Brené Brown comes to mind often these days. Namely, her bit about how to react when another's actions offend.
She says, ask yourself: "What if you knew they were doing the very best they could at that moment?"
"Well they should do better!"
But no: imagine they *can't*.
Does this change what we do to protect ourselves from them? No.
But it frees us up from anger.
If *this* is the best they can do? Wow. How small a life they're stuck within.
And how free *we* are, to be able to do better. 🫂
Absolutely true - and at that point, we also have to forgive ourselves for doing the best we could in the moment, and for needing later processing-time to view the situation any differently.
These days especially, we're all a bunch of tightly wound critters - many for very, very good reasons - and it's not a good time to trust that any of our actions are "perfectly rational" (if such a thing can ever be said to exist). Our wounds matter, too.
Thanks for this added wisdom, CLM! 🫂