Video Summary:

What are your standards of interaction? One of my standards of interaction is treating other people with respect. I've done a lot of work on myself to truly respect myself and other people. I have a standard that we respect each other in the interactions that I am in.

The second part of having a standard for your interactions is being willing to take action to preserve that standard. A standard is essentially establishing an agreement with yourself. You could say it’s an agreement or promise with your heart and spirit.

With regard to my standard of respect, it's saying I care enough about respect to promise myself to not be a part of disrespectful interactions. So when I encounter a disrespectful interaction, I'm willing to do something to preserve my standard of interaction.

When we have a standard of interaction but do not take action to uphold it, we become complicit in the violation of the standard. This creates conflict in that we have a standard of interaction such as my standard of respect, and yet we’re complicit in the disrespectful interaction.

So in a sense, we’re lowering our standards. And often that's what we're conditioned to do. Rather than creating tension or rocking the boat when we preserve our standards, it’s easier to just lower our standards. I think we've all done that. I know I have.

Have you ever been in a relationship where you lowered your vibration to preserve it? This may work for a while, but something inside of us dies. We're shrinking our vibration and consciousness that we've worked so hard to expand so it's not threatening to the people that we're interacting with.

When we lower our standards, we're not being true to ourselves. We're breaking the promise we made to ourselves. We’re letting ourselves down and creating conflict that's difficult to resolve.

We can do several things to preserve our standards of interaction. We can invite the people we’re interacting with to honor our standard of interaction. If they’re not willing to do that, we have choices. We can confront them or simply leave the interaction so we are no longer a part of it.

About 12 years ago, I ate lunch each workday with some other therapists and psychologists at Naval Hospital Camp Pendleton. When I sat down they were talking about one of our coworkers who was not there. Soon I realized it was mean-spirited. They were making fun of her and laughing.

My heart was wide open that day, and it felt terrible to me. And so I finally just said, “You know what guys, could we talk about something else? She's not here, and surely there are other things we can be talking about.” They did not stop. So I picked up my tray and left.

I said, “You know what, I'm going to head back to my office and do some notes. I'll catch up to you guys later.” I removed myself from the interaction without even addressing why I was leaving. I invited them to honor my standard of interaction, and when they did not, I simply chose to no longer be a part of it.

Perhaps I could have confronted them or intervened in a stronger way (and maybe today I would). But what matters most is that I was able to do something to honor my standard of interaction. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Doing something to honor yourself makes all the difference in the world.