"Every mass movement, every collective effort, is made up of relationships that exist between members of the larger group." (Brown, p. 276)
For the last few years I have been reflecting on how I treat myself and how that inherently has been affected by the ways others have treated me and how I treat others. Choosing to be kind is not a one way street, it doesn't begin or end with how you treat others but is an amalgamation of how you treat yourself and the people around you, as well as who you choose to keep around you.
"I can grant others the same autonomy I am learning to wield on my own behalf - how I spend my life is my decision, based on all kinds of data coming from my body. And I can grant others the same level of complexity and contradiction as I am learning to embody - we are all multitudes in process." (Brown, p. 277)
I have learned that most people are not on the same page, not on the same stage in life, in experience, and this affects our relationships with one another, and that is okay. The expectations we hold for others are often held up by the expectations we have for ourselves, and learning how to hold space for yourself to not be perfect, to be empathetic and caring for yourself, is extremely impactful on how you treat the people around you.
"I am a whole system; we are whole systems. We are not just our pains, not just our fears, and not just our thoughts. We are entire systems wired for pleasure, and we can learn how to say yes from the inside out." (Brown, p. 277)
With these realizations I have been making conscious decisions to hold empathy for everyone, including myself. This means also embracing my feelings as they come, and not holding judgement against myself for doing so. This has made me aware of not holding judgement towards others when they are sharing emotions with me, big or small. Recognizing how we all affect one another has helped me in shifting my perspective from seeing people as individuals and instead as part of a larger organism which is constantly learning and changing.