What is mine is mine- what is yours is yours

I tend to talk to a lot of people online, sometimes they have questions about the lifestyle and sometimes they have very specific questions about what they are going through. I am always flattered and honored when people feel free and safe enough to ask me questions. That is a thing that I take very seriously. 

A few years ago I was mentoring someone and I saw that they were in an abusive relationship, or what I thought was an abusive relationship. So I thought that I was helping them ask questions about their situation, and to come to some sort of understanding about the type of abuse that they were dealing with.  I also thought that it was their goal to leave. So I was working towards what I thought their goal was. 

What I learned from that experience, which end badly, was that I was asking the wrong questions. I assumed that what I wanted for them was what they wanted for themselves.  I didn’t check in enough to see where their goals were, and what had changed.

So I take that experience with me and I use it now as I talk to people.

Sometimes it is really hard to listen to people when they hurt and not push to hard. To listen because all they need is an ear, not a judgment or pressure.  It is hard, especially when I really care about the person and can see that they have so much potential. It is hard when I hear myself wanting to ask “do you remember the last time you smiled, and meant it?” 

To watch and listen as they give all that they are against a wall that will not give back what they need. To see and hear as they wither because they think that it they are just better, if they just change, if they just learn to love more and accept more that it will get better and their partner will be happy- and then they can be happy.

Watch as they engross themselves in what the other person thinks because they think that if they just give that one more piece of them then things will change and it will be what it once was, or maybe that it never was but what they hoped it could be. 

Watching them strive and feeling like I can see the outcome unfold before my very eyes. 

It is so hard, and sometimes I fail at listening. I can’t do it anymore, it is too painful. It is too personal, it is to frustrating. So I take a break about what I can and can’t hear.  I remind myself that for someone to truly be empowered the decisions that they make have to be from their heart, or they can’t own them.

So that is what I focus on, empowering people,  asking questions,  getting them  to  define, narrow,  or broaden  their answers so  that their words are theirs alone,  and so that they are talking about their life and where they want it to go. 

That is when I know that I have done right by another person- when I can honestly say to myself- I did or said something to help them achieve their goals. 

Even if those goals are very different from mine.