Letting People Change Themselves

by WITHIN Cofounder Hannah Knapp

It’s amazing how strong our impulse is to fix other people. It’s so clear what your partner or your friend or your coworker needs to do, or how they need to change, especially when your life is deeply entwined with theirs!

Meditation is secretly a training ground for dealing with exactly those situations. Each time you sit still and observe your thoughts - or your emotions, or your body - you practice letting them be as they are.  You notice how they shift and change without your trying to tell them how to do it right.

Take that same idea, and apply it to your relationships, and you realize that what everyone close to you actually needs is not your amazing fixing superpowers, but your attention. When you focus on listening to what they’re saying, you give them the space they need to make change happen for themselves.

Of course, they probably won’t do it the way you think they should, or on the timeline you want them to - and that’s the challenge! Just like in meditation, you can’t will change to happen when you want it. You practice allowing it to happen when the timing is right.

Sit with us this week and practice making space for change, for yourself and the people you love. We’ll be right there with you!