Welcome back, fam. How many of us have people in our lives we want the best for? Normally, I would say show of hands, but this is a blog so being that I can’t see you all, I’ll assume there’s a few of you. Now, how many of you have spent countless hours, days, weeks, maybe even years putting your effort into pushing these people into what you think is the right direction? How has it worked out for you?

That’s a genuine question because based on my own experiences, it ended up blowing up in my face. I’m not talking about my kids; that’s a completely different relationship where as their mother I need to show and teach them about life. I’m talking about family members, siblings, friends, mentees, the list goes on. As a human who is always striving to learn and grow, I find that I can’t help myself when it comes to the people in my life that I truly care about. I see a way that things could be done easier, or a toxic pattern that if broken would help and heal and I want to jump in with both feet and help whomever it is get to this other way of doing things. After one too many experiences of nudging and pushing someone in a direction they don’t want to go in, I started to look at myself. Why am I this way? Why can’t I leave it alone?

For those of you who don’t know what Human Design is, I invite you to look into it. It’s a beautiful description of who you are, how you are wired and guides you on what you are here to do. Through research and a few sessions with experts in the matter, I learned that I am a 6/2 Projector with Mental Authority. Now, I know this may sound like another language to you, because I know it did to me when I first started reading about it so let me put this in plain terms… Projectors are people who are able to see things that most can’t see. It’s literally my design to look at the way something is being done and show a different way to do it. Notice I’m not using the word “better” here. That’s because I feel like that indicates that my way is superior to another way, and I don’t subscribe to that. It’s different in that it may become easier or more efficient, or when it comes to healing, it may shed light on some toxic patterns that need to be examined and healed to break them and move differently. The 6/2 means I’m meant to be a hermit and spend time alone to look at things so that once I get my thoughts together, I can go out in the world and lead by example. Mental authority means that when I take everything in, while most people check in with their gut and their sacral space, I check in with logic. So now it makes sense to me on why I always want to go deep and help others – especially those I love most in my life. I can see things from such a different angle and give a totally different perspective. I’ve spent a lot of my life wondering why my suggestions or thoughts were not obvious to others and it turns out projectors only make up about 30% of the population so we’re not as common as some others.

Now back to a big lesson that I’ve learned in the last few years. You can’t force people to make changes. While you may want the best for them, if someone doesn’t want to change, they simply won’t. There have even been some people in my life that have said they want to make changes, asked for advice or perspective, but really just wanted a space to vent and complain. You can tell who these people are when you find yourself having the same conversations over and over again; they make it sound like they’re tired of the same old, but they take zero accountability for themselves or no action on changing behavior so things can be different. I found that when it came to the people I love most, I was naïve to this and I would make these excuses for them. “They don’t know any better” “It’s hard to make major changes” “They can’t help how they act because they’ve been through… insert reason here”

But that’s all a load of shit. I understand that we all have different traumas, grew up differently and have different advantages or disadvantages. However, if someone really wants different in their life, they will make the changes needed to see different results. I’m living breathing proof of that. If you’ve been following along for a while now, you know certain things about my past, how I grew up and challenges I have been through. I could have decided at any given point to give up, put my head in the sand and make a million excuses for myself. Instead, I’ve gone on a journey of self-discovery, accountability and faced quite a few of my fears head on. Was it easy? Hell no. Did I make mistakes along the way? You bet I did. I repeated some patterns two, three, four times before I looked at myself and determined I was the issue and needed to make some hard but necessary changes in my life. Still, I keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other. Last time I checked, this wasn’t a race, and I wasn’t being graded anyway.

So now, I conserve my energy when it comes to the chronic complainers and leave them to it. If they’re genuinely ready to see things from a different perspective, they’ll know where to find me. Besides, I don’t want to force anything on anyone. To be clear: I accept people for who they are – I just no longer entertain bullshit conversations. So, if you’re looking for space to complain about the same things over and over, my response has been: “If you’re looking for advice or a different perspective, I’m happy to help with this, otherwise, the time you’ve spent venting about this is now up. I can no longer listen to this particular subject anymore.” I found that because I won’t just be a sympathetic ear and listen to the nonsense, I don’t hear from some as often, if at all. Others have respected the boundary and we talk about other things and keep it moving. I will no longer waste my time, breath, or energy on anyone who won’t take personal accountability and who wants to complain to have something to talk about. It’s been much more peaceful on my side ever since. We can only make changes ourselves, guys. We can seek help and guidance from others, but it means nothing if we’re not going to do anything about it.

That goes for whatever side of this you find yourself on.

Always love,

T