Friday Reflections - We’re not so different, you and I. 👯
This past weekend, I served as a volunteer for the coach training program I graduated from. It was 3, 10-hour days chock full of transformative concepts and insights.
Today's reflection is related to one of the concepts that I find particularly interesting and helpful.
Concept: Everyone we meet is both our student and our teacher.
This may feel a bit meta at first but stick with me because it has practical applications.
It can be easy to judge and/or dismiss other people who are different from us or who hold different values and perspectives.
And, it can be easy to judge or dismiss ourselves relative to others who we deem as having more preferable qualities than us.
The concept that everyone is both our student and our teacher invites us to consider 1) what we might learn from those we judge and 2) what we might have to offer those we hold in high esteem.
This concept also suggests that everything we like about another person is simply a reflection of: 1) what we like about ourselves, 2) what we wish was true about ourselves, and/or 3) what we secretly fear could never be true about ourselves.
Similarly, everything we dislike about another person is simply a reflection of: 1) what we dislike about ourselves, 2) what we hope would never be true about ourselves, and/or 3) what we secretly fear is true about ourselves.
For example, when I worked in corporate, I had a tendency to get annoyed when I asked a yes or no question and someone gave a 5 minute answer. My annoyance with the other person was actually reflective of the fact that being concise was important to me, because I feared that if I wasn’t concise and “wasted” someone's time, then they would think less of me.
“But Jess”, you might be thinking, “if I dislike that my coworker isn’t meeting expectations, that’s just objective, how is that reflecting back something about me?”
This concept is related to the judgments we make. You may dislike that your team member is objectively missing very clearly defined and agreed to expectations, which likely necessitates a (neutral) conversation about why that is.
However, when you judge that person as incompetent, inefficient, incapable etc., or simply judge them for working in a way you don’t prefer, that judgment is an invitation to curiosity. Specifically: what is it about the way that person is showing up that reflects something about my own values or beliefs about how I want to (or think I have to) show up?
For example, perhaps you are judging your coworker as being incompetent because you secretly fear you are not very competent and subconsciously overcompensate for that fear by being highly intellectual. If that were true, it would be understandable to feel some kind of way towards others’ “incompetence” because it triggers your fear about your own competence.
Another common example is when we judge others for being loud and opinionated because we secretly wish we could share our own opinions just as freely but believe we can’t.
From this perspective, how we feel about others has very little, if anything, to do with them and much more to do with us. Everyone is our teacher because everyone is simply a mirror reflecting back something we can learn about ourselves.
Similarly, how anyone feels about us has very little, if anything, to do with us. Everyone is our student because we serve as a mirror reflecting back something they can learn about themselves.
Given that how we feel about others influences how we interact and engage with them, this concept has very practical applications.
If we believed this concept was true, then there would be no need to either take anything personally or judge or blame anyone else for how we feel. That doesn’t mean we stay in situations we don’t prefer or feel harmful to us; in fact, when we release our judgements, we free ourselves up to make more conscious choices that may serve us better.
For example, if I feel like I’m in a toxic work environment, instead of judging all the people I believe are making the environment toxic, I could acknowledge that their way of being is in conflict with what I value, and I could choose to find a new environment that is more aligned with my values.
Ironically, every characteristic that exists in any of us, exists in all of us, regardless of whether we are conscious of it and/or choose to cultivate it. E.g., despite the fact that I value being concise and may at times judge others for not being concise, I am often long-winded (Exhibit A: this Friday Reflection).
So my invitation to curiosity today is this:
Who is someone you really admire? What specific quality of theirs do you admire most?
Who is someone that frustrates or irritates you? What specific quality of theirs do you find most frustrating or irritating?
For each person/quality, consider the following questions:
When do I demonstrate this quality? When do I suppress it?
How do I feel about myself when I demonstrate this quality?
Why might the other person having this quality have such an effect on me?
What aspect of me does that other person represent?
How have I judged them and myself because of this quality?
What might become possible if I stopped judging myself and them?
Stay curious,
Jessica
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