fbpx
Menu

"There isn't a person you wouldn't love if you could read their story"

HomeForumsEmotional Mastery"There isn't a person you wouldn't love if you could read their story"

New Reply
Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #143827
    Chris
    Participant

    Hi, everyone.  I want to preface this by saying this is my first post here and I want to express how much reading the posts on this website are so academic for the heart and soul.  So, thank you for all of your contributions.

    I read a great post quote today on my Facebook from the page Universoul Awakening; it read, “There isn’t a person you wouldn’t love if you could read their story.”  It stood out to me because 1) I agree with it, but 2) my mind asked this question; how can people with deep emotional trauma interact with people who bring that trauma out of them?

    I asked myself this question because I have a narcissistic coworker and being around her insincerity and disruptiveness triggers my trauma.  Why should I stop to love someone who can’t comprehend the empathy to do the same for anyone around them?  Especially when they make themselves busy gloating in attention?  Because I grew up with abusive parents, I’ve worked my butt off to earn everything that I have in my life and I can’t envision myself feeling the slightest bit of compassion for a person who walks into the office and uses false charm to avoid work and to get others to do work for them.  So, my questions are the following; 1) why should I love their story?  2) I think this is more important, but how can I learn to cope with my feelings as they arise in the workplace?  The situation gives me two conflicting worries; the first says that my life story has no meaning if I don’t stand up to this behavior and make the people around me aware of it and the second is that my job could be jeopardized as a result.

    Thanks again, everyone.

    #143849
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Chris:

    I didn’t understand the last few lines of our post, the two conflicting worries:

    1. Your life story has no meaning if you don’t stand up to this behavior (of the co worker) – what do you mean by your life story has no meaning…?

    2. Your job could be jeopardized as a result of… making co workers aware of the co worker’s behavior?

    Can you restate your conflict?

    anita

    #144125
    Hana L
    Participant

    Just my two cents – it looks like a lovely quote, and I’ve read it with a pinch of salt. To me it’s somewhat telling me to be empathetic towards other people’s life stories and also if a person has treated us in an unpleasant manner, perhaps they are having a bad day and to be understanding about that. There are certain ‘stories’ I would be empathetic about – for eg a mother in poverty has to resort to stealing to feed her family but I wouldn’t accept it if someone committed a crime just for their own greed or because they thought they were ‘entitled’ to it.

    I’ve worked with a narcissistic coworker before (also didn’t like it) but I just made sure contact with that person was as minimal as possible. Maybe trying to ‘love’ your coworker is forcing yourself a bit too much. Perhaps you could ‘like’ a particular aspect of your coworker unrelated to their character/work ethics eg they have a good fashion sense. I think we’re entitled to like/love the people that we want.

    Hana

     

    #144763
    Tiela Garnett
    Participant

    Hi Chris,

    Here are my responses to your questions:

    1) Why should you love a person’s story?

    Every human being has a wound, which is the source of all neurotic, unhealthy, unloving behaviour.  The wound is a result of trauma (i.e., the story).  The reason that, “there isn’t a person you wouldn’t love if you could read their story,” is because the story reveals the source of the wound and makes the person’s unacceptable behaviour understandable.  And to understand an individual is the beginning of loving them.  No one is asking us to love anyone’s story.  It is the individual we need to love and the story is a window into who they really are.

    You describe your coworker as narcissistic and insecure.  That is not who she is in her essential nature.  Those traits are examples of her woundedness and evidence of trauma.  Because she is a coworker and not a friend, you may never have the opportunity to hear her story.  It doesn’t matter.  The story doesn’t matter.  The point is that she has a story and her story resulted in narcissism and insecurity, which means there is pain in her life.  Once you understand that, you can feel compassion for her (not for her behaviour, but for her).  When you can feel compassion for her, despite her behaviour, you will automatically treat her differently and thereby transform the relationship.

    2) Coping with your feelings as they arise in the workplace

    This is by far the more difficult of your two issues.  It will require that you stay centered in every moment, in a place of balance and peace, so that when the feelings come up, you can witness them from a neutral place, breathe through them and not act from them.  This is key!  Any unbalanced feeling, if acted upon, will create greater imbalance and ultimately, suffering.

    Finally, elsewhere in your sharing you ask this question: “how can people with deep emotional trauma interact with people who bring that trauma out of them?”

    This is a superb question and is, in a sense, at the root of all human interaction.  Someone I know refers to earth as “the hospital planet” because we are all so damaged here.  The perfection and beauty and magic and love of the universe is revealed in this phenomenon: that our most important relationships are exactly these – the people we are drawn to are the people most likely to trigger our essential wound.  This is how the ideal conditions for healing are created!

    This is a very big topic – too big, in fact for here and now, but hopefully this was helpful.

    Yours in healing,

    Tiela G.

     

    #145113
    Arthur
    Participant

    I hear you, see it this way then.

    There can’t be a person that you can hate, if you can read their life story.

    As I have read before, people are the result of their past experiences. So your coworker is facing his own demons, but it is good that you realize that they are affecting your own trauma. Here is what you can do about it.

    Try to think about it from your coworker’s perspective, literally take pity on him and don’t dwell on these negative thoughts. If none of above works, try keeping your distance from him.

Viewing 5 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Please log in OR register.