Hi Lovelies,
If you’re anything like me you’ll find it hard not to get affected by it. It’s pretty difficult not to. You don’t even need to spend a lot of time with someone for it to have an affect. A stranger acting strangely in a supermarket can set you off. Social media posts can trigger a reaction too, if you let them.
What am I talking about? Other people’s ‘stuff’.
It’s one thing to care about another and to sometimes think that you know better than they do when it comes to their stuff. But do we really? I don’t think so.
It comes back to that old saying ‘never judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes’. Quite frankly we should never judge another anyway. A mile is but a minuscule fragment of one’s journey and lets face it, people only show you what they want to show you. There is SO much more that goes on behind one’s eyes and that, my friends, is the beauty of it. Our thoughts are mostly our own. It’s only when we choose to share them that they’re no longer our little secret.
So why then do we get caught up in allowing our thoughts to drift off into what we think another should or should not be doing? Why do we care if they do this or they do that? Why do we let it affect us so much that we sometimes have conversations about it with others? Is it that old thing about wanting to be right and making them wrong? In reality, there is no universal right or wrong. What is right for you will undoubtedly be completely wrong for another. For their reasons and theirs alone.
Sure, my right may make perfect sense and be black and white to me but is anything really? No. It’s not. It all comes down to perspective.
Each of us has so much other stuff’ bubbling under the surface that makes us do and say things and sometimes even we aren’t conscious of it. So why do we expect others to be self aware 100% of the time and to make what we think are perfect choices in their lives when we aren’t even capable of that ourselves? Nobody is. But that’s how we learn.
And what are we supposed to do if someone keeps dumping their stuff on to us? Are we supposed to sympathise and agree with them to make them feel better? Is that the right thing to do? Or are we supposed to tell them what they don’t want to hear in the nicest possible way in order to help them help themselves? It’s a conundrum.
People need to come to their own conclusions about their own stuff. You can’t do it for them. If you try, you will only find yourself frustrated time and again as you watch them repeat the same behaviour and what’s the point of that? It’s like listening to a broken record. All we can do is watch our own stuff. Anything else is actually none of our business.
And just because someone shares their stuff with you doesn’t give you the right to place any judgements on it. The best thing you can do is just listen and be there for them. You can’t expect people to make the same choices that you would if you were in their shoes. You can’t possibly know what you’d do if you were.
You should ask yourself what their stuff can teach you instead. There is a lesson in absolutely everything. You only have to be conscious and ask yourself what it is and it will come to you. If you listen.
It may just be patience, kindness and compassion. We could all do with more of that at times.
Love & Light Always,
Yvette xxx