I am often asked how you make children feel better in the face of perceived injustices and disappointments in life.
My answer is that it is not our job to make people feel better, but rather to help them to feel bigger.
Expecting to be made to feel better is approaching life like a guest demanding that the host create a world in which you can participate purely on your terms.
This attitude often results in people treating or approaching life as very demanding and inconsiderate guests, taking no responsibility for the effects of their participation on what happens in life or any inconvenience, discomfort or damage they cause.
They never bother to fix anything they damage or clean up their mess at the end.
They feel betrayed and resentful when they do not win, regardless of whether they followed the rules or if victory was deserved.
Maturity is about being bigger - approaching the world as a host.
Being a host means being responsible for the world that you create.
It requires being willing and able to put your own immediate needs aside in order to keep focussed on what you are creating and acting in service of the greater good as opposed to self-interest.
Being a host means having an invitational approach to relationships, being open, receptive and welcoming as opposed to self-absorbed, demanding, expecting, controlling and imposing.
Hosting is about containing what is difficult and painful rather than always expressing or acting out what you feel, expecting that others should carry the discomfort with you or for you.
Containing means being able to accept feelings like frustration and disappointment with grace and equanimity, not living in constant pursuit of your own satisfaction and ideal of a perfect world.
It means accepting that good and bad live side by side and that everything is a mixed package.
Every relationship is ambivalent to some degree.
The closer the relationship the deeper the feelings of both love and hate, gratitude and resentment, admiration and envy.
All decisions we make are made with limited information and therefore always involve risk.
Sometimes you get that perfect pomegranate and cannot believe that anything could be so perfect.
At other times you get the one that looked perfect and ended up being full of worms.
Contradictions and ambiguities are part of the human condition.
Being a host means being able to forgive yourself and others, to look at yourself and others with a compassionate eye.
A sense of humour in the face of the absurdity of the human condition mitigates the potential bitterness and cynicism one can develop in a seemingly confusing imperfect world where so many people might appear to be getting it wrong a lot of the time.
My answer is that it is not our job to make people feel better, but rather to help them to feel bigger.
Expecting to be made to feel better is approaching life like a guest demanding that the host create a world in which you can participate purely on your terms.
This attitude often results in people treating or approaching life as very demanding and inconsiderate guests, taking no responsibility for the effects of their participation on what happens in life or any inconvenience, discomfort or damage they cause.
They never bother to fix anything they damage or clean up their mess at the end.
They feel betrayed and resentful when they do not win, regardless of whether they followed the rules or if victory was deserved.
Maturity is about being bigger - approaching the world as a host.
Being a host means being responsible for the world that you create.
It requires being willing and able to put your own immediate needs aside in order to keep focussed on what you are creating and acting in service of the greater good as opposed to self-interest.
Being a host means having an invitational approach to relationships, being open, receptive and welcoming as opposed to self-absorbed, demanding, expecting, controlling and imposing.
Hosting is about containing what is difficult and painful rather than always expressing or acting out what you feel, expecting that others should carry the discomfort with you or for you.
Containing means being able to accept feelings like frustration and disappointment with grace and equanimity, not living in constant pursuit of your own satisfaction and ideal of a perfect world.
It means accepting that good and bad live side by side and that everything is a mixed package.
Every relationship is ambivalent to some degree.
The closer the relationship the deeper the feelings of both love and hate, gratitude and resentment, admiration and envy.
All decisions we make are made with limited information and therefore always involve risk.
Sometimes you get that perfect pomegranate and cannot believe that anything could be so perfect.
At other times you get the one that looked perfect and ended up being full of worms.
Contradictions and ambiguities are part of the human condition.
Being a host means being able to forgive yourself and others, to look at yourself and others with a compassionate eye.
A sense of humour in the face of the absurdity of the human condition mitigates the potential bitterness and cynicism one can develop in a seemingly confusing imperfect world where so many people might appear to be getting it wrong a lot of the time.
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