Detachment – phew!
I have been working really hard to practise some detachment.
They say that practise makes perfect – I have yet to find out!
I am trying to separate people from their actions.
When I see a child misbehave I find it easy to to know that I don’t see a bad child, I see a child whose behaviour is not very good.
When I experience an adult whose behaviour is not very good I don’t find it so easy to differentiate their behaviour from them. I don’t find it so easy to know that there is a person who is behaving in a selfish way, I tend to think there is a selfish person.
It’s a struggle for me at the moment.
I am trying to look at the bright side which is that I do know there is a struggle. At least this acknowledges that I am aware of the difference.
At an intellectual level I do know that the person is not their behaviour, I just struggle with knowing it at a heart level right now.
Sorry to hear you’re struggling. Hope it resolves soon. And that it resolves well too.
I sometimes have similar difficulties. But have found it easier to accept other people’s views, behaviours, choices after learning a bit about how neurological systems affect people’s perceptions of ‘reality’ (and thus, their choices and preferences). I’ve also come to appreciate how they subtely shape my own too.
When I look back on my life it’s remarkable to see how my neurology influenced my feelings and choices in relationships, careers, sports and more. Wish I knew then what I know now. I missed some wonderful opportunities. For reasons that had nothing to do with my selfishness, lack of confidence, insenstivity or any other psycho-emotional word one might care to use.
It was just my wiring. And the software running at that time.
Theirs too.
As an example… I once abandoned my wife and her family at a massive fireworks display. Because I couldn’t cope with the unexpected bangs from the little throw-bangers kids were using nearby!
Neither of us understood at the time how sensitive I was to sound. Especially unexpected percussive sounds. All I knew was I had to get away. Meanwhile, all she knew was that I was being selfish in wanting to pull her away from a precious time with her family at their carefully chosen viewing spot.
It should have been a great night for us all. But it wasn’t. And I know my behaviour then hurt her deeply. All the more so because it confused her family and put her in the very awkward position of having to explain it (I couldn’t speak the language). One minute I was there laughing with them… the next I was gone and wasn’t seen for an hour.
But neither of us at the time knew what was really underpinning my behaviour.
However, now that I can accept that there can often be another drive to people’s behaviour, it’s a bit easier for my heart to come to terms with their choices. Strange, selfish and all else that they might seem to be.
It’s a new and unfamiliar angle perhaps. Taking it on board as a possibility might help. It might not.
But either way I hope that, in the offering of it, your heart has been strengthened somehow.
Guím cumacht duit.
Thanks Sean for sharing your thoughts on this sometimes painful issue of understanding other people, ourselves and our interactions.
It does help to think about things from different angles and my heart feels the support.
One thing that I recently read has also been helping and it is that when we are puzzled, perplexed or disappointed with people (including ourselves) it may help to remember that we don’t know what task that soul has here on earth, what journey that person has to follow.
If I don’t know where they are going then how can I comment on the road they are taking to get there?
Of course it’s also not actually my business to comment at all except when it directly affects me, as it has in this case.
And I guess it’s part of my journey to learn what I can from this.
I have a feeling that this lesson is going to take a while.