he /she feels what rightly needs to be done but for reasons of emotion simply can’t.
My Response: I agree, sometimes we want people to meet our expectations but maybe they simply can’t because they have not yet processed their emotions.
His Response: just what I was thinking, thanks for the matter
My Response: Sure, thanks for sharing your input, I now have some new ideas to think about.
Sometimes we have expectations about others they simply can’t meet because they are not emotionally at a place where they can do that. Maybe we expect them to love us the way we want to be loved, we expect them to be honest with us, or we expect them to keep their words or uphold an agreement. Then we get disillusioned or disappointed when we realize that the image they presented to us about themselves was a lie. Why did they lie to us?
The following experience I had many years ago, might help to answer this question. While I was travelling, I rented a place for about two months. I signed a rental agreement that required that I pay a security deposit. The security deposit was to be reimbursed at the end of my rental. The landlord lived in a separate house with his wife and rented the one where I was staying to me and another couple.
One night, the landlord came to the house and slept in one of the spare rooms. He was drunk and was obviously not doing well. He looked like he was hiding from something. Eventually when I moved out and requested my security deposit, he told me that he had lost his job and needed more time. I kept checking in with him. Every single time, he said he was going to return the security deposit, but he never did. Whenever we came to some sort of agreement, he would promise to honor it, then disappear, until I called him, and the whole process would start again. Eventually, it became obvious that I was never going to get this money back. I could have considered some kind of arbitration process involving a third party, but it didn’t seem to be worth the time and effort, so I moved on.
The landlord was not able to face the grief of losing his job, so he tried to drown his sorrow into drinking and denial. The problem was not the loss of the job itself, but his interpretation of what it meant about him. Since he couldn’t face his interpretation of the situation, he couldn’t be honest about it, and therefore; he also couldn’t be honest with me. I did my best to be as kind as possible to him, while I accepted that he was not going to be able to meet my expectation of honoring our agreement. This quote by Matt Khan sums it up really well “Despite how open, peaceful, and loving you attempt to be, people can only meet you as deeply as they’ve met themselves. This is the heart of clarity”. Maturity is about being able to meet ourselves where we are so we can meet people from there. Only then can we have honest and meaningful conversations.
When we are afraid to look at ourselves or at a situation that frightens us, we end up in a state of conflict because:
- We mentally argue against the facts
- We exert tremendous mental energy to push the problem away through denial. It takes a lot of energy not to see what is there.
Being in a constant state of conflict results in mental exhaustion or burn out. Sometimes people are so emotionally burnt out that they feel that their only choice is to choose the weakness of attack. This weakness can show up in the form of cheating, stealing, lying, indifference, neglect, denial, and so on. These coping mechanisms can be very hurtful to the people around them. Basically they don’t treat us or love us the way we expect them to.
However, the way they treat me doesn’t define me and is not my issue. Thus, if their treatment of me triggers any pain, I own this issue because this means there is some pain inside me that I need to look at, and process so I can free myself of this trigger. If I blame the other person, I can no longer own the issue and it stays until something else triggers it.
If I feel resentful and I feel the need to hurt the other out of revenge, that’s also an issue in myself that I need to look at. Someone’s unkindness doesn’t justify my own. But if I am healed from my own pain, I will be able to approach the situation without the need to hurt, punish, or humiliate anyone. I will look for the solution that is most helpful to all people. This could include sending someone to jail. The kindness itself is not in the act, it’s in the purpose of the action. It’s about how I do it and why. Do I do it with peace or with conflict?
It may not be easy or pleasant to be in a difficult relationship, but if we find ourselves in one, it can become an opportunity to discover our inner wounds, and have another chance to process them and free ourselves.
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