Just Doing Your Best

Good morning! Happy Soul Sips on Sunday!

What a gorgeous weekend it is! You know, these times right now are really wonky, aren’t they? I mean it’s one thing what we’ve lived through already in 2020, and then you add some political stuff going on, and the anxiousness, and even the anxiousness of just Christmas coming, and what does that look like, and coming together with family and friends. As a Mom, this makes me feel anxiousness as I think about Christmas and what to get everybody and how to make it as special as possible.

So, with all of that in mind, I keep trying to re-center myself, and I just wanted to throw this out at you. A wonderful and very, very brilliant woman, named Brené Brown has said so many things and has done some phenomenal research and has written amazing books, that just step you into possibilities of thinking and letting go of the beliefs and expectations, and so many components that we feel have evolved us to this point, but moments to change. And she gives us the courage the ability to do that.

And one of the really, really neat things that she’s said that has stuck with me for many, many years now, is this particular thought. What if, everybody is doing the best they can? So, you’re in the grocery store and you’re super frustrated with the cashier who’s moving super slow, or um, how’s she bagging something, and you can just feel your frustration just building on that.

And what happens instead of you getting all your knickers in a knot, you just sort of step back and go, what if she’s doing the best she can? And what I feel that statement brings to me, is one, it takes out judgement because who am I? Who am I to say you should you do what do, and that includes everybody in our lives? And it also steps me anyways, to another place of compassion, right? Because my way of thinking and my way of living is just what works for me. It may not work for you, so who am I to say anything? I think it steps us into that place of compassion to be able to recognize that. That everybody thinks and rolls and lives differently, and you just accept people. Then I feel like it steps into a level of respect, where we really just have to respect everybody’s wishes, and how they go about life.

So, my shared story for this week is, I had this really interesting experience, that um, I was to meet a professional, I had hired him to do a job for me, and when that set time came and that day came, I said, he didn’t show. And so, I called him, and I said, “Hey, did I goof this up?” And I’m pretty sure the person who answered the phone was his partner, a female, and she was very aggressive with me, and she said, “You did not phone back to confirm” and I was like…I started to apologize and then also, tried to state my claim, where I was coming from, and what I understood to be true, and she just said, “Here, you talk to him.”

And so, when he got on the phone, I started to speak to him, and he came right at me, very intensely. And I tried with him as well, to explain, my misunderstanding clearly, and he was having none of it.

Now here’s the thing, oh and also in the background, you could hear his partner or receptionist or whomever it was just going, and you know, I stopped. I stopped. This was a really important meeting, and I didn’t now with out having this meeting, how things were going to shake down moving forward, but I just stopped because one, I recognized, he was doing the best he could. Let’s say it was his partner in real life, he kind of had to deal and respond to me in a certain way to perhaps appease her or maybe he was feeling that way, I don’t know. But together, they had this feeling towards me.

Secondly, I realized, it doesn’t even matter right now, what I have to say or what my reasoning was or whatever, so I just let it go and I apologized and I said can I rebook? And he said not for another week, and I said, I’m sorry that won’t work, so I’ll have to look somewhere else, and he said, okay well, good luck. And I don’t think he was even that pleasant.

And you know my first reaction when I hung up the phone, was being self-employed, it’s shocking. My first reaction was oh my gosh, how could you not be over accommodating, and I grew up with, my Dad always taught me, “The customer is always right.” And you do your best. However, I know I’ve screwed up as a business owner, many times.

And I just stepped back and said, that man was doing the best that he can, in that moment. I bet you he can do better but I’m just going to let it go. And I also then went into this whole thinking process that I have right now, is that if a big boulder, a really weird boulder gets thrown at me or I get blocked? It means, I’m supposed to go in another direction. And so, as life was and is, I just said, okay, so I went to my other collogue and said, hey look, I just had this thrown at me, and he said, let me make a phone call.

And it worked out wonderfully. And it worked out wonderfully in the point that the experience that ended up happening was a wonderful experience, it was a wonderful connection, it was a wonderful service. I felt great, and everyone else felt great. I wasn’t meant to have that experience or that service with that person.

But a boulder, a really like ugg, had to be thrown at me. And I had to kind of step back and go, how do I want to behave right now because there definitely was a time in my life where I would have went “Rahh” you know, and really got upset with this guy because it’s a service and I had booked him and it wasn’t my fault, it was his fault, you know those sorts of things. But I didn’t do that, I didn’t want to do that, I literally just said, “muh”.

So, my point is, from that story, and as life is really wonky right now and there’s a lot of kookarachi’s of experiences going on right now. I really encourage you, here are my three’s. I really encourage you, one, when you’ve got someone in front of you or something is being thrown at you, to step back and go, they’re doing the best they can. Can I give them compassion, can I give them respect to where they are at, and not judge them, and just wish people well?

Number two. Being in the moment, and just being grateful. There’s a lot of shit going round. Where can we find some gratitude? Where can we dig. There was a moment in my life that I would wake up every morning and before I put those feet on my floor, I would come up with five things, people, whatever I’m grateful for. And at that moment in my life, it was wonderful because I have four children, and so, I’d rhyme off those four names, and I’d have four right off the bat, and I only had to come up with another one. But it shifted me, it shifted me, it was enough to shift me. Dig deep. Sometimes, my five points were my four kids and my legs because they were strong, but my neck was screaming at me. So, find those points on how you get to choose, on how you get to roll. You get to do you, everybody else gets to do them.

And my last one is, be kind to yourself. Be kind to yourself. There are no rules right now. There are no, how do we say, it is so wonky, you get to start creating your own path, you get to start creating, maybe even some new traditions. Be flexible. Try not to be too rigid. Be flexible, be compassion, be open. Take care of yourself. Ground yourself. Focus on gratitude. Focus on what is working in your life. Take that time, take those moments to breathe. Get outside, and do you!

Cheers!