My husband and I have a running joke that I went to all the dances as a teenager and he stayed far away from them. The truth is, I loved the dances but have never been much of a dancer. In college, I took a couple of dance classes for fun but still struggle with my awkwardness on the dance floor to this day.
Early in our marriage, Dave arranged for us to take some dance lessons. We both had two left feet. Still, I wanted to learn and improve. This past Christmas, he gave me a certificate for more dance lessons. We didn’t get around to using them until later that year when we celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary.
The first lesson was rather frustrating to me. My view was that he was sabotaging the experience by being awkward and sarcastic the whole time. I genuinely wanted to practice and improve, but it seemed he was there to be goofy.
The next lesson I asked him to leave the sarcasm at home and give his best effort. After all, he is completely capable, I thought. He’s one of the smartest people I know. Surely, he can do the two-step, anyone can. Is it really that hard?
He did respectfully leave his cynicism at home and gave his best effort. I could see that he was really trying. Yet, we were still stumbling over each other and nothing flowed. I was having a hard time following because he wasn’t leading! Or so I thought.
Then, at the end of the lesson, I looked up at his face. It was red and pouring beads of sweat. His eyes were bloodshot. He looked exhausted. It had been a long day, and a long week of work for him.
Then it hit me. I had the epiphany. This wasn’t something that he enjoyed or even something that came naturally for him. He really wasgiving his best effort. He was doing this for me. This was working a part of his brain he doesn’t normally access in this way.
I felt sorry that I had been snippy with him and jumped to conclusions. I had all these judgments in my head that weren’t exactly accurate. I could see the effort he was making to do his best. He was coming from a good place.
How did I get so off in my frustrations? I had wanted it to be a smooth-sailing experience for both of us, romantically floating across the dance floor with ease. Why did I think it would come without time and practice?
How often do we have this experience with family members? How often do we have expectations of our spouse or our kids to be a certain way, only to wake-up and realize they are really doing their best under the circumstances? Do we jump to conclusions easily? Are we quick to stereotype and classify behavior when we don’t have all the facts? Even if we do have the facts, does it serve us to do all of these things?
What if we thought, “he’s doing the best he can” or “he’s figuring this out” or “I can help him” and then decided to feel compassion and give support instead of judgment?
These options are always available to us. We can think and feel anything we want. If I had practiced more awareness in the moment, I would’ve been able to have these compassionate thoughts and feelings earlier.
Life is short, time passes quickly, and we are only here together for a limited time. Make each moment count for good.
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