WE HAVE MORE IN COMMON THAN WE THINK…

A life coach once said to me that when you meet a person who you feel you have no connection to, who maybe aggravates you or makes you upset by his or her behavior it’s often triggered because you see yourself in that person.  Like most of us, you’re probably thinking “No way! There’s no way that I am like that person at all!”.  I thought that too at first, but then I started wondering why certain people get me all riled up or upset or under my skin and I started to ask myself questions like, “What is it that I see in them that I can relate to either now or in my past?” and “What is it in them that I dislike so much and why does it bother me?”.  The answer doesn’t come easy when we are closed to the idea that we all share common threads of human nature or common struggles.  I turned on the compassion, turned off my own judgements of the person and worked hard to see the commonality between them and myself.  That helped me to stop getting upset, angry or annoyed by the person.  It gave me a better understanding of them and of myself.  I realized that even if we didn’t have exact circumstances, or react or behave the same, the underlying emotions were common and that was often a trigger. 

I will give you an example of what I mean…

I saw a frustrated mom in the grocery store, she was wearing frumpy clothing, her hair was unkept, and she had an angry look on her face.  She had a cart full of groceries with a young toddler sitting and screaming at the top her lungs in the front of the cart and another child walking and hanging on to the side of the cart whining about wanting a certain box of cookies.  The mother snapped at the child for whining about the cookies, “If you don’t stop right now, you’ll never get another cookie again! And you can forget about Santa coming this year because you’re on the naughty list now! You’re a little brat!”.  Then she turned her attention to the screaming child in the cart and said in an angry tone, “Just be quiet!  Settle down! Stop fussing!” as she angrily shoved a bottle of milk in the child’s hands.  Some people may have been annoyed, upset or even angry by either the mom or her children.  I was.  Then I remembered what my life coach said and thought maybe we weren’t so different on some level and maybe that’s why I felt upset by what I saw and heard.  I realized that I had days when my children were young where my buttons were pushed, I felt unequipped to handle the situation due to shear lack of sleep and I probably responded in a way I wasn’t so proud of either and yes, I suppose I could have done so in public at times.  As for the kids who I must admit were causing quite the scene, I realized that when I was kid, I didn’t understand that I couldn’t have everything I wanted in the grocery store and that it wasn’t appropriate to scream at the top of my lungs because I was bored while my mother tirelessly shopped for our family.  In addition, I also learned as a parent (sometimes the hard way) that children often reflect what they see.  So, if the mom is frustrated and moody or tense, the children will likely pick up on this negative energy and act out.  I could relate to both the mom and the kids on some level.  I am not saying any of it was right or that I would have acted in the same manner as this mom, but there was a time when I felt similar frustrations.  So, before you jump to judging, try understanding, try compassion and try seeing what’s either similar in you or your past that’s been triggered.  Sometimes that can help us diffuse a situation in ourselves or with others. 

Many of us set ourselves apart from people we dislike thinking that we are very different and would never act or think the way they do.  This is toxic thinking because it sets us up to have a superiority complex which to me is definitely not attractive.  We all suffer from this kind of thinking at one time or another.  It’s triggered by us not relating or not having compassion for others who may be struggling with something that we ourselves are or were guilty of at one time.  In addition, we may jump to judgment or make an assumption that is very untrue.  For example, if we encounter someone who is very well dressed, hair always done nicely, appears prim and proper, is highly outspoken, appears confident and always needs to be the center of attention, is always intrusive in conversations or highly opinionated, we may think “Wow, this person is so self-centered and doesn’t care about anyone else but themselves, they think they are so special, what is their problem!?”, when in fact deep down this is a very lonely person who is struggling to fit in, feels very self-conscience, insecure and hungers to gain attention in the hope that this will some how fix all these feelings of inadequacy.  Now can you relate?  Maybe not to the behavior, but to the emotions?  Boldly, I would say that most of us at some point or another have felt insecure or self-conscious and I am sure at times we’ve hoped for certain attention by others and acted in unappealing ways to gain it.  We may have not acted like the class clown or the confident social butterfly but we may have instead become reserved or shy and to others appeared self-centered as a result.  So, in this respect, we are not so different after all.  We just show a different story on the outside sometimes.

We all struggle, we all have emotions that get triggered and we are all in this game of life together using whatever means we have, whatever tools we know to get by and cope.  We may differ in how we show all of this to the world around us through our behaviors, appearances, circumstances and personalities, but the commonality in all of us is that at the core we are all human.

So, before we allow ourselves to be angered, annoyed or upset by someone else, maybe we should take a deep look inside ourselves and try to discover what is being triggered.  Sometimes it’s something we desire to work on or change in ourselves but we just haven’t achieved it yet, sometimes it’s something we have overcome from our past and it’s being triggered again and sometimes it’s our judgmental attitude and lack of compassion that’s causing us to be frustrated with the people around us.

We can choose to learn and grow by having compassion and wisdom or we can choose to keep thinking the way we always think and keep reacting the way we always react, always blaming and thinking that other people are the problem. I can tell you that there’s a freedom in choosing to live with compassion and wisdom and keeping the focus on yourself instead of others.  There’s also a great peace that comes when we choose to stop judging and making assumptions and start choosing to have compassion and acknowledge the common threads between us that make us human and connect us. 

Sheri