Being the person I want to meet in this world

New Year’s resolutions are always tricky--they’re a kind of unique blend between self-deprecation and hope for change. As I talked about in a recent post about standing between binaries, this past year has been a lot of trial and error regarding those shaky balances between extremes.

There is another balance beam that I find myself on as I think about the person that I am and the person I want to become: how to work to improve yourself while also accepting yourself as the imperfect being that you are. So this post is going to be about working towards being more compassionate by first practicing self-compassion (click here for more info on this and I also recommend this book).

Are you noticing a theme yet? Standing between binaries; finding the balance between the extremes; walking on a balance beam.  

ANYWAY.

Anyone who knows me well knows that I’m a self-help book junkie who loves spouting cliches and inspirational soundbites at every opportunity (e.g., “life begins at the end of your comfort zone,” and “life is about the journey, not a destination”). But it’s always easier said than done.

I did some things last year that didn’t reflect the person that I want to be in this world. And that filled me with more shame than anything else. I know the person I want to be. I want to be compassionate. To me, being compassionate means being kind, mindful, and aware of the common humanity that we all share--really seeing the human being standing in front of you and acknowledging their value.  

There are three components to being compassionate that I want to talk about: self-compassion, setting boundaries, and being forgiving when people don’t live up to your expectations.

First, the most important part of being compassionate towards others is to first practice self-compassion. This is hard at first because it’s very counter-intuitive. We might think that we can hate ourselves, but still be loving people towards others. FALSE.

Practicing self-compassion means being kind to yourself. How can you claim to love others when you put yourself down all the time? Do you really hold yourself to higher standards than you hold others? Or when you call yourself “fat,” are you also shaming all of the other fat people around you? When you call yourself lazy, are you also judging other people who don’t work as hard as you?

Practicing self-compassion allows us to be more mindful of the needs of others. We’re already taken care of, so we can recognize the signs when someone else is struggling. If we aren’t taking care of ourselves, it’s extremely difficult to be there for others when they need us. When we feel tired, stressed, hungover, or depressed, it’s extremely difficult to help out a friend in need. If we’re stressing about how fat we look or how bad our acne is or how stupid we sound, we aren’t really seeing or hearing others. We’re too obsessed with hating ourselves to really see and hear the person across from us.

In seeking this self-acceptance and practicing self-compassion, there’s another balance beam component that I sometimes forget: It’s about setting standards with people (don’t be a doormat), but also accepting the fact that other people will never be perfect either.

Anyone who does this successfully deserves a gold medal and sainthood.  

One of the barriers to compassion is the fear of setting boundaries and holding people accountable. Brene Brown writes that since becoming more serious about boundaries, she’s become genuinely more compassionate. The heart of compassion is acceptance of ourselves and others. How can we do that if people are walking all over us? She writes, when we fail to hold people accountable, we feel used and mistreated. We need boundaries and accountability to stave off resentment, blaming others, and putting others down.

MIND BLOWN.

I've striven to be a compassionate person. It never crossed my mind that part of being compassionate has to do with setting boundaries and holding people accountable for their shitty actions. This is super difficult for me and something I’d like to work on more in 2016.  

Finally, be compassionate when people don’t live up to your expectations. I’ve had a lot of, “I HATE PEOPLE! Why are humans such terrible, selfish, self-centered beings?” moments in the past year. It’s true that there are some terrible people out there. But for the most part, people are just going through some shit and don’t know how to handle it. Yes, I can be angry and bitter and stop talking to all of my friends. Or I can be compassionate towards their struggle and our common humanity--the fact that suffering is a part of the human experience. I can make that choice.

I realized this when I was talking to one of my dear friends about some trouble I was having with a group of catty friends. She asked me, “Do you really think they are just genuinely bad people? Or do you think there’s a reason they’re being shitty?” And I responded, “I think they have their own shit going on and I know they don’t have the energy to be there for me right now.”

Later that night a rush of memories came flooding back to me about all the times that I was a shitty friend. Whenever I’ve been a terrible friend it’s because for some reason at that moment or time in my life I didn’t have the emotional energy or resources to be there for my friends. As a result, I ended up coming off as a bad person.

So remember to be understanding and compassionate when people are imperfect and remember that they have their own stuff going on. Don’t take it personally. Sometimes we don’t get back what we put in. It sucks, but it does happen.

Sometimes people don’t have the emotional intelligence or capacity to be vulnerable all the time. None of us do. Sometimes we don’t respond to emails or texts. Sometimes we don’t know what to say. Sometimes we prefer to hide rather than reach out. Sometimes we prefer to stay silent than be honest. Sometimes we prefer to lie than to tell the truth. So we can’t necessarily always expect everyone to be there for us all the time. If they disconnect, or get enraged, it’s probably because they’re going through their own shit in their lives and they can’t handle the emotional risk of being vulnerable, so they protect themselves by disengaging/hiding/ghosting, or they get angry or emotional. Sometimes the people in our lives aren’t up to the task of being there for us. And we need to be forgiving of that as well.

We cannot and should not expect everyone to be vulnerable with us all of the time- they need to protect themselves as well.

However, we can and should expect ourselves to be the change we want to see in the world. In other words, the only person you should try to fix is yourself.

This does not mean being perfect. None of us can or ever will be perfect. But whenever I get bitter and frustrated with the state of the world, and feel like no one is as vulnerable or as honest as I would like them to be, I remember that if there is one person I need to work on fixing, it is myself. I look in the mirror at what I want to improve and think about the person I’d like to become (I’m not there yet). And I strive to be the person I want to be in this world. I strive to be the change I’d like to see. I wish for more authenticity and vulnerability in this world and so I try to be the one to trust first, to be vulnerable first, to be honest. There is a person I’d like to become and here are my personal commandments for 2016 and beyond.

1. Practice compassion, courage, and connection
2. Choose authenticity
3. Accept that suffering and shame is part of the human experience
4. Believe in your value
5. Be the change you wish to see in the world
6. Dare greatly
7. Leave your comfort zone
8. Cherish the journey
9. Ask for what you need
10. Accept yourself as you are

In true form to my self-help junkie personality, I leave with this inspirational quote from this video about being "Done with Love:"

“What’s the goal? If our goal is to get it right every time, that’s a problem. If that’s your mentality, you’re going to give up because you’ll never win. The goal has to be ‘I’m going to be the person I want to be in this world.’ Start by being who you want to be, and then filter out the people who don’t accept that. Allow yourself to live up to the standards you’ve set for yourself. If someone takes it the wrong way, that’s fine. Move on and look for someone else who is better suited to your standards.”