I came across this quote by the British novelist A.S.Byatt recently. It is so honest and true, and it says what is so often unspoken. I haven't read anything by Byatt, but this quote makes me feel like I want to know her better:
"I think of writing simply in terms of pleasure. It's the most important thing in my life, making things. Much as I love my husband and my children, I can love them only because I am the person who makes these things. I, who I am, is the person who has the project of making a thing. And because that person does that, all the time, that person is able to love all these people."
For me, this quote gets to the heart of things, the heart of all conversations about the conflict women feel when they spend time nurturing their creativity when they are also wives and mothers. I am a wife, and I am not a mother, and I feel that this is the truth.
Who is the person doing the loving if they are not also nurturing and affirming their own being?
Today, I read something on Jeff Goins' lovely blog that stood out for me. In his post, he talks about how after the release of his new book, The Art of Work, he has spent a lot of time and attention replying to the negative comments, engaging with people who "want to argue, fight, or call me names" and not enough time replying to those who have positively reviewed his book.
We all can relate to this on some level. We all pay attention to the naysayer or a single negative remark instead of focusing on the positive. That's part of human nature.
Goins talks about how this process has been for him and how he is shifting his attention away from detractors. He mentions one interaction in particular that gave him some insight into why people criticize so harshly. He says: "Not too long ago, I replied to a one-star review of my book and offered a refund to that person (as is my practice), and he sent me an email saying something that surprised me."
He said: "I had no idea authors read their reviews...If I knew you were listening, I would have been nicer."
Goins continues: "Wow. I appreciate the honesty, but isn't that indictment of society today? I would have been nicer to you, if I knew you'd hear what I was saying. This is not the kind of world that I want to be a part of." So, what is the solution? "Reward the givers, ignore the haters. Don't feed the trolls. You've heard this stuff before. So have I. So why do we ignore it? Because it's easier to argue than it is to appreciate."
It's easier to argue than it is to appreciate.
Goins continues: "Give your best stuff, including your attention, to the people who appreciate it." This does not mean that you are not open to constructive feedback. It does mean that you are not trying to convince everyone of the validity of your opinions. You are not trying to win everyone over.
There are people who simply don't connect with what we are doing. There are those that are actively discounting our work or our intentions. There are also those who, like Goins' detractor, might be expressing a casual, not-very-considered opinion. When we focus on these people, we magnify their effects on our lives.
Shifting our attention away is something we all need to learn. If you are a sensitive person, the criticism will, of course, sting for you. It might leave you reeling for some time. You might also feel like you have made a mistake and your conscientiousness can work against you in this case. You want to do things correctly, and someone is now effectively saying that you haven't.
Goins' experience also made me think of something else, how we often pay attention to the people who scream the loudest, overlooking people who don't shout out for attention. Again, we are directing our attention by default. Just like we get hooked by criticism, we get hooked by the loudest voice. In both cases, we need to become more discerning.
Who is it that we are spending our energy on? Who are we engaging with? Who are we rewarding?
Are we maybe reinforcing behaviors that we shouldn't support? If we discount the givers, the people who give to us, what are we saying to them? What are we saying to ourselves? Are we saying that the giving behavior does not deserve acknowledgement? Are we, in effect, taking the givers for granted because we have some unexamined beliefs about our own giving? Do we give without discernment, without seeing the cost involved? Do we give to the detriment of our own self?
These are all questions we need to ask. I don't think it works, giving indiscriminately. Everyone does not have the same intentions or will honor your boundaries. I don't think it works, to focus so much attention on people who are not getting what you are trying to do. We need to focus our attention on achieving a balance between giving and receiving, and pulling in the gifts of giving that are being offered to us, instead of getting hooked into negativity.
What's one challenge you face when interacting with people? Sometimes, the biggest dissonance for me is when I can see what is motivating the other person, but they themselves can't see it. It seems like they are not even aware of what's driving them. Sometimes though, I felt doubtful about my own perceptions because I had the belief that everybody is equally aware of what is happening inside them.
They aren't. The blank space we can feel as sensitive people is because we are much more in touch with the unconscious aspects of our own selves, and as a result, of other people's selves. We know emotions in the most nuanced way. The downside of that is that we can get overwhelmed by this knowing, by wanting to process things deeply. But the upside is that we can take the emotional temperature of a room without even thinking about it.
Because it comes naturally to us, we sometimes feel at a loss when it doesn't come naturally to other people. That's why we can be left feeling that we looked after someone else's needs, but very few people look after our own. This is why we can start getting resentful.
We need people who can see the world like us. We need kindred spirits, people who truly get us. On one hand, interacting with people who are different from you can stretch your horizons, expose you to new ways of being. But deep friendships are built on commonalities, on a similar world-view.
If we have to convince others that the world we see is as real and they can't see it, our needs to be heard and understood go unmet. Our need to connect in a real, authentic way go unmet. We might be continuing with looking for meaning in such connections, connections where we can't seem to only barely touch the being of the other person, because we might have a belief that truly loving people accept everyone into their lives.
But maybe part of loving is about realizing that people find their own people, and everyone has different needs. Maybe part of our love can be directed toward nourishing our own selves as well. Maybe when we accept that not everyone is a good fit for us, we can let go of the need to force things where they are not working.
Maybe we can also examine other beliefs about friendship. Maybe a friend is not just someone who matches us in outer specifics, like age, life stage, or gender, but can be anybody whose heart resonates to the same things ours does. As Anne Shirley, the heroine of one of my favorite children's book series did, maybe we also need to be on the look out for our kindred spirits and when we find them, to realize that they are indeed precious, that they are they ones who feel right, who seem to understand who we are.
