Everyone Is Doing The Best They Can

Hello beautiful souls! Welcome to Loving My Soul. Because my last major blog post was on a pretty intense subject, eating disorders, I want to take some time to talk about the perspective I have for anyone who was feeling shame or guilt from the discussion of some of my life experiences in my videos or on my blog, as well as for anyone who feels that have wronged or been wronged. How many times have we been in the situation where we have felt wronged, have done wrong, or feel like we didn't do enough; and more importantly, how do we free ourselves from those feelings?

For me personally, I typically have a really good memory, which can allow the memories of wrong doing to linger. Sometimes we may hold on to that trespass more/longer than the other person does. A huge step for me to learn how to get past feeling wronged or feeling bad for having done wrong was to realize that,

"Everyone is doing the best they can given their current circumstances, thoughts, fears, and beliefs."

I first learned the concept, "Everyone is doing the best they can given their current circumstances", through a dear friend and yoga instructor, Sheila Pride, around 2012. She had done a lot of her own personal healing, and when she taught this concept, it really spoke to me. Interestingly, years later at a work-related talent development workshop that focused on self-development, I heard the familiar phrase again, with the addition of, "...with the understanding, knowledge, and awareness we have." As mentioned above, I typically use the version in bold. In my mind, there is something to this concept if it is cropping up in very different places in my life, and I wanted to share it.

Rocks near Elephantine Island near Aswan seen during Kathryn's trip to Egypt. Spray

painted graffiti can be seen near cartouches carved into the rocks. A reminder that people 

are doing the best they can, and when they know better, they will do better.  

Realizing that everyone actually is doing the best they can, including us, is incredibly freeing, mostly because it can allow us to forgive ourselves. These reflections are a great way to remove the victim mentality from whatever experience we have had or are having. They help us to let go of taking the behavior of others personally. If we feel that we did something to bring on the treatment, then we can see opportunities to forgive ourselves, love ourselves more, and strengthen our boundaries. Knowing that everyone is doing the best that they can does not erase or excuse the wrong doing, bad behavior, or mistreatment; we still want to have healthy boundaries with others.

However, embracing the concept puts the behavior in perspective and allows us to see others in a more kind and compassionate way. Like seeing a hurt child acting out in unfortunate ways. People who are hurting often hurt others; the saying, "hurt people hurt people". In the very profound book, The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship (A Toltec Wisdom Book) by Don Miguel Ruiz, Ruiz discusses how instead of being love and acting with love, we all have emotional wounds that are passed on like a disease; and unless we take the time to heal those emotional wounds, we may easily lash out at the wounds of others when we want to diffuse the discomfort we are feeling within ourselves because we are overcome by emotional poison.

A picture of the sun shinning through the architecture of the Cathedral of Seville,

which Kathryn visited on a trip to Spain. The reflection here is to examine where

our boundaries may need strengthening.

Realizing that everyone has wounds, including us, and being able to see that state of non-love with compassion is the first step towards returning to love, as we can put the actions and behaviors of others into perspective. For example, if there was an older male in my life when I was young who taunted and teased me and had episodes of raging alcoholism, in retrospect, I can see underneath all of that is someone who is wounded and insecure and is sending his emotional poison to me because I am perceived as less powerful.

His taunting, teasing, and violent outbursts (passing on his emotional poison to me) might set the tone for my later life, where I would be more likely to 1) feel insecure and adverse to challenging perceived male authority; 2) be desensitized (think it is normal) for teasing, taunting, and violent behavior; and 3) have these types of wounded behavioral patterns for coping with or passing on emotional poison to others. While knowing that everyone is doing the best they can and with compassion in my heart, I can see his wounds. I can also see where I may have taken some of that volatility into my adult life, where I might have spoken to those I loved dearly in unkind ways when under stress.

During the rapid change and growth that swept through my life over the last decade, I also came across the saying, "Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die." This phrase resonated with me and helped me understand the need for forgiveness on an intellectual level and to move towards forgiveness of others and of myself. As we grow, heal, forgive ourselves, and let go of our wounding, others push our buttons less easily. We can even see instances where we may not have acted in love. There is a beautiful quote by Maya Angelou related by Oprah that gets to a very important part of this:

"Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better." - Maya Angelou

With Maya Angelou's words in mind, when we see all of the wounds in the world and know that healing our own wounds and to treating others with love is in the highest good of all, we can then do better. We can heal ourselves, see others and their wounds with compassion, and treat others with love. We can build healthy boundaries with others. We can choose to have stronger boundaries and not give time, attention, and energy to those who do not treat us well. We can mentally send blessings to those who do not treat us well to help them heal, instead of poking at their wounds in response. We can choose to let go and not take how they treated us personally. We can forgive ourselves if we thought we provoked their behavior or if we see ourselves as a bad person for having negative thoughts towards them. This is merely a start in realizing everyone is doing the best we can and are capable of doing better once we know better. May we all be blessed with love and rediscovering that we are love and are loved.

As with anything that I share, please take what speaks to you and leave the rest.

Many blessings!

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