meet someone exactly where they are

"You can’t stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you.
You have to go to them sometimes."
- Winne the Pooh

She has a tendency to panic. Makes it hard to trust her.
He is chronically greedy. Grew up dirt poor. Money is everything.
She is a channel of pure wisdom, a naturally gifted seer.
He is a genius, able to connect vast intellectual concepts.
She is fragile, new, and green to the concept of cause and affect.
He is angry, wounded, perpetually antagonistic.

People are where they are - despite our desire for them to be further along, more evolved, more fun, closer to our level, less intimidating, more relatable, easier to access, or simply more like us.

If you take the desire for someone to be different out of the equation - you can meet them where they are. You can meet them in the real moment. You can meet them in their despair or their magnificence.

And when you truly meet them, with no wishing for something different to wedge you apart, you'll know what to do. You will have the compassion to be calming, the humility to be reverent, or the wisdom to walk away. The question becomes, how would you treat "wounded," or "rage," or "brilliance"? Not how would you help (or coerce, or plead with) someone be more healed, or less angry, or more down to earth.

They are where they are. Consider the facts, spare yourself the desire for change. Remove the friction of wanting to improve them. And engage. It's the only way change happens.

. . . . . . .

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posted 11 May 09 in: White Hot, relationships + sex articles   ·   tags: ,   ·   Comments

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  • Oh my Gosh- I very beyond blessed to have found this blog. Today here now. I love ALL you say and have been popping around for a bit. Your insight is fab. I wrote a list of things I would say to my teenage self and it is so so much like you. Some how I know I was meant to find you Soul Sister!
    Thanks Bedlam of Beefy for the link!!!!
    xxoo
  • welcome!
    xo
  • Wow. I've had moments where I accepted someone for who they are and felt happy about it. It's a struggle though, seeing where they are and trying to get them out of the pain they're in. But alas, it's something they'd have to do themselves.
  • I thought it was love. And, maybe it was in a special way, however, I did try to always change him. To get him to be at the level I was in thought. I tried to teach him.
    How wrong I was to do that. I was wasting my time, and slowly breaking him down to hate what I was doing to him. I still cherish the moments of happiness, but I know it wasn't meant to be, then.
    Whatever the future brings is another thing. At least now I do know that I cannot change anyone to think like me. I must just enjoy them for who they are, and what THEY contribute to life, relationships,etc.
    It took me many years of losing one love after another to learn this simple lesson. I blamed others for my losses. I blamed things from back into my childhood. I didn't learn how to forgive truly.
    I said I forgave, but deep in my heart, the anger was still there. Now, I am learning how to use that anger, changing it to knowledge (an experience that no one in the world had except Me). I AM SPECIAL FOR THAT. I CAN LEARN AND ACT NOW WITH A VIEW OF THE WORLD THAT ONLY I HAVE AND HAD. AND, I CAN MAKE THOSE THOUGHTS THAT BROUGHT OUT HATRED AND ANGER IN ME, NOW TO BRING OUT LOVE.

    How to change hatred to love.
  • This is truly wonderful. It is what we aspire to and rarely achieve. The letting go of what we want, versus accepting and appreciating what we HAVE.

    Again, many thanks for your thoughts!
  • Laura Blough
    This post is exactly what I needed to hear right now. But I have a real problem with conflict. If someone gets really angry or upset about anything at all I go into a kind of panic mode and I cannot deal with them. If they are yelling at me I back down or dissolve into a pile of quivering goo. I am easily intimidated. So I have a hard time understanding how I can calm myself enough to "meet the other person in the moment."

    How to accept the other person is even harder. I understand where they are coming from for the most part but to just let them be and not wish for them to be something more is difficult and disappointing sometimes too.
  • So. hard.
    When someone you love is hurting herself. When your child is skillfully pressing every single one of your buttons.
    And this means, too, meeting yourself where you are. Even. harder.
  • Lorena
    Slowing down, accepting the moment--something I've never been good at. Intuitive leaps, sure. Leaning into the moment, taking a breath before making a judgment--harder for me to do. And then, of course, I get mad at myself, because by now I should be better at this, right? Oh, wait, that's why it's called practice...

    It's a practice that I should engage in more often with myself, too. Maybe all of us. Accepting ourselves where we are (I know, it's only talked about in every book on Buddhism ever written), to accept that even if "here" (angry, defeated, in pain, whatever) isn't where I want to be, it's where I am, and I won't be here forever, but for this moment, it's okay.

    Reminds me of a quote I saw attributed to the Dalai Lama that "there are no enlightened people, only enlightened moments."
  • such a great reminder about self compassion - I'm paying attention to the fact that "self" didn't even cross my mind when I wrote this piece. hmmm. mantra for the day: "I won't be here forever, but for this moment, it's okay." Thank you.
    xo
    D
  • I always believe in accepting people for who they are. You were able to express that sentiment in much more passionate words. Your writing style is always inspiring.
  • "Engage- it is the only way change happens" I think so much of the time I am holding up my protective shield so I want have to encounter what is coming at me. Thanks for the reminder to lighten my load...
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