shine,love,repeat–yes yes yes asmr lover yumijimmi
The 2 things that are most likely to cause trouble between family , lovers, strangers who interacts with you, are assumptions and projections. We all have our experiences, and they shape the way we think about people. They also inform the way we respond to the data coming at us; we can only know what we know, we can only have the frame of reference we have. A part of maturing has to do with the awareness that your way of seeing things is only that — your way — and with the understanding that your frame of reference may be bent, the glass may be distorted or warped, and you might need an entirely new prescription.
If all you’ve known is fear, abuse and grief, then your experience has taught you that the world is an unsafe place, and no one can be trusted. You’ve also learned that your feelings don’t have an impact on the world around you….according to what you’ve known, is that you don’t upset the apple cart, that you learn how to maneuver, or how to be invisible, so that you can survive. This is an extreme example of a warped frame of reference, but hopefully it illustrates ..my point… If that’s the kind of life experience you’ve had so far, you can bet it’s going to affect the way you respond to people, and how much value you place on your own feelings, wants and dreams.
If your experience has been that love is conditional, something you have to earn, that’s also going to tweak your frame and affect the way you operate; the way you are in relationships, with your friends or at your job.
If your experience has been that people are kind and interested in how you feel that will certainly affect the way you think about people, and the way you lead your life, so your perspective is important, and so is knowing that you have one. Tons of people assume how they feel is how everyone feels, especially if they’re young. Usually, enough time teaches us that people have wildly different ideas about everything. If someone is making different opinions or different choices, they’re rejecting me and my way of thinking about things. All it really is, though, is a different framework.
We can be so quick to judge, and put people into the “us” camp, or the “them” camp, and it’s sad, because fear drives a wedge between people. It’s hard to drop our stance and just listen. We can cling to our ideas like our lives depended on it, we can insist we know what someone else is thinking, so there’s no point trying to talk or way anything. We can make all kinds of assumptions about what someone is feeling based on nothing ~~ a face they’re making, the fact that they didn’t say hi when they walked by.
It seems we tend to move through the world and respond to it as if it is all being directed toward us, individually. This makes sense when we’re young. As babies, we don’t differentiate between ourselves and our mothers; it takes us awhile to understand we are separate, which is kind of cool~we come in knowing we are connected, we’re not “just us”, but as we grow, we discover autonomy, which is also good. We think about what we want, or what we’re contributing, or not; about our relationships, and our jobs, and keeping a roof over our heads. We think about food, and a conversation we had with someone we’d like to do over again, but sometimes we forget we’re connected to everyone and everything around us. We forget that “our story” is overlapping with everyone else’s; the threads are intertwined……. We are not at the center, with everything else in orbit around us. We spend sooo much time on the inside, looking out; we’re in there with our internal dialogue, our expert on everyone and everything we encounter, and we process things through our own filtering system. Sometimes we need to flush the system with new information.
I believe a big part of healing has to do with wiping our lenses clean, especially if they are blocking us from living life in a way that feels so good, full of meaning, joy and inspiration. Recognizing that everyone has something unique to offer, everyone has their story story, and that maybe, the way we’re thinking about things or other people, is not the way they actually are; to understand that what we think and feel may be greatly impacted by what we’ve known. That’s part of being accountable, and of knowing yourself; you know, it can be the key to liberation if you’re suffering, too. Sometimes we’re just stuck af. There are many ways to clean, or release your frame of reference if you need to ~meditation, yoga, therapy…you have to figure out what works for you.
We can never ever know the interior world of another person, unless they show us. We can make all kinds of assumptions based on what we would do in similar circumstances, but that’s like expecting someone from another planet to believe what we do, it’s not any different. If you want to know what’s happening with someone else, ask.
