Even when we have the most positive intentions and do the best we can, it’s possible for others not to perceive our positive intentions or kindness as a good thing.
With a longer, broader view of how our actions impact our future down the road and what it means to take positive action or reservation of action in the present.
I learn a lot about how this works by observing my child and her hot takes from our interactions – what I do on her behalf and the limits I set for her are not always received with gratitude and often are taken to be mean or outrageous. I learn that I also feel that way sometimes, but in both cases, we both don’t have the entire picture and it is only from our limited perspective that the limits are bad or annoying, or mean, cruel or wrong.
Our culture honors more and having a lot. We don’t want “enough”, we always have to strive for more than that. So limitations are things are hate, and we don’t like hearing there is a limit on what we might be able to achieve, and we internalize this and feel bad when we can’t “have it all.”
Being a positive influence on your own life means recognizing the humanity of your being, honoring limits, and even honoring that what might be best for us long-term might feel frustrating, annoying, and uncomfortable in the now.
Being kind to ourselves can mean saying NO, and that comes with a lot of feels, too.
Since when were we granted that all good things feel great as we do them?
It’s only when we make a change somewhere and experiment that we can notice the difference that alternate actions makes. We can only judge this based on experience and how we feel and what shifts when we try something else. This helps us discover where we are a positive influence on ourselves, and where it’s been positive but hasn’t felt awesome all the way through. We then are able to have some wisdom, that some things we don’t enjoy are quite good for us overall.
I like to choose what kind of hard things I want to experience vs just blindly going through life dealing with hard things where I can. For example, I’d rather have a hard time going to bed early than have a hard time waking up and enjoying my day.
Paying attention and taking notes is one of the only ways I know to be able to track improvements and actually see what truly is a positive choice versus what felt good in the moment.
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Thanks for listening!
