The Fourth Party: Love Thy Neighbor

I wrote this during the 2020 presidential run. The validity of its words still seems important and relevant today, 3 years later. Are politics and opposing sides really what they seem to be? I’m not so sure they are.

We do this thing in the counseling world where you try to get your client to reduce their statement to the meaning ONLY. It’s used a lot, but I can’t remember the name of it. It’s most common when someone is lashing out angrily or has a lot of emotion around a subject. A good portion of the time it also seems to be most useful when someone is having, what a third-party observer might deem, an “incongruent” reaction to the situation. For example, they are angry, screaming, crying, etc. about a subject you might not be able to logically tie that emotion to. Also, known as a “fit”. Also, seen in 3 year olds quite often.

The idea is that the emotional person makes a statement such as, “I can’t believe my mom won’t let me go to that party!” Or, “My boss is such a jerk. He never lets me do that task on my own.” The person cries to someone they trust and explains all the reasons he or she should get their way. They have all the best reasons, and after a while you come to see some truth to their statements, no matter how dramatic and loud they might be. The problem is, you happen to talk to the mom or the boss later, and they make a statement in complete opposition to what the friend told you previously, and you can see their point, too. So…who is “right?” Or, is that even the question at hand?

A few weekends ago, Brad and I were at a vendor market with Reclaimed. I saw a woman wearing a shirt that caught my eye. In big, bold, red letters it said, “LOVE PEOPLE”. I tend to like shirts like that, so I waited until she approached our booth to read the tiny print beneath those red letters. In small blue letters, the shirt continued to say, “More than you hate their politics.” It took me a moment to fish through all the emotions hitting me in the face as she walked away. Eventually, I settled on one thought that wouldn’t leave my head for the rest of the day…

“Yes. Because when exactly DID it become acceptable and even honorable to hate someone because they don’t agree with you?”

Please note…I’m not being self-righteous here, I was honestly asking myself what role I played in that shirt existing in the world. The fact that a shirt like that exists means that collectively, we have made a wrong turn somewhere along the way. And yes, I understand this is as much my fault, as it is my neighbors’.

My daughter came home from school the other day and was in tears- again. She’s not a fan of school, and that’s ok. Brad and I continue to encourage her and make sure she knows that she is loved, but we don’t try to change her environment for her. We understand that walking through all the emotions of middle school is a rite of passage everyone must make. The lessons we learn about who we are in those moments are not ones I would ever take away from her, or any of my children. However, as a concerned parent, I asked her what was wrong.

She launched into this hour-long diatribe about how school is all about politics and she can’t go anywhere in her town and feel like she is not being attacked for what she believes in. She’s 12, so you can insert whatever dramatics you feel might be necessary to paint the picture of how she told the story, and you’d probably be right. 😉

Nevertheless, she was hurt and sad, and I knew there was more to her story. Her words were critical of the boy involved in the experience, and she had plenty of things to say about him being wrong. She was angry at him and completely disgusted. This wasn’t the first time one of my children had complained about how their lives are so heavily drenched with political conversation, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. So, I knew that I had to figure out how to convey to them that they didn’t have to be so hurt, so alienated, or so angry about the fact that they don’t necessarily agree with others. It didn’t have to be such a big, darn deal.

I immediately thought of that shirt and that woman. I immediately felt the power of those words she wore across her chest. The conversation isn’t political, it isn’t even two-sided. The conversation we all really need to have is one of pure unification across all spectrums. That boy didn’t hate my daughter, and she doesn’t hate him. If they could say what they really meant to say, they would wholeheartedly agree with one another, because they are both human beings and every human being has the same basic desire:

We came here to be loved.

That’s it. That’s the reason we are here. Think about it…what do you do every day? You probably go to work, or have a job, or prepare for the future in some way, right? Even if you don’t have a profession, you have people around you that you want to be with. You make sure you have sustenance for them, you make life plans with them, and you have a goal to go about everyday trying to spend more time with the people you love. That’s what we do. We create love between people. Sometimes it doesn’t look like what you might consider to be the definition of “love”, but it’s love just the same. We look for areas to connect with others. When we tell stories, we do that with other people in mind. Either we want them to know how we feel, or we want them to smile, or we simply want to feel that twinge of connection. That’s love. That is what ALL of us are after.

When our kids, our friends, and our families make a statement politically or otherwise, they are trying to connect. They are trying to fit in a group, to be a part of something, to belong. That is connection and connection is love, and love is what everyone on the planet is after.

I wish I would have been there that day at school, because I would have loved to step in and make a real difference for my daughter and that poor kid she was angry at. I wish I could have encouraged her to forget the words that were coming out of his mouth, and understand that if she could reduce the words to JUST the emotion he was feeling, she could have found common ground.

She could have reached across the table, put her hand on his shoulder, and said, “It’s ok. I’m scared too.” Because that’s just it, isn’t it? He was scared, just like she was. He was worried that if he didn’t find a group to match his “viewpoint,” then he would be deemed an outsider. He would be without acceptance, without connection. He would be without love. And NO ONE wants that.

We can all, at least, agree on that.

-Callie Page

August 3, 2023

Relationships

This blog post was written a couple years ago, but I pull it back out because I think there is something incredibly important in the paragraphs below. Sometimes I go back and read it over and over again to remind myself of how I WANT to live. I’m not perfect, never will be, but trying to be better for my life and my experience seems to be worth the effort. It has produced some pretty worthwhile results.

12 years ago, I received my Master’s of Science in Counseling Psychology. I had many poignant experiences within the counseling realm throughout the years, but none as grounding as the very first day of my master’s program. I can’t even remember who the professor was, but I remember, in detail, what she said.

Professor: Everyone get out their notebooks. We are going to do an exercise.

Me: (with eager anticipation, ready to crush this thing called counseling, excitedly and hurriedly grabbed my notebook, and awaited further instruction.)

Professor: Write down three of your greatest enemies. Three people that you really don’t like. They will come easily to you. Don’t think about it too hard. Just the first three people that come to mind.

Me: Nailed it! That was easy. What’s next?

Professor: Now write down exactly why you don’t like these people. Write down personal characteristics that drive you crazy. Write down a detailed description of what happened between you, if you need to, but mainly write down what it is about them that you just can’t stand to be around. Do your best, be thorough.

Me: This counseling thing couldn’t be going any better. I’m killing this assignment. This is so easy for me. I’m seriously a rockstar. Bring it on, counseling program. BRING. IT. ON.

Professor: Now tell me what it is about these three people that resemble you.

Me: (crickets)

Professor: Tell me, even if it seems like a stretch of the imagination, how these qualities can be found in you. Tell me an experience where you might have done the same things or emulated the same personality trait.

Me: Crap.

I decided at that moment that I liked counseling A LOT better when I could focus on the downfalls and issues of others much more than when I had to turn the proverbial eye on myself. I was not a fan of focusing on what I might be able to do better. Heck, I’m still not. Over the years, I’ve found myself going back to this moment that I experienced 12 years prior. Actually, I go back there a lot. Sometimes, several times a day. I especially go back to that time and that experience when I think about relationships in my life that are experiencing difficulty.

On my best days, when I am able to see through my angst and fear, I remind myself of my part in every relationship. It’s absolutely crazy when I am able to realize that my emotions and my “mood” directly affect those relationships close to me. Just the other day, I noticed a crappy feeling when interacting with my two older daughters. They are teenagers, and I just chalked it up to the fact that they are going through the growing up phase in which sass and attitude are just a part of the daily routine. Until I realized that I wasn’t feeling good in other areas of my day, either. Interestingly enough, my work was weighing on me, my house was a mess, and my 1-year-old wouldn’t stop whining.

When I finally took a second to realize that the sense of overwhelm and annoyance were coming from ALL prominent areas of my life, I almost laughed out loud. Here I am, again, as a 36-year-old with a Master’s in Counseling, who has dedicated the past 8 years of her life to reading, growing, and trying incessantly to create a more peaceful existence; trying to find the problem in things and people outside of myself. Why does this trip me up SO often? You’d think, by now, after all these years and all this training that it would be obvious. If I feel crappy, it’s because I FEEL crappy. It’s not because my daughters are teenagers, or my baby is one or my work is more difficult than it is on other days. I am experiencing a crappy existence because, I somehow, decided subconsciously to experience a crappy existence. Now I’m not suggesting here that I made things happen TO me, but I am suggesting, and even KNOWING, that I certainly created my experience of them.

It’s interesting to me that my inner war seemingly always brings out the worst in “others” around me. It’s almost like, when I’m at my saddest or my most pained, I can find every single human being feeling that same emotion at the same time. I guess that’s why they say, “misery loves company.” It’s in these moments that I find the most reason to feel sorry for myself, and once I’m feeling sorry for myself, it’s a steep climb up to the place I’d prefer to be. The worst part is, that in this moment, it is my human conditioning to automatically look around me to find the “other” to blame this feeling on. It’s so much easier for me to get through my terrible day when I place absolutely NO responsibility on myself. It’s better when I am wounded by someone else, until, it’s not.

And it’s at this point, I have to make a decision.

That day that I saw my teenage girls as instigators of my problem, instead of the reflection that they were, I had a moderately steep climb to get back to where I wanted to be. It’s only because I noticed this emotion early that I was able to bounce back quickly enough to write about it with clarity; and, this is what made me want to write about my personal steps that I take to get back to being myself.

This isn’t easy, and it certainly takes time and dedication, but it is a simple process. It’s not easy, but it’s simple. Please use this if you feel like you are at a point in your life where you are ready to take responsibility. If you are not there, yet, don’t worry. You don’t have to be. However, these steps below will ONLY work for those who are. I hope this helps you navigate the difficult “others” in your life:

Forgive yourself – The first and most important step is to forgive yourself. You are only human and this life is not meant to be easy. You have to navigate a world that is so foreign to you that you wake up KNOWING that you don’t know. There is no hard and fast rule book. There is no resource that tells you every answer to every question and has a checklist for living life the “right way.” There just isn’t. That’s not why we are here. If we had those answers, no one would ever make a single mistake, because everyone wants to be good and loved, and significant. It’s the most basic of human needs. So please forgive yourself for all of the things that you don’t know, and move on to the next step in which you HONOR yourself just for being brave enough to be here. (If you need resources to help you forgive yourself check out these books that I have used for exactly this same reason: Super Attractor by Gabrielle Bernstein, A Course in Miracles by Helen Schucman , For the Love of Money by Sam Polk, Choose You by Callie Page (this one is mine, and I wrote it to move past the forgiveness stage), Your Parenting Sucks: And Other Lies We Tell Ourselves by Callie Page (also mine…and it’s not what you think it is 🙂 ) How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, You are a Badass by Jen Sincero, Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, and many many more that I couldn’t possibly list on one blog post.
Honor Yourself – This one is tough, but the idea behind it is simple. If we want to be able to move past the hurt within us so that we see goodness in that place, instead, we must find the time and do the painstakingly difficult work of placing ourselves before the needs of others. Now, I know this sounds counterintuitive, but in order to show up in the world as the person that you want others to see, you must first make yourself your biggest priority. This means something totally different for parents and caretakers than it does for those who don’t hold that role. We have been conditioned to attend to our own needs, rather physical or mental or emotional after those people around us have been taken care of. This is backwards. It’s exactly the same premise of the oxygen mask on the plane. If you don’t put yours on first, you’ll be passed out and unable to help others put theirs on. It’s just that simple. If you don’t make yourself a priority in your life, you will die before you find what you are looking for. If you are looking to your significant other to make you feel like you want to feel, the contentment you seek will always elude you. This contentment is ONLY found within. I say this with complete transparency and love, there is NOTHING that can replace this step. We simply must do the work to take care of ourselves.
Carry a Picture – This idea comes from a counseling technique used in almost all therapy sessions around the globe. We look for things that we observe to validate the story within us. We all have a story about ourselves. It comes from as far back as we can remember. My story that I carry around in my head is sometimes indicative of a little sister who isn’t as intelligent, or capable, or useful as others in her family. She should look to others for the direction that she seeks because they know more about life than she does. She should be careful to not step outside of her ability because she will inevitably fail and be laughed at for her naivete. Her skill, human connection and the ability to understand others, is a lesser skill than that of others and doesn’t really have much of a use in this world. When I realize that I’m telling myself this story and acting it out in my life, I am able to change the story through steps one and two above, and ultimately step outside of my comfort zone. This may look like a different story in your life, but if you find yourself always trying to stay within your comfort zone, I would strongly implore you to find out what the words to your own story are. If you’re brave enough to look, you will find your way out. When I recognize my misstep and my old story coming up, I envision myself as a little girl. I see me, in the safe places of my childhood, with my blonde hair, my soft blue eyes, and my huge open heart looking to my adult self for some guidance and reassurance. When I can really see myself like this, I am able to grab that girl, hold on to her and tell her repeatedly that she is worth it, she is important, and she is capable of anything that comes her way. I’m able to tell her (and REALLY mean it) that she can do anything. The only person that will ever hold her back, is herself.

I have daughters, and every time I do this exercise in my head, I see a piece of them in me. This visual is one of the most powerful tools in my toolbox, because there is nothing on this earth that I want more than the happiness and contentment of my incredibly sweet children. It works. Trust me. Please, take a picture with you, wherever you go.

If we don’t recognize what we are bringing to the table, then we will never be able to have a relationship that will fulfill us, because we won’t have fulfilled ourselves in preparation to receive it. You are worth all the work that these steps above will require.

-Callie Page

July 25, 2023

THE LETTER

Sometimes it’s hard to be human. I mean seriously, we have all these plans. We have so many different ambitions, people, experiences, and stories persistently running around in our heads. Making sense of them doesn’t always seem to add up. Sometimes we feel as if we can’t do anything right, and other times we feel like we are living on top of the world.

Making sense of our relationships and wondering where we fit in is quite possibly one of the most painful, difficult stories we walk through. At least it is for me. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the best parent that I can be, or if I’m the most attentive, caring, and patient wife. I question my ability as a human in the MOST important parts of my life. When I start to question, and slide backwards into the worry wart mentality that keeps me up at night, I inevitably struggle with seeing the good that also exists in my life. When I stop seeing the good and stop counting all of the successes, no matter how small, things become overwhelming very, very quickly. I don’t like the person I become when I slide into this rut.

It’s easy to show up as my best self in all areas of my life when I’m fully aware of all the good I have to offer- past and present. But, when I can’t see it, I’m a disaster. It makes sense to think then, that staying out of that rut and out of those head spaces should be the goal at all times, right?

Or does it?

See, the thing is, when I’m good and I feel like a rockstar, I don’t search for, or contemplate, or try to figure out how to live better, more connected, more in sync with the world around me. I stop looking. I simply enjoy the high of being, and feeling, like I’ve done a good job.

On the flip side, when I don’t feel like I’m killin’ it in my life, I start to pray more, to search more, to reach for more, to meditate. Yes, I spend my time worrying and wallowing sometimes too, but for the most part, I’m trying to dig myself out. I’m trying to make myself feel better in some way.

It’s in these moments of digging through despair that I find the gold. These moments of being down and out hold the space for my perspective, heart, and conversations to change. It’s in those times that I write, I reach, and I yearn.

These moments are when I really live. It’s in these moments I really add value and can relate and empathize with others around me.

Sometimes I think these moments are the reason why I’m here. Sometimes, I think maybe the moments of “rockstar-ness” are only sprinkled amongst the messiness because if there were no euphoria to strive for, I would never know what was possible. The moments of “not enoughness” would drown me in such a way, I would be blind to hope as a life preserver.

I’m going to say that again because I think it makes more sense than anything else could:

The moments of “not enoughness” would drown me in such a way, I would be blind to HOPE as a life preserver.

And that’s it.

The Hope.

The hope to be out of those down, sad moments is where all our greatness is created. Without HOPE, I wouldn’t be able to

Write this
Be fully present and grateful in the simple and perfect moments such as being hunkered down on the couch during family time.
Commiserate and empathize with my best friend when she is hurting and sad.
Offer comfort or solace when someone I love dearly is scared of their next move.
Be who I am without those moments and muster the hope that is required to overcome them.

In one of my moments of difficulty and stress, I picked up a book from our used bookstore and coffeeshop. I honestly had no idea what the book was about and had never read the author before, but the title intrigued me. The book was called “I Am.” It was very helpful on my journey into the space of hope, but something completely out of the blue made my head and my heart do a 180 from the place of fear that I was currently in.

In the very last chapter of the book, after I had read the entirety of the manuscript, there was a handwritten note from someone I’ll never know, who must have picked up that same book 12 years earlier, maybe even for the same reasons I did. This stranger wrote what was on their heart in February of 2011. They wrote down something that gave THEM hope. They took the time to reach for more. They were trying to move into the space of hope. I may never know if what they wrote for themselves 12 years before was beneficial in their life, but I can tell you, it certainly surprised and delighted me. The words of a complete stranger, who was unaware of me as a future audience, created a sense of peace and hope that made me realize, I’m not alone. My fears, and worries don’t rest only on my shoulders. There are plenty of people reaching for hope, and on some lucky days, we find them.

I hope this letter touches your heart and causes you to reach for hope like it did for me. Humans are amazing, and the more we reach, the more we impact the world…whether we ever get to know it or not.

-Callie Page