Putting ourselves in the shoes of others is essentially impossible. Most of our programmed in ideas and beliefs were ground into us before we turned 7 years old. Every day trauma and joy are experienced. Sometimes in tiny doses, sometimes huge. How our parents raised or didn’t raise us, our teachers, our friends, our colleagues treat us continually shapes our experience of the world. We do not see things as they are, but instead as we are, through a lens of our perception.
So with this in mind, it’s incredibly hard, in fact, to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. So we can lose the God complex once we understand this and drop trying to teach people a lesson. The principle of the matter matters less when we truly understand that we are all working to different principles. I used to be subconsciously obsessed with ‘fairness’ and would rage when I felt something was unfair. It was only working with a brilliant psychologist for awhile that helped me realise not a single person views fair the same, so I was fighting a losing battle when I was fighting what I thought was fair.
We always want to be compassionate though, and this is where we can move from trying to put someone in their place to being compassionate for their position in the world.
Sent with love,
Jac x