“Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate.”  – Zhuangzi

To be centered means you don’t allow the words, actions or in-action of others affect you, your world, your sense of self or your sense of serenity.

Staying centered means fully accepting and loving yourself.  It means knowing your strengths and your weaknesses, your flaws and your imperfections and loving all of it.  It means that no matter what someone else does or doesn’t do you know who you are and you know you are worthwhile and valuable.

Why Its Hard

I have to admit I struggle with this one quite a bit.  I continually have to ask myself why someone did what they did and if the reason had anything to do with me. “Was I too harsh?” “Did I sound condescending?”  “Am I too opinionated?”  “Did I yet again choose someone who can’t meet my needs?”

The problem with asking these questions too much is that they always go back to me determining that I did something wrong or I spoke wrong, or acted wrong, or chose wrong or believed wrong.  It throws me off my center and keeps me from believing in myself.

For example, I was talking to a potential date on the phone for the first time.  I spoke about politics and where I grew up and what I thought and what I believed.   I didn’t dominate the conversation, but I think it was just too much too soon.  I have a tendency to do that.  No matter how hard I try to be another way I really don’t know how.

So, I’m sure I ruined the initial conversation and regardless of whether he was a match for me or not (my intuition tells me he wasn’t) all I could do was feel like a failure.  I often feel like I should be more like everyone else and speak more calmly and be less intense.   No matter how hard I try I don’t think it’s quite possible.

Instead of accepting this about myself and realizing that not everyone is going to get along with me and that I won’t be their cup of tea and vice versa I let their resulting actions (his not calling me) define how I feel about myself.  I don’t like this.   If you do it, then I bet you don’t like it either.

Why We Do it?

Hynoptherapist Marissa Peer believes that all of our insecurities, fears and issues stem from our subconscious belief that we do not think we are good enough.  That deep down inside we think we aren’t enough, we aren’t right, we aren’t special or we aren’t valuable just the way we are.

I think she may be right.  However, knowing why you do what you do and knowing how you feel doesn’t necessarily fix the problem, does it?

Why do we do this?  Why do we let the actions and reactions of others affect how we feel about ourselves?  Obviously feeling bad about yourself serves no purpose other than keeping you stuck in negativity.

Why does the negativity always want to creep back in and why does the need to please others override the need to feel secure within ourselves?  These are things I ask myself all the time.  Although I’m not 100% sure I am guessing some of us still struggle with being the best version of ourselves and unfortunately it’s more of a lifelong process than a quick fix.

You can’t just pick out a new personality and a new belief system like picking out a new shirt at the store. But, there are some simple ways to try and stay centered despite what others say or do.

The Distance

I watched a podcast regarding this issue.  The discussion involved how you take what someone else says to you and not place your own meaning and interpretation onto their words.  How do you separate your own beliefs from that of someone else?

The basic answer was “by practice”.  Simple, huh?

When someone says or does something we import meaning onto that thing.  When the date didn’t call me the next day I made up meaning for this failure to call, such as, “I blew it”, “He thought I was too obnoxious” or “He didn’t like me”.  These statements may or may not be true, but I/we can never know so why make them up?

It is just as likely that he decided he isn’t ready to date, or that he thought I was nice but we are too different in our way of thinking or he thought I wasn’t really ready to date based on some things I had said.  Again, I’ll never know the truth.

The only thing we can control is how we react and how we think about ourselves. It’s really hard not to import imaginary meaning onto situations.  But, if you wish to stay centered you have to.

Instead of thinking something bad about yourself try to to think, “the universe hasn’t brought the right person to me yet”, or “you are amazing and emotionally intense and if someone can’t accept you for who you are, then they aren’t the one for you anyway.”

I think you have to practice this every day, all the time.  Practice not making things up in your head. Practice not taking things personally. Practice believing in yourself.  Practice looking in the mirror and saying, “I’m totally awesome no matter what”.  Even if you don’t always believe it, if you practice it enough eventually you will.

Although you may never be the Babe Ruth of distancing yourself from the actions of others you can at least get up to bat and take your swing.  Just make sure you go for the fence when you do.