Talking truth about "self-improvement" as it relates to health, overall wellness and expressing the truest version of you. This is Marta Mrotek with Something Honest…..

Remember when we were talking about Humility I said that sometimes something really huge happens that helps you remember who you really are..? Well same is really true for the forgetting process too. Sometimes forgetting happens quickly and sometimes it happens slowly… And the exact same thing is true for how we see other people. Sometimes there’s a great big thing that happens that changes the way you see someone else almost immediately, for better or worse, and sometimes it happens over time. And if we find that is mostly, you know, worse we can use everything that we did to remember and understand ourselves to see other people from that same higher point of view.

Today we’re kind of adding on to the work that we did for the Humility Study Journal and using some of the information that have already uncovered in relationship to other people and the Principle of Love. The idea here and the real purpose is to start creating a dependable method for growing a deeper where our True Power lies. And some of that includes going back to the work that we did with Integrity and taking responsibility for what’s ours to change, increasing our ability to respond effectively and knowing when it’s just to move into acceptance and let things be the way they are… That can be very hard to do when we start thinking about not just the way that we’ve harmed other people but where some of our resentments were born and how they’ve grown over time. But all of that can get much easier when we make understanding of the True Nature of Others part of the practice. We’ll have a journaling exercise at the end that will help more with this, but we’ll start with indications, emotions and feelings that help us pinpoint the moments that lead to judging others harshly.

And once again this all boils down to using everything that you’ve already learned and all of the information that’s already been coming to the surface to start studying yourself more deeply. And again, just like with Humility we’re going to work on incorporating the information that we find in the middle of physical experiences and the information that we find inside ourselves, the only real difference is that now we’re applying it to our relationships with other people, how we interact with them and how what can use all of this to further the integration process.

So, let’s start by looking at some of the most common characteristics and emotions that might indicate an immediate need for what we’re going to call practicing compassion.

Indications for Practice

And the first thing that comes to mind here is judgement because that’s where I believe the cycle almost always starts. But it’s a pretty complex topic because sometimes we feel so justified in the way we judge the behavior of others… Especially when it comes to the people that we believe have done us wrong somehow. And whether that feeling of justification is an opinion that’s formed over time or something that happens all at once we can actually get to the point where almost everything someone does is offensive in some way… or at least irritating. At some point we can get really sensitive to the behavior of certain individuals, and there are many reasons for this, but I think one of the most common is a simple loss of respect.

And I guess we could call this disrespect. Because that’s certainly part of it sometimes, but I think a lack of respect is a little bit different than the way we usually see the behavior that we call disrespectful. This whole thing is often wrapped up in resentment of some kind and it’s not always something that we’re expressing outwardly. It can have a whole lot more to do with just the way we see someone and that almost always has something to do with the way we feel about them and the emotions that come to the surface when we interact with them.

What starts out as irritation often turns into blame. And we talked about this a little bit in the talking points episode. When we expect other people to do what we would do or think the way we think we set ourselves up for trying to make them wrong. And we can feel like we really are right, and I mean maybe we are, but it doesn’t change the fact that once we start placing blame anger of some kind is almost sure to follow. Anger, no matter how righteous is just one of those toxic emotions that usually impacts us even more than the other person. Another one is jealousy and there can be some of that wrapped up in all of this, even if we’re just in some way annoyed that this other person is getting away with something that we feel like just wouldn’t fly if we ever tried it. Sometimes there’s something that feels like a double standard or simply that just doesn’t feel fair to us. But the point is no matter how they show up, all of these emotions lead to those feelings of separation and an overall lack of compassion for what the other person might be going through or the path that led them to their own state of disconnect and probably their own struggle to recognize their own pointers to what needs to change. In the end we are often judging some else’s struggle to recognize and express their own true nature. And you would think, after everything that we’ve been through, and everything we know about how painful that can, that we’d have some compassion.

Benefits of Practice

And that’s the first and the primary benefit of this particular practice. Working on loving everybody a little bit more can only help us grown feelings of understanding and empathy for the challenges that other people might be facing. And I would say that applies most specifically to the ones that we don’t know anything about. The ones that we can’t see.. and really isn’t that all of them? Even if you know that someone is going through a hard time, we rarely know the whole story about why people feel the way they do or do whatever they do that’s gotten under our skin. Cultivating a real sense of unconditional empathy can go a long way to healing some of our hard feelings. And as someone who really does identify as an empath on some level I can say that it is possible to go to far with this. None of this means that you should take on the burdens and negative feelings of others. If you’ve ever spent any amount of time with someone who feels like an energy vampire you know exactly what I mean… Especially if you’re sensitive to negativity it can be extremely challenging to love someone who consistently points out what’s wrong or spews their own pain out on to you on a regular basis. And the only real advice I can give on that is to go back to all of our previous discussions about boundaries and remind yourself that you don’t have to get angry, you don’t have to disrespect that person or treat them badly. All of this love and respect grows from the love and respect that you hold for yourself. And this actually ties in nicely with the last benefit we’ve got for this one and that’s forgiveness. You can still keep your side of the street clean. You can still make any amends that you need to make and do what’s right without selling yourself short or giving away your power. You can have empathy and compassion and even some form of love and respect for that person without giving them free reign in your life. And when we start working on Discipline and the process of actually going out and making amends, we’ll talk more about how to know when it’s time to draw the line with someone or even cut ties and disconnect completely. There are certain circumstances where it actually causes more harm, and definitely in the cases of those toxic relationships there are situations where removing yourself is the kindest thing that you can do for all parties. But there doesn’t have to be any hate there. With practice you can do all of this with love at the forefront showing up as simple respect for the simple fact that everyone is at their own place on the journey. 

We’re going pause for a quick break here. You’ll want to make sure you’ve got your journal if you can and we’ll be back with another writing exercise to start organizing our minds in relationship to the principle and practice of Love .

We’re back and working on a writing exercise for studying what needs to change in our relationships with others and applying the Love Principle as it relates to seeing the whole Truth, not just about you but about everybody else too.

Writing Exercise

We’ve already revisited original moral inventory that we created in the Courage Study Journal several times and today might be the last time that we have to go there in an official capacity. The writing itself here is extremely simple but there is some mental work involved and most of that has to do with recognizing the emotions that come up as you sit down to make a really extensive list of the people that you’ve harmed. And it really doesn’t matter how that harm was caused or what you’re going to do about it just yet. Sometimes we’re really clear about what we’ve done wrong and why, but sometimes we might find that we’ve been justifying or excusing our part and the harm that comes from our own actions and that can happen for many different reasons.

And so much of this plays out in relationship to that list of character defects and all of the things that have contributed to our filters and perceived flaws. Some of what we’ve done may have been an unhealthy response or reaction to something that was done to us, or an act of carelessness, or even something that was totally unintentional… But none of that makes any difference here. This work has so much to do with not just making things right with other people but making things right and making peace with yourself. One of the big benefits that I really should have included earlier is clearing your own conscious. Learning to work very intentionally with love and using it as a tool to guide your thought process is extremely useful for guilt and shame reduction and eliminating the stress that comes from carrying old baggage and burdens from the past. 

Since we’re going to go back to your original inventory again, it’s good to mention that the writing that you did there really was just about understanding how you got here and this is more about how you’ll actually do the work to make peace with it and set all the old stuff down. I do recommend that you start here by going back and reading through what you wrote before. I know you’ve already looked back at it several times and it’s very familiar but you’re just using it to refresh your memory as you sit down to make a comprehensive list, of not so much the actual harm you caused or the damage that was done, but the names of all those people. Just their names, and I really do mean all of them. Even if you still harbor hard feelings, even if you don’t feel any compassion toward that person just yet. Even if you haven’t found any willingness in your heart to make things right with them just yet, you still need to write it down. It doesn’t matter if this person is still in your life or not, doesn’t matter whether you know where they are or not, it doesn’t even matter if they’re alive or dead. You are making a list of all those that you have harmed. And it’s very possible that you didn’t even include all of the names that are coming into your mind right now on your original inventory. That’s pretty common and that’s okay, write them down anyway. And it’s really important here to remind yourself that you’re not only making a list that includes what feels comfortable, you’re not overthinking, these aren’t just people that you think will respond the way you want them to… Because this doesn’t have all that much to do with how your amends are received. We really don’t know at this point whether everything will turn out the way we want it to or not but that doesn’t change the work.

Focus on making the list without overthinking outcomes, or how you’ll make these amends just yet. And don’t forget that you can also include yourself here, knowing that in many ways what you’re doing right NOW is part of making things right with you. You’re already doing something here for you with this. Knowing that this isn’t a list that you want to keep in your head. We’re working on getting all that stuff out of your head and we are going to do a whole lot of talking about the value of list making together in future episodes but for now just know that there is great value here. Taking something out of your head and putting it down on paper, the act of writing itself, is literally your first physical, concrete action toward making things right. And when you take those thoughts, right now in relationship to these names, and get them out of the headspace where they may have been blown way out of proportion, you will almost certainly see them at least a little differently. Everything kind of right-sizes itself and moves into a more reasonable perspective when you can see it there in front of you in black and white. So if you’re working along with me in order you can put me on pause here in a second to make your list but just do take your time with it, even if that means waiting to do the writing until you’re all done listening or until you get back to your journal. Alright, pause if you’re pausing..

Okay… So once you’ve got a really thorough list of names, reminding yourself that you can always add to it if you need to but writing until you get to the point where nothing else is coming to mind, you’ll start breaking those names down into four categories. And I like to make four, new, separate lists for this… starting with another blank page for each one. And at the top of the first one you’ll write:

1.   Amends to make right now. And this doesn’t need to take long. You just go down that big long list and one by one you’ll add every name that applies here to this new list. Then moving on to a new page and writing:

2.   Amends that may cause harm. And this one can be tricky, you don’t have to make a final decision on this we’ll work on it more when we get to Discipline but this is good time to start considering anything that really might fall into the more harm than good category. There are situations where partial amends can be made or amends that fall more into something that’s more like what we call living amends. And again we will talk about this more but for now you just want to make sure that you’ve got these on your radar as areas for doing some real soul searching to make sure you’re making a decision that’s right for all parties involved before you take action. Your third list is for:

3.   Amends that must be made later. One of the things that we’re about to focus on with concentrated effort is not putting things off. So, this category is reserved for special circumstances. You’re not making excuses but sometimes there are reasons, like distance, or something that needs to be done first, maybe even something that you need to address that sets you up to make amends to this person with causing further harm. And your fourth and final list here applies to:

4.   Amends that cannot be officially made. And this one is necessary because there may be some amends that may never be able to made or at least not in the foreseeable future because we might not be able to make direct personal contact someone. And there are quite a few situations where this might apply but I can speak from personal experience that in some cases we have harmed someone that is no longer living and at some point we will talk about what you can do about that, often going back to those living amends, and we’ve even got some mental exercise that can help make peace in those circumstances when there really is no action to take.

So, there you go. You’ve got one big long list of names and 4 lists to break them down into categories. And that sets you up for some of the work with this next time in the Love Practice Challenge.

Before we go, I’ve got one more thing for you to think about and maybe even write about with this week’s challenge question.

CHALLENGE QUESTION

The question for Love is very much like the question for Humility, “What do I know about others and the Highest Truth about them?” And you really can use this as a journaling prompt or at least as food for thought as you consider everyone that you’ve got on your list. There are so many emotions that can come up at this point. And I want you to know that you really are ready for this. Those emotions are just there to show you what YOU need to work on. Just there to show you what YOU need to do to get ready and move forward without carrying any regrets.

And my answer to this question is really pretty short and sweet... The older I get the more I realize that just about everybody is wounded in some way and that I probably won’t know much about the challenges that other people face. So all I can do is remember myself, all of the work that I have to do and all of the really good things about me, and use that to start remembering that everybody has work to do too… and even if I can’t see it on the outside they have a lot of good inside them. It really always, only comes down to how I choose to see them and if I can start looking for ways to love them, just growing a little bit of compassion for what they might be going through, I don’t lose anything, I love means everyone wins.

Make sure you’re all set up to get notifications for future episodes, next up, you’ll want to check out the Love Practice Challenge where we’ll use some of what we did today to create a simple method for getting ready to make things right and growing compassion in every relationship and interaction.

Thanks so much for listening! Check out the links in the description to find show notes on the Something Honest Podcast Page and go to wellnessmeetings.com for more about the Wellness Meetings Method….. Something Honest is a Wellness Meetings production with original music composed and produced by James Mrotek at Mrotek Media.

This is Marta Mrotek sending out all the love and gratitude. Until next time, let’s get to work on being well.