Re-writing #3
Sometimes the most refreshing thing you can do is to re-write your own expectations and responses.
Over time and experience, you have seen the worst. You’ve been burned, betrayed, and disappointed. Understandably, you’ve probably put up some emotional fences to guard yourself from repeating this pain. We all do it. In certain scenarios, it may be necessary for survival for a while.
But, what if…
What if the next time you encounter a person who triggers your worst assumptions, you blow the whistle on your own thoughts? What if you hold that person in your mind (or quite literally in your sight) and attempt to understand them from their shoes?
Most likely, you can imagine valid reasons that they came to be the way they are. You can picture life experiences that heavily influenced them. You may envision the reasons for their own defensiveness. And even if you’re wrong, you have at least softened your heart. Plus, you have taken a crucial step in the direction of eliminating the hate that is hurting you far worse than it could ever hurt them.
Taking it a step further, can you see the beauty in them? Can you find the good? Of course you can. Are they still flawed? Without a doubt. But, so are you. So am I. And yet, the raw elements of beauty, kindness, and love still stir around in the souls of people on the opposite side of the aisle and the other side of the tracks.
We all get to be just as angry and miserable as we want to be. But, we also get to be just as gracious and generous as we want to be too. Even if your relationship to the person you have in mind still requires boundaries, you don’t have to remain shackled to a grudge.
Think the best, not the worst of people as you re-write your assumptions.
Worth Repeating
There is hardly a more gracious gift that we can offer somebody than to accept them fully, to love them almost despite themselves.
-Elizabeth Gilbert
