someone recently called me cold and self absorbed.
it was quite a blow at first, and my instant reaction was of course to reject the comment out of hand. find a way to rationalize its having found its way to me - they were in pain. they weren't getting what they needed from me. whatever. all that sort of thing.
then i spent a fair amount of time feeling hurt and quite crushed about it. and berating myself. and feeling like crap.
then i decided that it may have been true, that i may have been behaving in a cold and self absorbed way, but that it is not the sum total of who i am, and therefore i should not be condemned for it.
and then i got real. and i was honest with myself. i acknowledged the fact that i can indeed be terribly self absorbed, and sometimes i can be awfully cold. i spent some time being introspective about it, which is something i don't do nearly often enough. i thought about how and why i can be those things. but i tried not to make excuses for myself, while at the same time being understanding.
i made a laundry list of all the ways i would like to be better. i know that my nature and my inclination is often toward self-centered gratification of my own needs and desires, and that sometimes i neglect to honor the being-ness of other people in pursuit of such.
but for some reason, while i sat and meditated about all of this, and wrote, and cried for all that i'm not and for the part of me that can't find the bottom of that well of hollow emptiness that can seem to be my soul, it wasn't a critical sort of exploration. it was just a matter-of-fact fact finding mission.
it can be freeing to just look at who you are and what you do from time to time, without judgement or harshness, just:
this is what it is.
this is what i would like for it to be.
let's see if i can do this another way.
i hope that i can.
m
it was quite a blow at first, and my instant reaction was of course to reject the comment out of hand. find a way to rationalize its having found its way to me - they were in pain. they weren't getting what they needed from me. whatever. all that sort of thing.
then i spent a fair amount of time feeling hurt and quite crushed about it. and berating myself. and feeling like crap.
then i decided that it may have been true, that i may have been behaving in a cold and self absorbed way, but that it is not the sum total of who i am, and therefore i should not be condemned for it.
and then i got real. and i was honest with myself. i acknowledged the fact that i can indeed be terribly self absorbed, and sometimes i can be awfully cold. i spent some time being introspective about it, which is something i don't do nearly often enough. i thought about how and why i can be those things. but i tried not to make excuses for myself, while at the same time being understanding.
i made a laundry list of all the ways i would like to be better. i know that my nature and my inclination is often toward self-centered gratification of my own needs and desires, and that sometimes i neglect to honor the being-ness of other people in pursuit of such.
but for some reason, while i sat and meditated about all of this, and wrote, and cried for all that i'm not and for the part of me that can't find the bottom of that well of hollow emptiness that can seem to be my soul, it wasn't a critical sort of exploration. it was just a matter-of-fact fact finding mission.
it can be freeing to just look at who you are and what you do from time to time, without judgement or harshness, just:
this is what it is.
this is what i would like for it to be.
let's see if i can do this another way.
i hope that i can.
m
Comments