I remember when I used to wear thick rimmed glasses. Something about the fact that they didn’t have separate nosepieces meant that they would sit really close to my face and they would get smudged by my eyebrows all the time.

I don’t remember who it was who would get so bent out of shape about that smudge. A friend? My Mom? No idea. I think it was a female. But I remember that there was something about that smudge that made her feel like she had to ask me to clean my glasses, a lot. Like every time she saw me.

Here’s the funny part. It didn’t bother me. I could see just fine.

So I’m not sure why this person wanted me to change something to make her feel better. Perhaps the smudge was distracting. Perhaps it was weird to look in my eyes and see this blob of eyebrow goop stuck to my lenses. Perhaps she thought that I was unaware of how much better I would see if only I cleaned it off, so she thought she was doing me a favor.

How many times do people expect us to change ourselves to make them feel more comfortable? How many times do people try to get us to make a change “for our own good”?

How many times do we try to do this to others?

I recently saw a child who had a habit of tapping his fingers a lot when he was bored or waiting. His Mom asked him to stop and she sounded very exasperated. It sounded like from her tone that she has tried to get him to stop this behavior many times before.

Was she trying to get him to stop so that she would feel better, or that he would? If that was his way of relieving nervous tension, then not only did she take the release away, she just caused more tension. Or was she embarrassed by his behavior, embarrassed that he was making noise in the library, or being distracting?

She could have used that experience as a chance to learn something. She could have noticed how she was feeling as an outside thing. She could have seen it as not-her, and studied it.

I’ve learned about this technique recently and it is very useful. See any emotion you have as something outside of yourself. It isn’t you. If it is a painful feeling, ask yourself why this event is making you feel this way. Dig down to the roots of it and try to remember who first made you feel this way when this event happened before.

All emotions and responses are taught to us. Sometimes (often) our teachers are mislead themselves. Often their teachers were badly taught as well.

Sometimes we are taught how to behave in one circumstance and we overgeneralize. We take it too far. And we end up creating walls and limits for ourselves that are unnecessary.

My goal is to see those invisible walls and walk through them.

See? The smudge doesn’t get in the way. It teaches.