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One of the big lessons Thailand is teaching me is how I cannot take things personally or get defensive when people decide they want to see me through the eyes of their culture, their personal history or even if they might just be having a bad day. I have no control over how other people view me. All I can do is yield to what is, accepting the present moment for what it brings.

I only have control over how I view myself and how I listen to hear the words of others and the message they are trying to communicate to me. Having meaningful conversations and connections with people has been a priority in my life. And here I am, again, faced with having to look at how I need to engage with people choosing to engage with me in a defensive manner and see me the way they want to here in Thailand.

There are so many markets here in Thailand. From the wonderful foods, to the locally produced items to the knock-offs made in Vietnam. Sometimes it’s hard to know what’s genuine and authentic because someone’s interest is to only make money and not be honest with you. I walk around these places with curiosity and look for things that are unique and out of place. I bought these Tibetan Bodhi Seed Mala from the states and was looking for the same here in Thailand. Not to be found really. I found a couple of them that are REALLY expensive ($200-600US) and got educated about hoe people sometimes grind down the seeds to make them small and it’s the small ones that get the high price.

In my search of new mala necklaces I stumbled across a store that had antique tribal necklaces from over 200 years ago. One of the problems is that the woman who owned the store was not a happy person and you could tell when you walked into the place. I proceeded to ask about the jewelry behind a locked display case and she could not tell me very much about them at all, other than they were 200 years old. It was a beautiful necklace of what looked like tiny old metal washers (maybe brass or bronze) except they were stringed with a piece of yarn and needed to be re-strung. And they had a price tags of $120-310US. After I said I wasn’t sure about buying them because I wanted a little more history, I proceeded to get scolded because of the mess that was made from taking the things out of the display case and that she wasn’t even making a sale. I left a little confused. Was it really my fault that this shop owner was upset? Of course, it wasn’t.

But what about other even more personal engagements?

Lately I have experienced some challenging conversations with people around me that I care very much about. It’s been challenging for me to get into these discussions and see them deteriorate when someone feels a need to get defensive with me or they see something I’m saying as critical of them. Especially with the people I love and care about. This has happened at the workplace, in my personal life and with the shop owner as I mention above.

Give up your position

It’s the person who has the most sanity at any given moment who needs to yield. All we have is to practice our own self-regulation, having compassion and extending kindness. To yield in any given situation when a discussion is going south. When someone is getting defensive and taking things personally the ability to get a point across is definitely diminished. I have learned the only choice someone has in these situations is to yield to wanting to feel seen or be heard and to be with the other person in their expression. It’s most challenging when emotions are high and time-outs aren’t seen as productive.

Perhaps someone was getting triggered by something I said that has little to do with me. Maybe old hurts were getting activated from a prior relationship or from a historical trauma. I cannot be so upset thinking someone is upset with me.

Backing off from blaming ourselves or others gives some space from a situation to get a bigger perspective. We listen openly and non-defensively without taking it so personally. We maintain our boundaries rather than immediately sink into feeling shameful or react in a defensive way. We practice hold our own feelings and someone else’s feelings with more spaciousness, while exploring together what just happened.

Regain Perspective

I’m reminded that by being triggered by a loved one or stranger, we may respond personally because we are human beings who thrive on kindness and compassion and can withdrawal when poked.

The good news is that traction can be regained by remembering to take the time to pause before responding and being more aware of ourselves when we react. We can be gentle to our tender spots and help make others aware of them.  And give some intentional space to the situation, so we are able to see things with understanding and non judgment and can try to look at the situation from a different perspective other than our own. We can learn and practice tapping into empathetic resources within ourselves and realize that not everything is about us. When we’ve made a mistake, we can acknowledge it, repair broken trust, and be more mindful moving forward.

Continually, we can live with more kindness and compassion for ourselves and others.

I needed to write to remind this to myself.

Didn’t your mother always tell you that life isn’t fair?

After a week of eating good food and exercising I expected that I would lose weight! WTF?

Have you ever gotten involved in a relationship to find out they didn’t live up to YOUR expectations?

As I make my way around Thailand I am learning the differences in how people offer hospitality to foreigners from all of the places I have visited so far.

I began my travels in India I was welcomed into home-stays and families with open arms. It was almost a little uncomfortable at times for me to receive all that love and attention to my comfort and well-being. A wonderful experience to have to settle myself into. To receive. To receive like that from strangers. Without the obligatory feelings of having to give something back. It was a pleasure for me to go shopping at the markets and be able to pay for the food that we were cooking and participate in that process.

When I was in Nepal, I was purchasing food and cooking at a home-stay and feeding people there. I was dealing with some internalized negative thoughts in me that thought I should be getting something back more than what I was getting. Was I giving with a closed fist? I felt I wasn’t getting the appreciation that I thought I should be getting. There was this hidden expectation inside and eating away at me. I wasn’t going to let those internalized thoughts in me keep me from offering what I could to the people around me. But, at times they kept creeping in.

There is something happening for me here in Thailand. After experiencing the ways I was welcomed into people’s homes at the home-stays I was staying at in India and Nepal I had this expectation that it would be like that in all my travels. Was I wrong.

There is this disdain towards white, middle aged, westerners that I am experiencing here in Thailand. They call them “Farang”. Here is a good explanation of what I am talking about here. I’m taking the next two paragraphs from this article because it fits the message of what I’m trying to say.

A farang is in the unique and often uncomfortable position of being judged according to three very different standards of conduct: that of Thais, that of Westerners, and that of farangs, and a certain amount of maneuvering if not outright deception will be required to satisfy all three. On the other hand, farang morality can be profoundly liberating — as, in some sense, it is no morality all, but instead boils down to whatever you can afford so long as it keeps you out of jail. (And what’s more, staying out of jail may boil down to what you can afford — in terms of bribes.)

Sadly, the fucked-upness of farangdom is not something to which the Thais are entirely immune, and indeed they sometimes display an uncanny ability to adopt or at least imitate the worst, because most conspicuous and alien aspects of Western behavior. But because the Thais are more grounded than their farang counterparts, whose ideas of what is right and wrong have been so assaulted by rapid social change that they are all but nonexistent, the reverse is more often than not the case, with farangs coming to embrace values in Thai society that they see dying in their own.

Whatever irritation or disappointment I may be experiencing is not a reflection of the Thai culture. It reflects some hidden expectation or issue inside of me that is keeping me from being open and loving to all around me. Why is it that I need for someone to be nice and welcome me here? They have been here all along and I am the one invading their space. I am creating this inner conflict inside of me all by myself.

So, I write. I write to get this stuff out. To allow whatever kind of time it will take for me to develop the skills I need to be at peace with what is, where ever I go during my travels (and even when I get home). I will not allow things hidden in the shadow of my life to get in the way of me offering the best I am to the people around me and to the world. Thank you for showing me where I need to grow!

Where are your hidden expectations lying that are keeping you from offering the best of yourself to your relationships and the world around you?

A deep appreciation to C3 and Sparkle Pants for the inspiration to do this writing today!