Meeting Others Where They Are

I provide a safe space for everyone to be themselves. I meet others where they are, however they are, appreciating their unique contributions to the world. I am grateful for our similarities and all I can learn from our differences. I allow for the richness of expression that diversity brings …”

The first sentence grabbed my attention because, for decades, I have been a student of loving kindness and the effect it has within and without.  It is a soul shaper and a world shaper.  My years of metaphysical study have led me to the place where I see the possibility of loving-kindness coming from the place where all things are sacred.  The place of connection instead of separation.  Union with the oneness of all things.  It was wonderful to have inspiration for that from the Christian perspective.

The part of the message that grabbed my heart was the affirmation of meeting others where they are. 

For many years it has been a difficult world to live in – not just globally, but locally.  Everything appears to be in schism.  Country against country.  Neighbor against neighbor.  Communities and families tearing apart in a world that seems ever more hateful.  I have found it a challenge to be in a place of loving kindness when I perceive the behavior of others as disrespectful, unkind, or even downright hateful.  I get angry at myself for judging others … but I can’t help but react to off-putting energy.  With those who are very different from me, it feels as if we are opposing magnets … it isn’t possible to relate or get close … the energy pushes me back and away from them.  And I have no doubt they can feel the same way. 

It was has been a new experience for me, as where I used to live my personal politics and societal expectations were similar to those around me.  Where I live now is a very different environment.  I don’t share a political or communal worldview with most of the people around me.  And that has certainly been exacerbated over the last years with the politics of the US and the country’s devolvement into a past that did not welcome diversity of spirit and body. 

I Googled the concept of meeting others where they are.  Seems it is a bit of a catchword nowadays.  Lots of interesting reading out there.  There were some things that made their way into my journal for me to think on and capture my own thoughts.  The following bits were grabbed from my reading here and there about the concept of meeting others where they are. 

Meeting someone where they are means: 

Bridging the gap between your expectations and where the other person is coming from. 

Allowing the person to be where they are in their life, not where you would want them to be.

Listening to others – to understand their values, needs, desires, and past life experiences (including their triggers and trauma responses).

Understanding you are not in a position of authority.  You are one person making the way through your life, as others are making the way through theirs. 

Assessing, not judging.  Willing to explore a perspective other than your own.

Putting aside our wants for another, whether those wants are in service to them or not, endeavoring to understand where they are in their journey. 

Accepting that the world we see through our personal/cultural/political/et. lens does not always match the worldview of others. 

I could see that all of the above were steps that I have found as part of my journey to become more loving and kind.  I could also see that I regularly forget them ::sigh:: 

My experience has been that meeting others where they are (although I didn’t know that term) meant the opportunity to understand their perspective, perhaps to understand how their life led them to that place, and, most importantly, to illuminate the places where we are more alike than I could have imagined.  Loving kindness has played out in my life in finding those places … and focusing on them rather than on distances that, honestly, cannot be bridged. 

I haven’t evolved to the point of being able to practice loving kindness in a way that embraces the entirely of those who believe/act in ways that I cannot relate to.  I’m not sure that is an aspiration of mine, although I appreciate that the Eastern philosophy behind the sentiment would have us do just that.  But … I have gotten much better at finding the parts of people that I can love.  Even when I struggle with relating to some of their other bits. I have my own triggers and traumas.  My own fears.  My own wishes for how others would be.  I can only hope that others would be willing to meet me there, as I come with my own set of limitations and liabilities. 

It was good to spend time with this concept – to re-engage with a philosophy that is truly one of the only ways I know to find inner peace in a world and amongst a human population that seems anathema to that. 

The Bible quote that ended the piece was from Psalm 34:14 – “Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.” 

“Evil” to me is any thought or action that results in separation from oneness.  While I’d need to take on another project if I were to attempt to understand the concept of doing “good,” I can take away from the verse that I can never get to a place of meeting someone where they are if I don’t try.  Because I can only learn from them directly.  If I am willing to listen with an open heart and permit them to be in the moment their life has led them to.  Without active intent for that kind of engagement, I become someone who is sitting on the sidelines in judgment.  If doing “good” is about connection (the other side of evil’s spirit of disconnection), then I can grasp the possibility of oneness that comes from suspending judgment and opening up to respectful/loving curiosity about where another is. 

I ended my journaling on this (although not my ongoing pondering of it) with a quote I found from Lauren Klarfeld, and, boy, did that take me down another rabbit hole.  I never use a quote that I find online without checking out its author.  Lauren has a website called Last Words for the World.  She was writing a book of quotations she has collected from years on the road.  She asks people along the way what inspires them or what life wisdom they would like to share.  She collects those in their handwritten notes.  Many of those quotes are on her website.  I don’t know if Lauren published her book – her blog was last updated in 2021, and her Facebook page in 2022 (so now I am worrying about her).  I like that she is a living example of meeting people where they are. Literally walking the streets and collecting the thoughts of disparate others. 

From Lauren -

People are guests in our story, the same way we are guests in theirs … we all meet each other for a reason because every person is a personal lesson waiting to be told.