Finding Your 'Just Right' Circle

It showed up on a friend's social media a few days ago...

"You may be too much for some people."

Too much.   Interesting to contemplate.

Too much of what?

Too much personality?  Too much love?  Too much challenge to the status quo?  Too much quiet?  Too much in what way?

Isn't it odd that in social settings, we can simultaneously feel like we are too much and yet, not enough?

Not enough. 

Not enough of what?

Not enough beauty?  Not enough patience?  Not enough intelligence?   Not enough skills?  Not enough experience?   Not enough of what?

Why in the world do we make one another feel this way?

In my 'line of work' I have an opportunity to meet and socialize with large quantities of people.  People with very interesting stories.   People with deep wounds.  People with an incredible need for someone to listen.   

In most of those settings, I see people who feel they are too much for the 'normal, suburban way'?   In the very same human, I see a person who feels they are not enough for the norm.

And then, I see me.

In the very same moments, very same gatherings, even in the same minute I can feel like I am too much for some people and just not enough for others.

It feels so Goldilocks and the 3 Bearsish.   Too hot, too cold...

Do we ever just let one another be just right?

Or do we always have to make the slight comment that subtly rips another tear in the already-fragile heart of another?    Because slight comments and jabs hurt humans.    And when we are called to the carpet on our sarcasm or behind the back stab, we just say things like, 'can't you take a joke?'  'Gosh, you are just so sensitive.'

I have heard this about myself and I have said this to others.

I have hurt and been hurt.

And the best solution I have heard lately is 'Zero Negativity'.     The idea is part of the Relationships First and Safe Conversations approach by Harville Hendricks and Helen Hunt.   Creating zero negativity zones where relationships are free from words, tones and body language that can be taken as a 'put-down.' 

Where would we be as a society if we cradled our interactions in love and set the sarcastic slights aside?   Where would we be as churches, organizations, families?

Let's just be careful with one another.  Intentional about guarding our 'advice' and even the prideful feeling like we know better about something we truly know nothing about.  Careful.

One last thing. 

I will not give up on my circle.   The ones who love me when I'm too much, not enough and the just right days, too.    Life-giving people who teach me zero-negativity. 

And I commit to this Zero Negativity Challenge for my own interactions with others. 

Words of affirmation. 

Let the words of my mouth.

Think of what is pure, lovely, true.

Closer to you, Jesus.