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A friend came to me recently, asking for help with a tough work situation. A colleague had been making it hard for her to do her job and seemed bent on driving her confidence into the ground. Every time I see this person, I’m filled with anger, and I need some help.
I offered her some advice a trusted friend gave me once. It was nearly impossible to hear at the time because I was so tangled up in my anger and frustration. It was as though she hadn’t heard my complaints and pain at all. She said:
You have to give that person love. Take that person into your heart—where there is only love—and see that person as a child of God, just like you. Imagine there is no separation between the two of you and that, in the end, this person wants the same thing you do: to be deeply seen, loved, and appreciated. We’re all here to learn our lessons, after all.
My friend faced me blankly and replied: No. That won’t work. I’m not there yet.
So how about this? I said. When it gets tough between you two, before you react, just ask yourself, How am I choosing to respond here?
My friend thanked me, calmed down visibly, and said she’d try it. I’m going to try and get where you are, but it’s going to take me baby steps.
Not so fast, I said. I also flipped somebody off in traffic this morning, so let’s not put me in some kind of holier-than-thou exclusive club.
Sometimes it’s baffling to think that we can embody so many seeming contradictions that feel so real and true in any given moment. For me, being able to see people without judgment while wishing them love and peace is real; I often do it. When I meditate and pray, before I eat and sleep and throughout the day, when I remember to. And the other piece is no less true—that I don’t always think or default into a loving, sunshiny perspective when I’m pissed off or hurt. But that’s also valuable. This paradox of being human can act as a call to keep intending toward the goal in whatever ways we can, a great lesson in humility itself.
How great is that we all have room to grow?
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Expiration dates are a good thing. They tell us in no uncertain terms when it’s time to toss what’s no longer useful. Best-before dates are even better; they tell us when to get the most out of what we’ve got. If only it were that simple in other areas of life.
I was giving a workshop over the weekend on the topic of letting go. I invited participants to think about the labels they identify with and then to let those associations loosen and, finally, drop. Without your labels, I asked, do you still recognize yourself?
A great range of responses opened up, from those who didn’t get the concept of letting go to those who felt shaky at imagining themselves as something other than their notions of who they’d always been.
That’s where the expiration date thing came in. All too often we drag around old notions of who we think we are and who we’re capable of becoming in the world, even when we know doing so doesn’t serve our highest good. I’ve been butting up against a bunch of those lately. Just yesterday—yesterday, honey!—I remembered a seemingly harmless incident with my father and siblings from the time I was around 4 years old. It surprised me to find that it impacted the way I viewed authority. My own, to be specific.
As I sat with the memory and looked at it from a broader perspective, I realized everyone did the best they could in the moment and that, as a child, it was reasonable that I kept quiet and didn’t talk back. But today is a different story. Today I get to drop the ‘helpless victim’ and ‘baby’ labels when I feel them opening up to take me in. Today, I can change my response in ways that support me in the present time. I also get to run my mouth when I want, like I want—regardless of any consequences. Knowing this at a deep level will change the game entirely.
Have you been noticing expiration dates popping up around you lately, too? Are the stories you tell yourself starting to curdle and smell? Is it time to ditch those old ideas that no longer serve your growth? Let me give you a hint: Yes!