Forgiveness In Real Life
“It’s not personal,” ManBai B* says as he unconsciously admits he’s working hard to subvert me and the role I play in pushing projects across the finish line at my day job as an IT Project Manager.
The fact that he’s deemed it necessary to repeat “it’s not personal” for at least the fourth time in just as many minutes leads me to believe that even he doesn’t know his own intentions.
I wasn’t truly triggered by ManBai B until later that day when I fully understood how dedicated he was to a mission of his own devising. MB’s plan falls well outside the direction the majority of the IT department, (plus high up mucky mucks) decided on months earlier. The Project Management Office (PMO) put in a lot of sweat and tears over the years to get necessary buy in from said Mucky-Mucks then build the necessary framework for it’s success. Deployment is in it’s infancy.
Not only has MB refused to try the new corporate-wide process, his actions are dividing the IT department into factions. This will, no doubt, create an us vs them environment resulting in an IT nightmare for the people who need our services for their success.
ManBai B Is Not My Problem
I still have a process to advocate and implement. Everything MB does to divide our department is a hindrance to our, thus my, success. Still, in the grand scheme of things, he’s not my problem.
My work lies in understanding why angry feelings were triggered and making sure I put all of my energy into healing that. Because
1) If I don’t take charge of what I control (me) then I’ve offered control to anyone who happens across one of my triggers, not just ManBai B.
2) I want to make sure that my ugly feelings don’t turn me into an ugly person.
The biggest mistake you can make in your personal development process is pin your hopes on changing others.
You can’t make anyone else care about the same things you do…or even care at all. Also, others can only ever be as honest with you as they are with themselves (which isn’t very honest most of the time). And you’ll never directly be able to force someone to like or respect you. All of those things considered people are bound to trip up, slip up, fuck up or give up. How you handle it has absolutely nothing to do with them.
Your energetic investment is your decision to make.
Rumi once said, “Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.”
If you love gracious behavior, patience, kindness, teamwork or any beautiful characteristic in human nature at all then everything you experience lends itself to developing those things. Yes, even self-serving man-babies are there to condition you for the beauty and strength that is you…that is Love.
Seen through the “crap is also fertilizer” lens you immediately begin the process of reclaiming all of the energy you would normally give the pain you experienced and start investing it in being the kind of person you want to be. That shift from giving away your power to investing your power in your strengths is something you learn to build on.
- You become more concerned with what YOU do and less concerned with what others do.
- What is there to gossip about if you’ve moved on to what’s within your control already?
- You don’t hold a grudge that discolors future interactions and potentially sabotages others’ efforts to genuinely do right by you.
- Bitterness or pettiness goes to the way side and you find rational ways to cover your ass while working for a larger vision.
- You think bigger than your little issue and find solutions to problems not just reactions to symptoms.
In short, you become an improved version of yourself instead of becoming exactly like the person that triggered you in the first place (or at least your perception of them).
If ever there was a month that focuses on that internal locus of control it’s February. In case you didn’t get it, the entire Love practice is about
- accepting what is ,
- taking back the energy you gave the entire time you couldn’t accept what is and
- re-investing returned bandwidth in the one thing you even have the slightest bit of control over…yourself.
I’ll never know ManBai B’s true motives. I suspect it has a lot to deal with an unconscious need to prove himself. He seems like a man who simultaneously feels entitled to power yet unworthy of it. A pretty common outcome from the toxic masculinity his generation was raised with.
At the end of the day his ACTUAL motivations are irrelevant. Others’ rationale about their behavior is really none of your (or my) business. Even if you thought knowing their true motivations would be helpful for your forgiveness process, that information has absolutely nothing to do with YOUR job to be Love (capital L).
Your responsibility is to take the best parts of yourself, develop them and put them out in the world in their purest, most helpful ways.
In short, if you don’t learn the true meaning of forgiveness (your first Love practice), you will become the thing that you loathe. And that’s not in anyone’s highest good.
If you’re just now hearing this, really hearing this…and just got a glimmer of the true importance of Forgiveness, repeat February’s practice as much as you need moving forward. Do it concurrently with the other months and you’ll benefit exponentially.
It seems like a lot of work at first. You’ll feel like you’re not doing it “right” for awhile. Stick with it though. Be patient. Especially with yourself.
One day you’ll wake up and realize how good you feel. You’ll notice that while everyone is flipping out about something you’re completely unfazed. You’re at peace in the chaos. Even better, you don’t even fault anyone anymore. You see them as fallible and struggling just like you were before you started this process. Shoot, you may even slip them the link to subscribe to Passion on Purpose. *wink, wink*
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