Often I am motivated by a need to know or understand what is happening for or with another person. I ask questions, I restate their ideas, I clarify, and often struggle to the point of my frustration because it does not make sense to me. It dawned on me this morning, that I do not need to understand. I do not need to believe or agree. I like to try to do those things. I will continue, but my frustration or stress comes from the idea that I should or have to make sense of other people. That I realized I do not need to do.
I don’t have to try to make sense of other people, or even myself. Though both are helpful to have, sometimes, I just need to let things be what they are even if I do not understand them. I sometimes feel like I can’t choose how to act if I don’t know what another person is experiencing or understand how I fit into it, but that also isn’t true. If I am responding or acting out my own future in this present moment, I just need to be whoever I am choosing to be regardless of whether I understand what the other person needs or wants or why they need or want it.
My goals are to be at peace and feel gratitude and joy as often as possible, and in the face of a stressor, feel the stress for as short of a time as possible and return to neutral or peaceful as soon as I can. That means that I have to let go of the need to understand what is going on with others. If I get it, great. If I don’t get it, then also fine. I can love people no matter if I get them or not. For me, there is low stress in both.
-Namaste