There’s a common theme among the leaders I work with. They want to be less judgmental, less frustrated – at work & at home. But their judgement looks justified – until it doesn’t.
“Every time we find ourselves reacting to anyone or anything, ask on whose behalf we are reacting. We will nearly always find that it is on behalf of a non-existent self.” Rupert Spira
It’s so compelling to think frustration or annoyance with others justifies our position, that it makes us right and them wrong, that we should be angry or un-trusting of them.
You no doubt experience this at work where you think someone isn’t capable, who’s not done what you asked, and so you gripe about them to someone else and/or you have a frustrated, parental conversation with them.
And it might pop up at home over Christmas when you think someone’s not creating the fun, relaxing, easy Christmas atmosphere you wanted.
But ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are constructs. Take any situation, uncover what you believed you were right about and you will find that it’s not a 100% categorical truth. Never is.
If you test this theory with every situation you get frustrated by, you’ll soon spot the pattern, that you’re standing in justification and right-ness with something that’s just a personal opinion. Not a categorical capital T Truth.
Then what?
Then you start to see that life carries on brilliantly without the voice of justification and judgement. That you’re in fact able to have straight conversations with people about what you want or don’t want without the need for all that extra energy of angry or annoyed. You act like an adult instead of a cross parent – which means they get to show up as an adult instead of a child. The games drop away. Life gets easier and clearer.
And when frustration pops up again. You might act on it, you might not, but if you do you’ll be so much quicker to spot it, so much quicker at coming back home to the clarity you are and acting from there. And so much kinder to yourself knowing that we all get hoodwinked by the pesky ‘self’ and its constructs believed to be Truths.
So go easy, see what you see about the times you get frustrated this Christmas, see what’s being believed to be a Truth, see what happens when you realise it’s not True and never has been.
With love, Helen