Day 192: One Fact Is Not the Whole Person

How do you decide who you listen to and who you dismiss?

I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt. Not judging who I think they may be before I know them. Listening first, without labels.

I have clients and friends that are about as opposite of me as they can be, always have.

Yes, politically, but also life style.

I haven't eaten meat in 36 years, and I care deeply about animal welfare and the health of the planet. And I have clients who hunt and fish for sport, including at least one who goes after trophy animals.

That hurts my heart. I wish there wasn't such a thing.

At the same time, I know them to be kind, generous, loving people.

And if I had found out one fact I didn't agree with and cut them off, I would have missed out on the wholeness of who they are.

I grew up in a few different smallish towns in Wisconsin, and I noticed differences in the culture of the smallest one.

There was a strong "we do it this way" and "we think this way" kind of mindset.

I felt like an outsider there and was glad I was only there for my senior year.

I left home at 18 and started my own journey after that.

From 24 to 33, I lived in five states, then moved to Mexico, racking up real estate licenses as I went.

I met a lot of different types of people in all those travels.

I lived in upscale resort towns and some were very fake and pretentious. Others were so down to earth you wouldn't know if you were talking to an employee or a person who owned a big corporation.

I learned a lot about people in all those years, from my personal life and the fact that I was in sales the whole time.

I learned how different personality styles do life in general. Their personal psychology.

Everybody is dealing with the same struggles, fears, and desires. They just go about it in different ways.

Some people protect themselves by controlling everything.

Some protect themselves by staying busy.

Some protect themselves by being charming.

Some protect themselves by being difficult.

Some protect themselves by pretending they don't care.

Underneath most of it, people are trying to feel safe, loved, respected, understood, or in control of something.

Different personality styles have different coping mechanisms.

Without understanding that, we tend to judge people whose coping mechanisms don't look like ours.

We don't understand their psychology, so we make it wrong.

And that's real. You really don't understand their psychology.

Some of my richest relationships, both personal and professional, have come from people who are not like me at all. Not because I agree with everything they do. I don't.

But because being in relationship with people who see the world differently has expanded me. It has made me more curious, more discerning, more compassionate.

And more aware of where I'm open and where I'm defensive.

This morning's affirmation from Louise Hay says, "It is safe for me to be flexible enough to see others' viewpoints."

The word safe stood out to me because deep down, one of the reasons we don't listen to people who seem too different from us is that their differences can feel threatening. They make us feel unsafe.

We can't put them in a context that makes us comfortable, so we put them in a box and label the box unsafe.

But seeing someone else's viewpoint does not mean abandoning your own.

It does not mean agreeing with them or overriding your values.

It means being grounded enough in yourself that another person's way of seeing the world does not immediately knock you out of alignment.

That is the part that matters.

Flexibility is not weakness.

It is not people-pleasing or pretending something doesn't bother you.

It is the ability to stay connected to your own truth while still being willing to see the humanity in someone else.

That feels like a higher level of emotional and spiritual maturity to me.

Not because it is easy, but because it asks us to lead from something deeper than fear.

Today's Gentle Practice

Think of someone whose viewpoint, choices, or way of living feels very different from yours.

Ask yourself:

Can I see one part of their humanity without abandoning my own truth?

You don't have to agree.

You don't have to approve.

You don't have to make yourself smaller to keep the peace.

Just notice whether your heart can stay open while your inner knowing stays intact.

That is where real flexibility begins.

With you,

Lynn