This lovely art work is by Kelly Marcelle Malka and it was sent to me by a beauty of a heart who said it looked like something I might write about female friendships.

Empathy. While researching what I would gift myself for my fiftieth, I discovered that learning music increases one in empathy. Not only would music fit naturally into my life, and not only would this learning keep the neuroplasticity movin’ and shakin’ to new and gentler pathways, it has the potential to make me a softer space for others. Isn’t that lovely?

To paraphrase, he said that he’s trying to be more empathetic whenever dealing with people, to make it his default whenever possible. That too is lovely, isn’t it?

This sentiment wrapped itself onto my mind’s pen and kept jotting notes down for the rest of the day about the subject matter, especially as we also discussed recovery from mistakes.

Show me how you hold space for someone who made a mistake, and I’ll show you how you hold space for your self when you do.

What inner voice do you use when you make a bad decision or a mistake?

Listen. I f(k up on the daily all day long. I look at the thing, I sit with the thing for a second, I take what I need from it and I move onto my next new and shiny mistake. There are an infinite amount of mistakes I can make and I’ll keep aiming for a new one, rather than repeating old bad habits.

Now. The times I’ve made morally questionable choices (according to my own standards, which will certainly vary from yours), I can recall them without too much effort. They were the game-changers for which I’m grateful and which made me better. They made me kinder to others and to myself, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. My heart leads that answer, and it’s where the best of me lives.

Before I get to the point of this, I do want to mark that I’m a naturally extremely empathetic individual. I can pick up on feelings and energies I want to, and those I don’t want to feel. This kind of empathy, like anything extreme, is not good, and it’s rooted in a hyper vigilant need to scan our environments and be ready for any sudden shifts in someone else’s emotional states so that we protect ourselves from their potential upheaval. For me, the ability to read the emotional energies of people and note even the most minor of changes, is rooted in self-preservation. I’ve learned to hold its reins in service of others, rather than allowing it to be a protective guard.

I also have to be careful what I share. Just because I see someone shift, I don’t need to let them know. It’s rarely my business, and so I’ve learned to pull back on pointing it out and checking in. This is easier said than written, especially because I do believe that energy interacts only with energy it wishes to interact with; it’s not random. Also, though, I don’t want people I hold dear to be in pain, and on this I’ve learned that sometimes people need to sit in their own spaces of discomfort and pain in order for them to grow. I know I certainly do.

Anyway. Back to the point of this. I don’t think empathy / addressing wrongs is something we should complicate, and I think maybe simplicity here is the shortest road to healing –

1. Recognizing that people aren’t their mistakes, though they are responsible for them (because taking responsibility is what allows us to change our behaviour; throwing our hands into the air and disavowing any role in a thing will only add weight to the burden of the mistake itself. Tell me I’ve got it wrong the next time you’re laying awake choking on anxiety. We’ve all been there).

Meaning, if someone stole something once or twenty times, they’re not a thief. Rather, they’re a person who’s stolen once or twenty times. End.

2. Treat people as they show up in the present, without constantly looking at the past.

Meaning, if the someone who stole once or twenty times in the past is showing up today as someone who wishes to no longer steal things, then we need to afford them the courtesy and grace to show up facing in a different direction, and face that direction with them.

3. If you trust that people can change, they will. This is very closely linked to #2. Anyone who doesn’t support our growth and movement into better, isn’t our friend, Boo. Neither are people who refuse to support our pivots, and who’d rather we stay stuck in a thing from which we wish to move forward.

Meaning, if we believe the someone who stole once or twenty times can change, this belief will change our energy around them and how we show up for them. That in turn will affect their own trajectory and how they will show up for themselves. If they fall down, we can’t “always knew you were a thief!,” but we should “this is a process and today was a bad day. Let’s aim for you to extend the days in which you don’t steal. Baby steps! I gotchu!”

4. Love people unconditionally. Which has somehow become my own personal anthem. In tandem, dear seven readers, we need to know our boundaries and respect them.

Meaning, if our someone who stole once or twenty times makes (the same or different) mistakes in judgment, we have to remember it isn’t about us (though we could be implicated / are responsible for our role if we directly contributed to the ecosystem in which they fell forward into someone who stole another thing or twenty).

We should neither centre ourselves in their choices (unless they directly implicate us), nor should we carry the weight of their responsibility. But. We should know when it’s time to say: I love you whether you are stealing or not, and I will carry that love with me for always, but I no longer wish to have you in my life. Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

A simple four steps. And a softer world for all of us.

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