Tag: love

Being the Bigger Person

There are so many tried and true ways of thinking and acting that society has taught us that is not productive and or outright wrong for the situation.  This relational wisdom that has been passed on to us has kept us from cultivating better relationships and I am going to address one of them today.  

“Being the bigger person”. We generally use this when we initiate engagement with a person that we believe offended us or owes us an apology for some of their past actions or words and they aren’t initiating engagement.  

Being the bigger person is an erroneous description of what is really happening within the dynamic.   It is almost like we are using reverse psychology on ourselves regarding the situation by telling ourselves that somehow we are behaving “ better” than the other person which allows us to compromise our boundaries and integrity without feeling badly about it.  In truth, we are demonstrating a lack of self-worth and inappropriate boundaries and trying to make it sound like a positive thing to do.

A few dynamics are happening in this situation that are not healthy or productive in cultivating good relationships.  First is that justice is needed in situations to maintain balance.  If justice means an apology needs to be given, then that is what should happen. Trying to circumvent that by being the “bigger person” just erodes your value in the relationship and it keeps the other person from learning valuable lessons in how a healthy relationship functions.  Second, people learn by feeling the weight of their actions. When we overfunction in a relationship and don’t allow a person to take responsibility for their words and actions, we are inhibiting their personal growth.   In life, we have to feel how our choices/words/actions impact others, good or bad and that is how we grow emotionally and personally.   You take that opportunity for growth away from the person even though you might be making it more comfortable for them and maybe even more comfortable for you. Comfort isn’t growth.  

I heard one time that high-vibrational people can admit they’re wrong and apologize. I think what this is really saying is that these are people who don’t let their egos get in the way of their personal growth.  They don’t look at being wrong or apologizing as a character flaw or weakness but as an opportunity to understand and improve.  The “better” person is a person who can reflect on past actions and words; feel and understand their impact, apologize when it is warranted, and learn and grow from it.

I think we should start applying this phrase more appropriately.   Instead, let’s define the bigger person as someone who takes action to create harmonious relationships where both people feel empowered and valued. Where there is fairness and justice in the relationship.   Let’s stop lying to ourselves and telling ourselves that a lack of self-worth and lack of good boundaries is some kind of moral high ground.

This is just another example of ways society has erroneously taught us to engage in unhealthy relationship dynamics.  We all go through life not even questioning this and believing this is the right way or a good behavior when in fact it is sabotaging your ability to create healthy balanced relationships by not requiring emotionally responsible behaviors with those you are in relationships with.

Worthy Enough to Want

I have observed this dynamic over the years through my interaction with others and
within my own life and I had to figure this out so I wanted to share my insights.
We almost always know what we don’t want but very few of us know what we want. I
think it is easier for us to qualify what we don’t want because it is usually prompted
by some outside circumstances that are unpleasant and that have made us
unhappy or dissatisfied. These negative motivators make it easy to identify what
goes into the “I don’t want” bucket. You may have started filling that bucket up in
childhood, and it is probably easy to fill. It is much harder to find someone that can
state very clearly what they want, maybe because in having experienced what you
don’t want, you have a point of context.  When you haven’t experienced what you
want before, it may feel like a dream or wish and not reality.  Or maybe, you realize all
the changes and actions that may be needed to get what you want and it doesn’t
seem possible or realistic…… so why even open that door of wanting. 

I think that there are a few things at play here. First, to state what you want, you have
to feel that you are worthy of it. It would be uncomfortable to state that you want
something if you felt deep down that you are unworthy of that desire. I am not sure
how we get to that place in ourselves but it seems quite common that we start
feeling unworthy of our desires as we get older. (Children don’t have this problem).
Have we been told for too long that our desires are not reasonable/acceptable or
realistic?  Are we questioned enough about them that we start doubting ourselves
and not trusting our own desires or our worthiness to have them or at worse feeling
ashamed of our desires?  Do they not comfortably fit in with our family, society, or our
current life? I noticed people that are comfortable expressing their dreams and desires, feel more empowered.  They must feel that they have some influence or
control over manifesting their desires and they feel worthy. They trust their dreams
and visions of what their life can be even if they haven’t experienced it yet.    It
appears that their dreams of what they want are more powerful than their fear of
experiencing what they don’t want.

Another thing that happens is that we think about how our desires may not be in
alignment with what others want or expect so we start to discount what we want in
life or question our desires. We also let other people discount our desires. Society tells
us that we “should” want this or “shouldn’t” want that, so we squash our own internal
“knowing” about what is right for us and what feels good. What if the desires for your
life don’t fit in what society or your family tells you are acceptable for your
happiness? Are they the authority on your happiness? I find, most people abandon
their desires and get further and further away from their authentic selves and end up
more and more discontent.

Finally, we have to do some internal digging around to figure out what we truly want.
Figuring out what we want isn’t prompted by outside forces, this is totally an internal
process and getting to know yourself. This takes personal initiative. Discerning
between our own internal knowing and what we may have learned can be tricky and
it requires some deep reflection. We start to unravel what we think we want which
has been based on years of social conditioning to what we really want.