Just doing the best with what we got.

Before we graduated yoga teacher training, my teacher had us write confessions of faith. Confessions of faith are statements that your Inner Self knows is true, regardless of the thoughts and beliefs we have in our heads. I wrote several but one that has consistently stuck with me is this:

People are operating at their own level of consciousness; they’re just doing the best with what they’ve got based on beliefs and life experience. It may be different than where I am, and that’s okay because we are all different.

I’m not gonna lie, I probably tell myself this a good 30 times a day because my thoughts are usually telling me otherwise. However, this confession of faith has brought me to a deeper level of understanding of the people I’ve encountered in my life. Most importantly, it’s brought me to a deeper understanding of myself.

Over the years, many people have drifted in and out of my life. Some have stuck around; many have not. For the ones who haven’t stuck around, each experience provides an opportunity for learning on some level…but experiences involving a lack of closure I’m still struggling to understand.

 Endings like this bother the hell outta me; they’re like the itch I can’t scratch. I will gladly take honesty, even if it hurts my feelings, over lack of closure any day of the week. At least I know where I stand; the finality makes processing and moving on so much easier. I don’t understand how some people are okay with not knowing where things stand. Are they okay with it?

We know ourselves better than anyone around us. We speak these truths every single day in some form of word or action. In every failed relationship I’ve had, whether platonic or romantic, each person has told me their personal truth, who they are at their core. Something I’ve come to realize is in each personal experience I’ve had with one person or another, a situation has presented itself where even though I know they are going to act or react in the manner they are as a person, I somehow expected they would act or react in a manner that was more like me. Does that make sense? I’d expect those who surround themselves with walls to protect themselves to let those walls down with me, those who don’t discuss their feelings to talk me into next week…hopefully you’re picking up what I’m putting down.

It’s unfair, unrealistic and selfish; I realize this in retrospect. The thing is, I had this expectation because our relationship was different. Somehow, some way, they showed me through their words or actions that we had a different thing going; our relationship was unique. There may have been an instance where they stepped outside of their comfort zone and showed me the potential for a greater version of themselves. And those brief instances gave me hope.

So having all this hope that they would continue to step outside of their comfort zone…and then they didn’t…was disappointing to say the least. Inside I’m screaming, “Get on my level! You’ve done it before!” And I can’t understand if our relationship is so unique, why not?! I realize it all comes back to those levels of consciousness, man; we are all doing the best with what we’ve got. I can’t force or push someone to come to a different level; they get there in their own time, even if shared experiences have proved otherwise.

I feel like I’m flying and got sucker punched in the gut at the same time. Learning who you are at your core is a wonderful gift, yet the realization that there are things you do that kinda suck…well, sucks. But it’s a part of the ride in this amazing journey called life. What you do next is up to you. For me? Well, while I figure that out, I’ll just keep telling myself, “We’re all doing the best with what we got.”