One of the most important lessons I think I am learning is this:
Not everyone is safe to share your tender places with.
Recently, a friend and I sat together over a cup of tea.
I had been feeling tired, depleted, empty and sad after a very stressful few months.
I’d just finished a huge series of big demanding events; getting married, holding trainings, hosting retreats, 2 overseas trips, multiple workshops, all while parenting.
My dear friend had died just five weeks earlier, and I was struggling with a big disconnect in another friendship.
I wasn’t looking for answers.
I wasn’t looking for advice.
I wasn’t asking to be fixed.
I was simply looking for a little compassion, a safe space to express and share my current state of mind.
Instead, what followed was a long, scathing list of all the places where I apparently have “work to do.”
My lifestyle was criticised.
I was given a multitude of all the things I hadn’t done.
All the places I hadn’t shown up.
All the ways I hadn’t supported her.
I was told I was ungrateful.
That I felt sorry for myself.
That there was so much I needed to work on.
She said she couldn’t relate to anything I was upset about and started to compare my suffering to hers.
And the list just kept coming.
I sat there thinking- Wow, I suck.
And I felt terrible about myself.
Not because everything she said was necessarily untrue.
That’s the part that has taken me some time to understand.
There are definitely places where I have work to do.
There are relationships where I haven’t shown up as I could have.
There are always things I could do differently.
But timing matters.
Consent matters.
Compassion matters.
When someone says, “I’m depleted. I’m sad. I need a little compassion,” the invitation isn’t necessarily:
“Here’s everything I think is wrong with you.”
Sometimes the most healing response is simply:
“I’m here.”
“That sounds really hard.”
“You don’t have to hold this alone.”
And perhaps this is the lesson underneath the whole experience:
Vulnerability requires discernment.
Not everyone gets access to the tender places of you.
Not everyone knows how to hold what you bring.
And not everyone who loves you, cares about you, or has something truthful to say is necessarily the person you need beside you when you’re raw.
I’m learning that there is a profound difference between someone who can see your wounds and someone who knows how to sit beside you while they hurt.
There is a time for accountability.
A time for honest reflection.
A time for challenging conversations.
And there is a time when the most courageous thing you can do is say:
“Right now, I’m not looking for your opinion and I don’t need to be fixed.
I just need somewhere safe to land.”
Maybe the deepest work isn’t only learning what we need to change about ourselves.
Maybe it’s learning who is safe enough to witness us while we are becoming.
Be kind, you never know what people are carrying.
