knowabundance.com

Happy Monday!

It’s so easy to create enemies:

the driver who cuts us off on the freeway, a co-worker who says something we don’t like, the politician who makes a decision we strongly disagree with, the boss who lays us off.

“I can’t believe they did that to me!” is a common refrain. We automatically see the world in terms of “me” – how does this affect me and my life.

Our brain runs everything through our belief system. Thoughts, emotions, what we observe and experience, input from others – all this gets factored into the calculations which determine our response.

“How could this happen to me?”

And then we get busy defending ourselves.

I had the opportunity to create an enemy this past week – a vendor who didn’t deliver the product that was promised in time for an important deadline. And who kept lying, telling me that things were done when actually the job hadn’t even been started.

I was more surprised than I was angry because this is someone I’ve worked with before, someone I like and respect. But I found myself getting irritated as the missed deadlines and contradictory excuses kept piling up.

So I started writing an email with an annoyed tone detailing everything that had happened (from my perspective.) But then I stopped. I could see how my mind was creating something that wasn’t true.

My focus on “what happened to me” was turning a living breathing complex human being into an opponent, into a “bad” person who did “me” wrong.

My focus on “what happened to me” was justification for a litany of harsh words and angry thoughts.

This person is not some horrible ogre and I honestly have no idea what was going on “behind the scenes” in this situation. Is it necessary for me to detail everything that happened to defend myself and my position? Not really. What is important to me? The product or treating someone respectfully, with love and compassion?

I am still going to write an email because we need to wrap up the job and decide on payment  – but I am not going to communicate from a mindset of this person as my enemy.

We see threats everywhere  – some real, most imagined.

A photographer friend told me a few days ago about showing up for a pro bono photo shoot she was doing for a local non-profit organization. The group helps feed the homeless out of vans. She went to one of the sites where they were serving food and was met with hostility.

Because of the color of her skin, the clothes she was wearing, and maybe her gender – they immediately saw her as a narc. She was not to be trusted, a spy sent from “the institution.”

How do we distort reality because we automatically see “enemy” before we see “friend”?

We always have a list of reasons why we need to defend ourselves. We often jump to defend before a defense is even necessary. We are responding to perceived threat.

We choose our response.

What do we want to create? How do we want to move and live and breathe in this world?

In your game of “me” what enemies are you creating?