Standard Respect

I offer it, so I require it

I feel confident asking that others manage their experience of me because I hold myself to a high standard.

I hold myself to a standard of treating others with respect. I hold myself to a standard of honoring the connection and honoring what happens in the moment. I hold myself to a standard of curating my projection of the other person so that when I relate to them, I am relating from a place where I love them, I recognize their love, and I understand their humanity.

I do not simply say "others are responsible for their own experience," I make space to ask about their experience, and invite their advocacy about their experience. Their experience is not merely important to me, I solicit information about it.

It's for them to MANAGE but I value it, I care about it, I'm curious about it, and because of that it's one of the most important factors I consider as I act and relate. That is what it means to have a standard.

I am a loving person. I want others to have a good experience of me, and I feel confident I'm doing what I can to make that happen. When that doesn't happen, I know that I'm available to hear about it, and I know I get to have boundaries about how that happens.

I know that people who are interested in loving me also care about my experience, even my experience of them sharing their hurt with me, even if they believe that hurt has come at my hands.

The people who love me approach me with this information along with curiosity about where the misunderstanding happened, what my experience was, where my intentions were. We both want to get to the bottom of it, and love flows THROUGHOUT that conversation. Respect is present in every moment of that conversation. Curiosity and reverence abound.

This is the system of responsibility in which I operate, and it is incompatible with systems of blame.

Because I serve this system of responsibility, my clients also embody this personal responsibility, and they come to me to hone that craft, to feel clearer and more confident that they are upholding their own standards within their relationships. They are asking "what can I do?" in every situation.

I need to say this because ALL of my coaching calls lately have been about this—if you are a person who is willing to take responsibility, you will take beating after beating from people who want to blame you, and you are the only one who can stop it. You can only stop it by walking away and knowing the truth of your love, your standards, and your accountability.

Your boundaries matter.
Your experience matters.
Your standards for how you treat others are YOUR business, and you can trust yourself to be honest in your accounting.
Your repair conversations can feel loving.
You do not ever deserve punishment.
You cannot ever know what another person is thinking or feeling, especially if they mask their truth.
You are doing your best and you deserve to be treated like you are doing your best.