It’s far too easy to get caught up in life’s dramas. Life in the form of friendships, work, and family dynamics.
Entering a new dynamic, it’s easy to be swept away by all of its novelties. Different person, new energy; the hidden traits of a new individual that you’ve not yet discovered. There may be a refractory period of overlooking certain faults that this new individual has. On the same side of the coin, new dynamics bring out qualities in your own personality that you might not have been aware of!
Qualities that perhaps you wouldn’t deem very noble under prolonged circumstances – but you’ve been blindsided. You are caught up in wanting to impress. This new individual may enjoy doing things that might be outside of your comfort zone. Your neurobiological programming has taken charge – your mirror neurons are lit up, you imitate and appease in order to solidify this new friendship.
Long term relationships might be even more damaging. You’ve been in these relationships for so long that every single action, reaction, habit, and behaviour shared among each other has become normalized. There is no new ground for you to step up on in order to view yourself from a different angle. Why would you? The relationship dynamics are comfortable!
Gaining perspective through experiential means is always a gift. Maintaining that perspective takes a lot of vigilance – and so having a baseline that you never cross is so important for protecting the authenticity of your being.
What Is A Baseline?
Morals and morality if you will allow me to reduce it down to this, is affected by specified conditions. Similarly, ethics can be subject to something called ethical dilemmas. In both cases, the quality of situation supersedes how your decision making process will be made.
Unlike your moral compass or personal ethics, your baseline is the bedrock that you’ve set for yourself based on a combination of morals, ethics, and life experiences taught and lived. There should be no room to bend the rule here. How far you will allow yourself to tolerate people stepping near or on your baseline is up to each individual, but it is something you absolutely cannot allow yourself or others to cross!
Your Baseline Is Something You Do Not Cross
I’m speaking about this in relation to social dynamics. In affect, utilizing this will help you navigate muddled territory when you’re pushed to your limits.
For many who are more empathetically inclined, it’s common to want to understand the other person’s perspective. In doing so, you can put yourself into territory where you allow too much of yourself to side with them. There is this inherent desire in many who will always look for the goodness in humanity. This feeds into your capacity for tolerance and you quickly forget about your needs for your own psycho-emotional health.
The question is, at what point does your empathetic nature become exhausted and you start to neglect your own values of self-compassion? When does your patience become masochistic? Where does your tolerance for certain behaviours break? These are the questions you need to ask in order to navigate a clearer picture of what your baseline is.
Not Everybody Will See Eye to Eye With You
“The strongest people aren’t the ones who are born strong. They’re the ones who know what it’s like to be weak, and have a reason to get stronger. The ones who’ve been hurt. Who’ve had things they love taken away from them. The ones with something to fight for.”
– Sam J. Miller
Understanding that everybody’s tolerance level differs gives you freedom from taking things personally when somebody becomes snappy with you.
Tolerance for life’s multitude of dramas requires perspective. Perspective is garnered through lived experience. Intellectual perspective is theoretical. Theory is ingrained in the brain.
The body does not know intellect, it only recognizes what we’ve lived through. We are more body than brain. Our body will react before our brain can recognize what is happening.
Perhaps what you would deem as okay behaviour might cross another’s baseline. They now see you as a red flag, so you get cut off.
On the flip side, maybe you have a very wide bubble of tolerance. It gives somebody permission to act out the darker sides of their humanity. These people are not intentionally trying to harm you. Perhaps they have their own set of personal traumas, or their lived experience has given them permission to act in ways that you know is not conducive to a harmonious relationship.
Walking The Line
You are compassionate and understanding, so you find reasons to side with the other party in this potentially toxic dynamic. Unlike the Stockholm Syndrome, you know these people are not intentionally trying to harm you, but it’s happening any way.
If you continue engaging in such a dynamic, a piece of you becomes cut too deep – it will take months, maybe even years to recover from this. But you’re compassionate and understanding! You experience cognitive dissonance. One of the worst mental states to be in.
You’ve now entered a territory of grey space, where everything is muddled and you cannot see clearly. This is where you look towards your baseline. It’s concrete. It’s your totem.
When To Act on Your Baseline
It’s very possible you may want to ruminate on the potential states of injustice you’ve experienced. Also in line with this thinking, you may find yourself wanting to claw out of your situation by means of reasoning.
Reason only works when it’s not clouded by emotions.
If you find yourself in a state of rumination, you might want to ask yourself:
- Does the other individual recognize that their behaviours leave you feeling uncomfortable?
- Has the collective experience from this dynamic been uplifting enough that you can continue to tolerate toxic behaviours?
- How many times has the individual come close to or has crossed your boundaries leaving you in a place of discomfort?
- How often have you found yourself needing to make an exception for this individual?
- Is there a common goal shared within this dynamic that requires more from you?
- How much more of yourself can you give before you break?
It might take you multiple dances with the devil until you come to recognize that certain patterns in your life experience just isn’t working for you. Each time, you will learn to ask yourself these questions earlier on. Catching yourself quicker, so that you don’t end up feeling drained before you start setting up your own boundaries so that your baseline is not crossed. Until then, keep pressing forward with positivity, because “this too shall pass.”
