Change

I wonder what the world would be like if we could really see into people's hearts, see motives not just what we perceive on the outside. A lot of the time what we see is a result of our conditioning (What we are familiar with, have known) and that conditioning determines our attitude and behavior towards other people.
Interesting, isn't it? We project our own undesirable or desirable thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings onto someone else. Take a person who has been lied to a lot, or they themselves are a liar. They are much more likely consider the possibility that someone else is lying to them than someone who hasn't been lied to, or lies themselves.

I've been thinking about this lately. Chris and I have been talking about this.

That some of the times that I've hurt or misunderstood people or people have hurt or misunderstood me, it's false projecting. It sucks and I'm so sick of the fallout. Then there is also the flip side that sometimes when I think a person couldn't possible want to hurt me, they are choosing to.

Over the years I've learned some clues as to when a person is a "mean" person. Mean people never apologize (thank you Beth Moore. Love her!), they always try to make it seem like you're the problem. Big clue: you almost always feel worse when you are around them. I've had to distance myself from people who feed off of others failures. Sometimes presented as help "I do" or "you should".. Chris likes to say "Don't should on yourself" because most you should sharings are poop. Usually these people can't see the forest for the trees. I love how Jesus put it in Matt 7:3-5

3 “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own? 4 How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye? 5 Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye."

So so so guilty of the above scripture!!! I wish I wasn't, but I do it. So I don't think "mean" people are always mean, usually we're all a mixture of both. I just find sometimes it's so toxic it's better to let go. Sometimes "help" can really mess things up.

Smile at the world and it will smile back.

My husband has the thickest skin ever. Seriously, he doesn't sweat any small stuff. Even when it's big stuff, he gives people the benefit of the doubt. I'm not sure if that is the result of his growing up, or personality, probably both. Me, I know I look for the bad first. I have plenty of reasons to be looking for people trying to hurt me, mostly from my childhood. At this point in my life though, I have lots of reason to believe people are well intended towards me. I have lots of beautiful people in my life. Reality is most people are just like me, a bit self absorbed ,but well intended. Just not always managing to do those good intentions all the time.


I've been putting some things from recent time through that filter of intentions and things are looking differently. It's much easier to understand where someone is coming from when you look at all you've known of them not just one instance. Not what I THINK I know of them. People are really too complicated to just peg them, the way we all do. But actually knowing them, which is tough even long married couples struggle with misunderstandings. So odds are most times, I just need to give people the benefit of the doubt.



I want to live according to truth not make mistakes based on emotions, false conclusions.


The problem is for me it's hard to train my mind, my character, to choose. I keep trying and there is growth, at least I"m to the point I can sorta see the "log".

Change is good, no matter how small the increments. :)

I"m so grateful for all the people who have imparted things in my life so that my life changes for me,for my family,for future family.