What's Your Liability?

I spent last weekend at my second of three yoga immersions.  In addition to diving deeper into our physical practice, we began to study and talk more about yoga philosophy.  This is something I know very little about, but am very interested in gaining greater knowledge.  We learned about the seven chakras (pronounced with a hard "ch" sound, not a "sh" sound) and had a lesson about one of the most famous yogic texts called the Bhagavad Gita.

In the midst of our lessons, my amazingly wonderful and wise teacher said this:

"Our greatest asset is also our greatest liability."

Wait, WHAT?!?!?  Pull the emergency break because I need to stop for a second! WOW! That statement completely blew me away.  What an incredibly insightful and profound sentence that is.  We got to thinking and discussing what that sentence meant to each one of us.

So I thought I'd take a few minutes to tell you what I think the greatest asset/liability is in my life.

I'm a giver, a doer, a pleaser.  I am the friend that you want to have because I will always be there for you.  I will stick up for you and defend you no matter what.  I'll also help you if you are in need and go out of my way to make sure that you are OK.  Sounds great, right?  Who wouldn't want to be my friend?  Here's the thing though, because I'm that way, I kind of expect my friends to be that way too.  Which is a lot to expect of people.  And most of the time I'm let down.  Now that's not to say that I don't have friends who I feel like I can trust and know would have my back if I needed.  I do.  I really do.  But there are also people that have been a bit of a let down.

So in my journey to be a good friend (not that it's an effort, I'm just that way), I've begun to realize that just because I am a pleaser, doesn't mean that everyone else is.  And that's on me.  I can't control how other people treat me and I can't expect everyone to like me.  And that's OK.

But when I come back to the statement, "our greatest asset is our greatest liability," I get it.  It's pretty eye-opening and has made me reflect on myself and who I consider my friends, really truly my friends.

Take a moment.  Ask yourself that question.  Really think about it.  You may surprise yourself with your answer. It may shed a little light into your heart.  And open your eyes just a little wider.

Peace and love.