THE LIFE COACH SCHOOL – Episode #331
I’m still cleaning up the people-pleasing in my life. This morning, in fact, after my thought dump, I spent some time rereading the blog post on Allowing People to be Wrong About (Me). And I felt a lot of peace from changing my thoughts surrounding others’ thoughts. I want to be in the habit of feeling this peace, by being in the habit of thinking this thought:
“People will think good about me. And people will think ill about me. The fact is, they are probably a little bit right and a little bit wrong. And that is okay.“
I feel so peaceful thinking that thought. I have control over the peace I feel in regards to others’ thoughts and feelings, and my relationship with others, and my relationship with myself.
Good thoughtwork this morning. And it leads us directly into Brooke’s podcast episode today. She starts off with this:
“When we think about the world, we are taught to think that things are good or things are bad. (That we are good or we are bad). There are good guys and bad guys. And much of what we are taught … is that the goal is to get rid of all the bad. The goal is for the good guys to defeat and kill all the bad guys, and then the good guys will live happily ever after.”
I remember my sister-in-law telling me about her mom, and how her mom used to swear a lot. And I knew this woman – incredible woman! When I was young I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. How could she have bad language but be such a good woman? Do you see how this is a little bit of an immature way to look at life and to look at other people? And it’s also an immature way to look at ourselves – we are either bad or we are good.
“When you try to be good and perfect all of the time, you are filled with shame… You think that you’re showing up perfectly for the world. You think you’re showing up virtuously and good for the world. But inside, you feel horrible because you know there’s still darkness and ugliness in there. You’re afraid someone might see it… So many of you are trying to be 100% good and virtuous and you have no tolerance for any part of you that isn’t because you have made the goal perfection.”
Ella and I discuss this podcast episode a lot, after listening to it together. We discuss personal development a lot. We also discuss religion a lot. And our discussion on GOOD and BAD lead us to this scripture:
“Be ye therefore perfect.”
Matthew 5:48
If we are not perfect, and we will never be perfect, not in this life, anyway, then what exactly is this commandment all about?
Ella had heard that the definition of “perfect” in that verse as “complete” or whole. And, I’m going out on a limb here, but could that mean that the Lord wants all of us – the complete Rachel and the complete Ella? The good and the bad? He doesn’t work with just half of us – it doesn’t work that way.
“Taking all I have and now I’m laying it at Your feet. You’ll have every failure God, You’ll have every victory.”
Lauren Daigle
And that doesn’t mean that we don’t work to make our lives better and our world better! But being better does not improve or increase our worthiness. And only showing or confessing the “better” in us to others does not either, my friends!!
“When we have an intolerance for anything less than perfection, we are exhausted and miserable.”
Looking at ourselves – and looking at the world and looking at others, too, of course – but mostly in looking at ourselves, try this. Try using “and” instead of “or”. Using that “and” will give us some relief.
Remember yesterday? She was wrong about me. And she was right about me. I don’t need to be exactly what she said about me in her critique. But I don’t need to be exactly NOT what she said about me. The truth is, I am both. And seeing and recognizing and believing that “and” brings me some relief about myself and about how others view me.
And how about times when I am looking at someone else, and she is doing and what she is saying, and what I think she “is”? She is mean OR she is nice.
“If you are seeing people, other humans, as one-dimensional, you are missing half of life. You are missing half of the experience of being alive and appreciating other human beings.
You’re labeling that person as good or bad. If you label them as good, you’re only going to see the good in them. If you’re labeling them as bad, you’re only going to see the bad in them. You’re not going to see the full dimension, the full experience of who they are…
When you look at yourself and you understand that you’re good and bad and you can love yourself madly and you are 100% worthy within that good and bad, by design, that’s when you start having (this) compassion for other people as well.”
It is just part of the deal – we are right and we are wrong, we are good and we are bad, we are secure and we are insecure. We are smart and we are naive. We are pretty and we are ugly.
“As long as we’re walking on this Earth, (part of the deal is that) there will be negativity within us. There will be ugliness within us. There will be discomfort and there will be pain.
This does not mean there’s something wrong with us. This means that we are humans. This does not mean we need to desperately change… As we walk this Earth, we understand, ‘This is part of the deal. And I will take action and I will improve what I can improve. But I’ll do it from a place of possibility and love and abundance and not from the resistance to the reality of pain and discomfort that is part of being a human being… this is the way it’s SUPPOSED to be.'”
This is the way it’s supposed to be – the good and the bad? If I can believe that thought, that thought serve me well.
This is supposed to be hard sometimes. I am supposed to be wrong sometimes. I am supposed to face unfair circumstances sometimes. I am supposed to hurt others sometimes. I am supposed to be hurt by others sometimes. I am supposed to, every day, pray for the Spirit and then go forward. Every day. I am supposed to make judgement calls and eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and live the consequences – ALL the consequences. Every day.
“The goal isn’t to be happy all of the time.”
Then what is the goal? To be “perfect”, to be “complete” and whole.
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