Hey guys, welcome back to Lavendaire.
So I was not planning on making a video today,
but I saw something on Instagram this morning
that triggered and reminded me about this lesson that:
We are not responsible for other people's feelings and how they react to things.
So it all started off with this really funny video that Ali Wong posted.
First of all, I love Ali Wong.
She's hilarious.
And it's just a video of her dancing with her daughter.
And the caption says, “When you take the pregnancy test and you're not pregnant.”
And so she was celebrating and it was a funny and cute video.
And so I was scrolling through the comments
and then one of the comments said,
“I'm happy you're happy, but for all of those struggling to get pregnant, that's the saddest moment.”
And then there were a couple people who agreed and then one person replied,
“I agree, but it's not up to her to think about our feelings.”
So if you're an empathetic person then you can feel other people's feelings
and you probably can predict other people's feelings.
So you tend to think about other people's feelings before you act.
And on one hand, it's really great to be considerate
and compassionate because you understand people.
But on the other hand, sometimes you can let that
dictate your choices a little too much.
Sometimes, because you care about what other people are feeling,
it dictates how you behave.
It dictates what you say and you're holding back from being your authentic self.
Because you're afraid to offend anyone
or hurt anyone or make them feel uncomfortable,
you hold back from voicing your honest opinions
or telling them the truth or just being your true self, and that is a crutch.
That is what we should not do
because you are not responsible for other people's feelings.
You're not responsible for how they react to the world.
You're responsible for yourself and how you respond to the world,
but you can't take responsibility for other people
because when you're being that considerate,
you’re assuming that they can't handle their feelings.
Or you're assuming that they're not responsible for their own feelings,
and you have to take that responsibility.
It's too much responsibility for you to take.
You shouldn't have to do that.
You should be focusing on yourself, living your life,
being as authentic to your true self as possible.
So I don't know if you guys have had these experiences
where you either filter yourself or maybe dumb yourself down
or just kind of mute yourself a little bit,
because of the people around you,
because you don't want to make them feel uncomfortable.
It might also go both ways where you don't want them to feel uncomfortable,
and you also don't want yourself to feel uncomfortable by being your true self.
So you care about what they think and what they say about you.
Examples of this – and I'm not sure if you guys can relate with me,
but it's when you are with people who are less ambitious than you.
And when you talk about goals and dreams,
you kind of dumb down your goals and dreams and ambitions,
because you don't want to scare them off
or make them feel uncomfortable with how much bigger your own goals and dreams are.
I've definitely done that and felt like I had to do that and I don't know why.
And another example would be if you are happy with your life.
But you pretend to not be as happy or you kind of mute your happiness,
because you know the people around you are sad and aren't happy in their lives.
And you're extra considerate of them and you don't want to make them feel bad,
because you're so happy or you're so successful.
And I still can see both sides of this:
why it could be seen as good or bad to be extra considerate of people's feelings.
Let me know in the comments your opinion on this.
But I think I would be considerate of people's feelings
because I would want them to feel comfortable.
I would want them to feel like we all belong in the same group or whatever,
and that's why I would mute my own true self and my authenticity.
And as I grew older I realized that it's not right to do that.
It's better to just be your full authentic self.
It's better to shine your light because you're not meant to mute your light in any way.
Don't make yourself smaller just to make the people around you feel better.
Ultimately it's a form of people pleasing
because you want to please the people around you.
You want to make them feel comfortable so you don't become your full self.
You don't go crazy and be your wild self,
because you don't want to offend them
or you don't want them to think you're weird or –
I don’t know – you might trigger something in them.
The reality is though, people, if they get triggered by you being your authentic self,
that says nothing about you and everything about them,
because that just shows that they have a wound that they need to heal.
Maybe they're suppressing their own emotions as well
and if they're not allowed to be their authentic self,
then they get mad when you are.
And if you do happen to trigger someone
where they get hurt or offended or uncomfortable, whatever,
that's actually doing them a service
because it's revealing to them where their wounds are.
You know how the world is our mirror?
Everything that we are angry or frustrated or aggravated about
reveals something in ourselves that we need to work on.
So if you are mad at someone because they're always late, look at yourself.
Are you always late or are you extra hard on yourself for being late?
Basically everything is a mirror.
What you see in others, what you admire in others
is what you want to cultivate in yourself.
And what you dislike in others,
when you have a strong emotional feeling towards something,
that means that you have that within yourself and you're not accepting it.
You're not loving that part of yourself and accepting that part of yourself.
You're trying to like kill it, but you're not going to kill it.
It's revealed in the way that you're angry at other things in the world.
So me, as someone with a tendency to dislike confrontation,
I used to live life trying not to hurt my friends.
And if there was anything that came up,
whether a friend hurt me or whether a friend did something wrong,
whether they had a flaw where other people got hurt and they didn't realize it,
I would not tell them, because I didn't want them to get hurt.
I wanted to just protect them –
and also for me, avoid that awkward, uncomfortable confrontation as well.
But now I realize that you're doing a disservice to people
if you're hiding things from them just to not hurt them,
because you're hurting them even more by not telling them the truth,
by not being authentic and honest with them.
If you just come up with the courage to confront your friend
and be honest and be open about, you know, maybe something they did wrong,
how they wronged you, how they wronged other people,
then you might hurt them in the short term,
but you will help them in the long-term,
because they need that information to reflect
and then grow and improve, because most people don't have bad intentions.
Most people are just living their life.
And if for some reason in certain situations, they hurt other people, it's unintentional.
They might not even realize that they did it.
And they will never know that they hurt you
or hurt someone unless someone tells them,
unless they're told that that happened,
because some people just don't have the feeling,
sensitivity, or empathy to know that they hurt someone.
And if you just keep your mouth shut, nothing's gonna change.
So do not try to live life avoiding hurting people,
avoiding being authentic to yourself, avoiding saying the truth,
because that is just going to hurt you in the long-term.
It's just not the way you want to live.
You want to live your authentic self.
You want to be completely yourself.
You want to be able to be honest and open and real with everyone around you.
And it might be uncomfortable, it might get awkward,
you might hurt some people, but in the long-term it's all for the better.
You shouldn't be avoiding pain.
I think I grew up thinking that you're supposed to
avoid pain, avoid hurting yourself, avoid hurting others.
In reality, pain is necessary for growth.
You're meant to struggle in life.
You're meant to get hurt.
You're meant to feel pain because that is how you grow,
and you also need the darkness to appreciate the light.
If everything was all butterflies and rainbows
and it was all just light, you wouldn't appreciate it
because that would be your normal.
You guys know by now that growth happens outside of your comfort zone,
so you have to get uncomfortable to grow.
Pain is uncomfortable.
Hurt is uncomfortable, awkwardness, confrontation,
all of that is uncomfortable, but it's necessary
to just be real and live your best life.
Being your authentic and honest self can feel uncomfortable
if you're not used to doing that.
If you are used to holding back and muting yourself
because you want to please the people around you,
because you don't want to stand out too much,
then learning to be authentic is going to be uncomfortable,
because it's different than what you've done in the past.
Anyway, I just want to remind you that it's great to be
empathetic, compassionate, and considerate
and caring about other people and their emotions,
but not at the expense of your authenticity.
Remember, you are not responsible for other people's feelings or emotions.
You're not responsible for how they react to the world.
You know, that's their responsibility.
They are living their own life on their own journey,
and you don't need to take responsibility for that.
They will learn on their own time,
and it's not your job to protect them.
It's not your job to please them.
Your job is to put yourself first and just do what's best for yourself.
Be authentic to yourself.
So the moral of the story is shine bright.
Be 100% yourself and care less about
what other people think, how they feel,
what they say, their opinions.
Be brave enough to just step into that uncomfortable zone,
because you're going to have to, and that's how you're going to grow.
That's how good you're going to learn to be more of yourself each and every single day.
Anyway, going back to that Ali Wong video.
If Ali Wong cared too much about other people,
cared too much about offending other people,
she would not have posted that video
and probably would not have said most of the things that she said
and in result, a lot of people, thousands of people would not have the content
that would make them smile, make them happy,
make them laugh, because she's a funny person
and I love what she posts and what she says,
even though it can be vulgar, it can be offending or –
even this video, I didn't think there was anything wrong with it,
but obviously someone out there is always going to get triggered
by what you say and that is not your responsibility
to try not to trigger everyone because everyone has issues.
If you tried not to trigger anyone, then you would just be silent.
You would just hide in your room.
You would just die because, just you being alive –
Me walking outside with this color hair, I can trigger someone.
I can get someone mad and I think it's ridiculous,
but some people do get offended.
I guess with the internet, we're just exposed to everyone.
Everyone has a platform to voice their opinion and everyone's got issues.
Everyone's triggered by something.
So just knowing that you cannot please everyone.
You can't be on everyone's good side.
All you can do is be yourself and be yourself fully.
So I hope I've repeated this enough times
that you got to be your authentic self and to shine bright.
I'm honestly still learning.
As weird as it sounds, I'm learning to be less considerate
about other people's feelings and just be honest,
even if it might hurt them.
I know that it's helping them in the long-term,
if I'm honest and I come with a good intention.
I'm not talking about hurting people intentionally or doing bad things on purpose.
I'm just talking about being real.
All right, I hope you liked today's little chit chat.
Let me know your thoughts on this topic down below.
Are you too considerate of a person?
Do you care too much?
Let me know and I'll see you guys in the next video.
Love you so much.
Bye!