I received an email from my Da this morning. He has forwarded me a daily “blog” entry from one of his morning readings. It spoke of being offended and forgiveness. Two opposing forces that are deal breakers in their own right for a lot of people.
I can speak to soooooo many opportunities in my personal life and career where I have either been offended or could have chosen to be offended. I say this as I have worked along side Doctors for 20 years. I have had more disgusting comments, inuendos, blatant invitations, jokes, and even physics advancements thrown at me, I could probably write a book. I know Doctors that literally tried to make reps uncomfortable through offensive language and behaviors. They priced themselves on seeing a grown woman run out of the office with tears bc she was so offended. I have no doubt that anyone reading this is already offended just by processing this.
It stinks, it’s real, it’s everywhere. Let’s face it though. Hurt people, hurt people. There is far too much hurt in this world to think that in some way, the person we are interacting with has been hurt or wronged, and still carries the burdens of those wrongs. It is almost normal to hear people say hurtful things, because we carry those pains instead of releasing or blocking them the next time. WHY? Well personally, I think it all goes back to fear. Fear of rejection, fear of criticism, fear of retaliation, fear of persecution, fear of isolation, I could go on forever. FEAR IS A LIAR. We project situations in our heads and decide that is what will happen before they even do. We have allowed fear to consume us so much that we actually end up manifesting the fear into situations it has no business in to begin with.
This is a bit of a ridiculous example, but it has worked for me consistently and repeatedly. I don’t really get offended. I am crass, I am juvenile with what makes me laugh, I can throw down with the best of them, BUT there are a few words in the English language that just give me a physical reaction. The word “moist”. Some shudder after reading this and some think, mmmm, I love a moist piece of cake.OOOOOKKKKK. Enough with the moist. Why have I allowed such a simple word to physically impact my body when said or heard? That’s insanity! My two youngest munchkins love to torture me with this inside knowledge. They team up on me and will plant “moist” into random conversations just to try and make me squirm or react. After numerous attempts that became both annoying and well, annoying, I screamed out “force field”. They both laughed at me as if I could really have a force field, but I did. I pretended to draw an invisible line around my body as if it were my own force protection. I vowed that never again would they be able to get me to react on any level when moist was mentioned because I had instilled my own force field. To this day, they will try and throw me off with using moist repeatedly, but I have stood strong and never yielded. And then of course in my best Yoda impersonation I turn to them and say “The force is strong with this momma, your words no longer bother me”. They of course get embarrassed by my utterly cool impression of Yoda and walk away.
Obviously my story of “moist” is not comparable to the repeated and ridiculous offenses that the world dishes out on the reg. At the end of the day though, we all have the ability to create our own force field. It can start with moist, and move to bigger offensive things to be blocked. At the end of the day if we allow the world’s “offenses” to burden and even cripple us, it will continue. What we allow will continue. I have stopped allowing hurt people to hurt me. I recognize I have been a hurt person and will be again I’m sure. The difference now is that I can recognize my own hurt so I don’t hurt others.
“it all begins in your mind, what you give power to, has power over you, if you allow it”
So much love and respect.
Xo-e
The Underground Momma 