Tag Archives: bullying

Jul13

30 Days of “A Year of Living Your Yoga” — Day 12: Self Empathy, Bullying

Posted on July 13, 2014 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

Welcome to Day 12 of my blog series based on Judith Hansen-Lasater’s “A Year of Living Your Yoga.” While the book has 365 quotes, I picked only 30.

My goal is to stay close to 500 words excluding the quote.

Let’s go…

December 13 — Cultivating empathy for myself will change the world. Hold yourself gently today, offer yourself empathy and you will create a space inside for compassion to arise. When compassion arises, act from that space.

I didn’t want to talk about the bullying crap my son and then family endured this spring, but this quote lends itself to that situation (purely from my point of view by the way), plus I have a small update about it. The update is that the husbands met for coffee about a month after it all began and the aggressor’s intention was explained. That’s all well and good: you expressed your intention. That really doesn’t matter because what ended up happening was action, not intention and the whole thing blew up because of one reason or another (maybe it was supposed to) and you can’t un-ring a bell. My kids are pissed.

The meeting went fine, no “pistols at dawn” but I remain fixed in my opinion (as well as the opinion of countless other friends and family elders) that I must always put my kids first, be an example against oppression and harassment (no matter where it comes from) and stay the course, because no matter how you slice this watermelon, I was never heard.

I can do the math. Her subconscious (read: out of touch or denied) fears and motivations were more important than returning the respect I gave to her.

My wishes, for mutual respect between the kids on the bus, and parental oversight of any shenanigans, then after that went pear-shaped, for distance and for peace, were ignored. The other parent HAD to get after me, she couldn’t simply leave me alone for a month. She ignored me, and then, she offered a bullshit, back-handed apology that took a while to sink in (because I was conditioned as a child to take responsibility for shit that wasn’t mine), but which I realized I don’t have the energy to dance around her conditions of what is an isn’t acceptable behavior in a world where double-standards thrive. I’ve spent too much money on couch time to poop all over what I’ve learned just because one person can’t hold her verbal bladder.

Next.

What this situation has to do with the quote is quite simple for me: I chose to be gentle to myself and as such, I didn’t blow up in her face on the day she frantically confronted me for a talk and to offer her garbage apology. I walked, I was calm, I listened. I built empathy for myself even though there was NONE coming from the other person (as established by her inability to sit still and learn from all this for 30 consecutive days). And that empathy created compassion, just as Lasater suggests, and I was able to walk away with kindness and very little anger.

So in order for me to treat her with empathy, because I’ve been there: I’ve been the frantic, please-forgive-me-I-didn’t-mean-it-but-you’re-a-screw-up-too person on the other end begging for a remission of the pain, of the guilt and of the regret (because I couldn’t stand it, so the apology was more about me feeling better not the person I hurt), I had to remember what it felt like to be her and then cultivate empathy in myself which became compassion for her.

Here’s a clue: IT’S NOT EASY! It requires fathoms of self-awareness and I’m only 5′ 5″.

I had to say, “Maaaan, she’s totally effed-up inside with something that has nothing to do with me, so I need to let this go so I don’t say anything I regret…” and yet I did say something I sort of regret, but not regrettable: I said it was OK. Because it sort of was OK, but I didn’t mean that it was OK forever. I told her I loved her, which I did and still do. My version of love doesn’t look like how she’d likely prefer it: it’s not all warm and fuzzy. It’s tough love: I love her (me — empathy, friends!) enough to stay the hell away from her and let her sort out her own shit and not involve me in it because I promise you this: I will be a complete nightmare if we got involved again and she pulled crap like this again — which she will until she gets her control issues and self-relevance baggage straightened out.

Now, almost three months later, I can see that it was one of those situations where she was so desperate for my attention (I believe) or some form of resolution, no matter how premature, that she simply didn’t care about whether it jacked up everything. And it did.

(How’d we already get to 650 words?!)

So I’ll wrap it up with this: if you can’t hold yourself gently and offer yourself empathy: to understand or remember the feeling of shoes your person or the world is wearing, you’re not going to be in a place of kindness; you’re going to be reactive, and likely hostile, and the energy is going to be false and stagnant.

Only inertia exists in a vacuum; if you want to move forward, with anyone, you have to allow yourself to feel something close to what they’re feeling. Conversations can’t be all finger-pointing; there is no resolution. Ever.

Thank you.

Jun17

Regeneration, Anniversaries and Magnolias

Posted on June 17, 2014 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

Standard

I have been struggling to write of late.

It’s not that I don’t have things to say; I have plenty. It’s that some subjects are ones that I’d really like to kick to the curb (like the bullying thing we dealt with) and another subject is too overwhelming to share, so it’s been blocking me from saying anything at all.

It was shown to me this morning though, as I went out to visit my “little gem magnolia” tree that I bought for my husband for a wedding anniversary / father’s day gift a few years ago, that life is about tending to ourselves and loving as best we can and that its moments — the good and the bad — are evanescent.

We had the tree in the front (north) corner of our home. I love to garden, but I hate the technicalities of “needs full sun” or “partial shade.” I can’t be bothered with those details. So when I planted the tree a few years ago in that corner, beneath an eventual canopy of oaks, weeping willow and shade from houses, I sort of knew but denied that the tree was doomed.

I didn’t have the heart to plug it into our backyard, which I knew was shaded once the oak, birch, cherry and poplar leaves filled in.

So a couple years later, I moved it to a southern corner of our house which gets a fair amount of morning sun. It thrived there. The only problem was that it was just beneath an eave, so it was a matter of time: either the tree or the roof.

I loved that tree. My husband loves Magnolias. I knew that a Great Southern Magnolia tree on our property was out of the question as they are massive and well, dirty. But on the day we were wed, twenty years ago tomorrow, the magnolia blooms were abundant outside our little Georgetown church.

So I moved the tree again this spring. We took the slide off our playground set (why any of us buys swing sets is beyond me… the kids just want to be with the parents, our boys have outgrown it. Little kids who visit always end up migrating to the front of our house where the action is) so the tree is now taking up permanent residence in a nice spot which gets at least six hours of sun every day.

Here is a picture of how it’s dealing with its move:

I know it’s common for these guys to shed, but this is about 50% of its foliage.

I’ve been very concerned about it. So I’ve taken, in the last three weeks, to giving it one gallon of water every morning; “slow and steady wins the race” as they say and while I’ve been slightly frightened of the dropped leaves, I have been absolutely amazed by the ability of this tree to get its crap together and rally.

Socrates said it best:

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

It’s like us. If we concentrate on what needs to happen, if we stop thinking about what happened to us and remember our goal: thrive and grow and learn and bloom, then we will be ok too. I’ve been so distracted by the bully stuff and old patterns in my behavior that I’ve forgotten the point of all of it: to rally to learn and to stick to myself.

The action of “mewling and puking” as Mom used to say about our past troubles is what gives them life. If we just see them for what they are: feelings about an action, instead of the action or result, then we’re ok.

To wit, Eckhart Tolle:

“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but your thoughts about it.”

Every Single Person In Our Lives is a teacher.

I don’t care if it’s your spouse or your parent or your sibling or your best friend. Every single one of those people is here to teach you and to teach me — in fact maybe I’m supposed to learn something from you if you comment — how to live better. How to improve and to grow and to face fear and move on. Not shove crap deep away in some hole in our souls, to “man up” or crap like that, but to face it, own it, deal with it and learn — with great humility — from it.

In the case of the things that are bothering me, it’s not the results. It’s the feelings. The results are what needed to happen: self-advocacy, self-assurance, family solidarity, self growth. What the other people do with those situations I can’t be bothered with. It my attachment to an outcome or an expectation of an incident that gets me in trouble.

So back to the tree…

It’s doing better. You can see the new growth at the “12 o’clock” position at the top of the tree. New stuff is coming in! It’s so exciting!

And so, we don’t have to think that growth can take a long time. For humans, it can be instantaneous and just as promising as that tree above. The tree would definitely not do as well if it weren’t for my intervention. It would get along and grow, but it would take a while.

For humans, it’s the same: we need each other. Even in the shitty, hard experiences, we need each other — to learn. To learn how to be more patient, to learn how to SEE THE OTHER PERSON, to learn how to deal with our own mucky crap, to learn how to press on and chin up and as Scarlett O’Hara did at that party Melanie threw after she was caught kissing Ashley (“oh! Ashhhlaay!”) we can hold our heads up high because why?

Because we are still here. And we must learn to go on.

So of course because it’s a plant, plants (trees, whatever) grow mostly at the top. I wasn’t sure of how the magnolia was going to respond to all those dropped leaves. But I do now…

Check that out! New buds are coming in where the old buds fell off… and soon, this tree will be unstoppable.

I apologize for the out-of-focus nature of this picture. If you’re feeling nauseated, blame me. If you think you’ve had too much to drink this morning, blame the photo.

I’m so thrilled about this tree. I’ve made my husband come out at look at it at least once a week. He’s usually like this:

Oh cute >pat pat pat< honey, you’ve made a plant grow. >pat pat pat< I’m going to be over here doing something important.

Just kidding. He’s actually pretty into me.

But now these days, he’s totally excited because he knows how much this tree means to me that it means so much to him.

Look, our kids will be out of here in 20,000 years. We will be all alone. With the dogs. And the cats. But the tree will be here and we will have it to gaze upon while our kids are off being fantastic and ignoring us.

So remember what I said about tomorrow being our anniversary and that on the day we wed, the magnolia blossoms were abundant on the trees flanking our church?

HOLLLLLLA!!!!

Look who’s got some blossoms now y’all!

This tree has shown me: grow where you are planted. Grow any way you can. When you are planted in the best possible circumstances: light, sun, water and some dog poop to boot, you will do well. The dog poop, is not just a literal thing; it’s a metaphor as well: we only grow best when we see, accept and deal with the shit we are standing in.

Think of the shit you’ve had to stand in and deal with and muck through as your manure. Your manure to help turn you into the most amazing person. Because you are.

Thank you.

Jun2

Grief: Living. Wreaths. Painting with Mimi. Consequences.

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

Standard

Amid the cacophony of my first-world suburban existence: prop planes buzzing above, sirens on their way, lawn mowers manicuring, birds singing sweetly and my hot tub shocking, I lit a couple sticks of incense and decided to do something I’ve been putting off for months: refreshing the springtime egg wreath on our front door.

I bought it about six years ago from Red Envelope. I don’t think they sell it anymore. It spoke to me because its muted springtime tones of subtle rosy pinks, soft powder greens, robin’s egg blue and dusty tans were more reminiscent of actual spring and actual eggs than the hot pink, electric blue and royal purples we see in easter baskets.

The wreath had been hanging every year: from the first day of spring to the first day of fall, for six years. In the fall it is replaced by an autumnal wreath, covered with (I hope artificially) speckled feathers in tones of rust, espresso and black. On Hallowe’en, for one day, the previous speckled wreath is replaced by a black feather wreath which is summarily re-replaced by the previous one. After Thanksgiving, I replace that wreath with a Christmas-time wreath until after the Epiphany wherein I replace that wreath with a faux cranberry on grapevine wreath: very wintry.

When I got married, I had grapevine and faux lily, rose, peony and hydrangea wreaths hang from every other pew at the church and window at the reception.

The hanging or display of wreaths is an apparently ancient custom. My wiki search included citations of wreaths from ancient Greece for seasonal or mythological celebrations such as the end of a harvest, or a birth of a god, death. To me, they mean “welcome” and “we know what time of year it is.”

I guess I have a wreath “thing.” We didn’t hang wreaths when I was a kid. I guess that’s why I want them in my adulthood. My wreath “thing” reminds me of my band-aid “thing”: I have band-aids in the kitchen, every bathroom of the house, some in my purse, cars and linen closet. We didn’t have band-aids when I was a kid; for some reason my parents never bought them. We needed them, but in my mind, I project that to my father and mother that they were frivolous. Band-aids and juices, things to drink. My aunts had band-aids and lemonade. I felt safe when I had a cut or scrape at their homes; I knew I would be attended to.

I digress. I write in the moment; I try to make it make sense at the end.

I have been avoiding the work on the wreath because I wanted to restore the “glaze” effect of the eggs, but without the glaze look. For some reason, I was stymied. But today, I decided: it’s gorgeous outside, I have been yearning to do this and so screw it, let’s go.

The wreath looked like this when I first started:

this is really a picture of Thing 3’s solicitors deterrent sign, which just happened to include a fair amount of the wreath, which is quite faded. The sign has been very effective.

I decided to test my super-thin acrylic paint application on a test egg, one that had fallen off the wreath. The color was still too strong. I rubbed it off with my finger and thought, “better, but I’m not going to paint and rub-out each egg, plus, they’re only two eggs that have fallen off… so I’m definitely not going to either take them off and put them back on or … ” you don’t care what I was thinking. I don’t either.

Moving on…

So then I thinned the paint some more. Better, but still…

the first two pinked eggs. meh, directly above.

Then I took a broader brush, dipped it in the water and wet an egg that was still on the wreath…. “you’re taking a big chance here… if it drips, then that’ll affect the other egg…”

The fear in my head was really just … “STOP IT.” I said to myself. “Just do it. Screw it. It’s only paint and you can dilute it….”

I put my color brush in the thinned pink paint and dabbed it onto the wet / primed egg.

It washed. It was glorious.

I heard her, Mom…. from when I was wee and we were painting on watercolor paper, a huge treat for me:

“When you wet the paper first, like thiiiissss … ” she would take a broad brush and wet just the top of her sheet. I didn’t understand, there was no color… I was impatient, but I watched.

“And then you take a pinpoint of paint, juuuust like thiiiiissss… and you dab or stroke that colored brush tip onto the wet paper … it does …. THIS….” and the color bled onto the sheet of thick, dimpled parchment. I watched with wonder and squealed at her magic.

It was those unfiltered and infrequent moments with Mom, those now- deeply poignant moments, riddled with ephemera, when she showed me who she was: a magician, a painter and an artist, who cared deeply about her creations.

It was also in those moments, that I felt envious of her interest in that paper.

In that brush.

In that paint.

In that creation.

She was in her zone then.

There was no getting her back.

“My turn! My turn!” and I would try to do it the way she showed me. Soft and gentle strokes of just water onto my sheet.

I was a spectator. She let me in for a few moments, but they were fleeting.

“That’s too much!” she would blurt, unconscious of her tone, yet (to me) very concerned about wasting the paper, of making a mistake.

She wanted it to be really good as much as I wanted it to be really good. I wanted her to be pleased and proud of me. I chose red. She wanted me to choose burgundy, but I wanted the red. She wanted to show me how to paint a sunset. I just wanted red.

So we went on… I put my reddish pink tones on my paper and watched it bleed into the water.

The color stopped where the water did. I thought that was neato.

She showed me how to make a sun burn in all that red and periwinkle.

“Make a circle with your brush, big enough for a sun. Ok! Yeah, you can add some little streaks outward and then get another color, say orange or yellow… just a little… watch what it does…”

I did as she instructed. I dabbed into the burnt orange.

“Bittersweet. That’s my favorite color,” she would say.

I’m back.

So I heard her today, when I was washing each egg first and then gently dabbed my color onto its soft, slightly porous and smooth, mounded oval surface.

The color stopped where the wash stopped. Just like on the paper.

I just noticed that today is 9 months from when Mom died. “June the TWO!” she used to shout sometimes on June 2nd; I don’t know why. “October the ONE!” on … October 1st.

Eggs. Nine months. Pregnancy. Motherhood. Death. Wreaths.

more color, more life.

So then I got confident and was off to the races. I painted about ~~seven~~ ~~twelve~~ a dozen eggs that pinkish “bright magenta” tone. I wasn’t in love with it, but it was getting better, my technique was improving and the eggs were being restored. Mom would’ve been pretty psyched.

Green. I did the same with the “lime tree” green. Dilute it to smithereens and then wash and dab. Those came out a butter yellow hue, which was ideal.

I decided to leave the blue eggs as they were. Their colors didn’t fade too much because they likely didn’t have any red tones in them.

The door faces north to the brutal Virginia sun, or else that wreath would be an omelet by now.

Then I took a step back.

The pinks were too pink. The green was OK, closer to what I wanted. I wanted to tone down the pinks.

So I mixed green with pink. A preppy fantasy. Green and pink make grink. When I put grink on all the pink eggs, it toned them down.

I was pleased.

“Wash the color… wash the color. You can always make it stronger, but making things softer… that’s a challenge,” Mom would say.

Oh how right she was, about all of that — it applied to so much more than paints and colors. It’s always easier to strong something up, to push through, to bully or force your way out, through, around or under something… but to yield…

To yield… that’s something else entirely. To step back and yield and let things roll out and just … become … without influence!

How difficult that is! We have to influence. Sometimes we have no choice. We have to step in. Change the direction of things; redirect. Can’t sit with the waiting. Can’t sit with our pain. Can’t sit with our consequences.

Consequences. Thing 2 didn’t turn in a field trip permission form nor the funds to cover the trip. It was all due last week. He was even given an extension by one day. Still didn’t do it; didn’t remind me, didn’t ask me for the funds, didn’t do any of it.

This morning he called me in a lather… “Mom. I need the funds. I need the permission form. I need it all today.” I heard noises in the background, lots of kids, adults talking over them. I thought the trip was today.

“I’ll send an email authorizing your attendance for the trip…. I don’t know about the funds… how much?” I said.

“Just send the email. We can talk about the check when I get home. Thanks… Bye, Mom.”

>click.<

I sent the email. An hour later, the teacher replies: “The trip is Thursday but the funds were due last week. I gave him an extension… finance office needed the funds by Friday. I’m sorry.

He can attend class with Mr. Gitchygoomie. He will be staying behind at school… he can attend his specials and PE. … ”

It’s been a tough “academic” year for all of us. Mom died the day before school started fer cripessakes. Thing 2 has some fantastical notion of wait-and-see after weeks of do-nothing-and-fake-it.

Thing 2 is barely surviving middle school. Middle school is … ugh, hard enough on its own, but then that little asshole on the bus couldn’t help himself. I said “asshole.” I think by the time you’re 15, if you’re still picking on unrelated people who are smaller than you, you’re an asshole. You’ve set your course. Then the parents of the asshole coming after my kids…? Lots of head shaking going on over here.

I have determined that I’m going to stop thinking about that bullying problem. In fact, I’ve determined it lots of times. Then a thought or a memory or a juxtaposition or a freakin’ voice wafts over my backyard’s fenceline crux and I’m sucked back into that ridiculous evening and subsequent days of their utter desperation. I got sucked in back now because of T2’s having to sit with the consequences of his inaction (which is also an action, by the way) and his less-than-stellar middle school accomplishments. I get it: middle school stinks.

So yeah — nine months. It feels about right. The weather here is as it should be now. The sun is shining in a bright blue cloudless sky and a breeze is rustling the oak leaves above me and blowing my stray hairs into my face. It’s cooler than expected, here at almost 11 am and it’s 67˚ outside. I’ll take it. The wind in the leaves sound like “ssssssssssSSSSSSsssssssssSsssssssssssSSssssSSSSSSSsss” but not threatening, like how a snake would hiss. It reminds me of wind blowing high grasses or wheat stalks. Very peaceful.

Murphy is laying by my feet and Charlie just hopped across the yard to say hello to the doggie who lives directly behind us.

I miss the idea of Mom. I miss the projections I wished upon her more than the reality of our relationship. I find myself romanticizing at times how things were; I find myself doing what she did a lot of the time: lying to myself about how things really were. It’s hard to admit that your relationship with the Most Important Person in your life was rife with conflict, pain, fear, complexes and mistrust. I need to remember the reality though: that things were challenged and challengING because it’s where I get my strength now.

No one is perfect. I am not a perfect mother. I am reactive and abrupt and cold at times. I am also tender and compassionate. I am defiantly sober and consciously honest and a fierce advocate for my children and their rights — even against one another. That’s my legacy, or part of it.

The other part of my legacy, as Mom intoned, is in “making things softer.”

I may not be perfect, but I have band-aids, and I have wreaths. And lemonade. I have lemonade too.

The finished product:

browns, greens, butter yellows and softer pinks. good to go for another six years, i’d say.

Thank you.

May15

Cutting Off Is Never That Simple

Posted on May 15, 2014 by Grass Oil by Molly Field

Standard

I have never “enjoyed” the process of letting people go, of making the decision that cuts them out of my life.

It is incredibly hard. Depending on the depth of the relationship, it can be emotionally devastating. But so can staying with that energy, allowing it to cloud your judgement and color your thoughts.

I was once told that I seem to do it with such ease, that nary a thought occurs to me when I execute such a decision, that I seem cold, heartless and missing the bigger picture: that having sandpaper people in our lives can yield in us a softer and kinder person. That the parable of the pearl, created through agitation, can apply to us humans as well.

I get that. In fact, the phenomenon of a pearl’s creation is one of my most favorite analogies in dealing with life and its moments of intense difficulty.

I also think about bridges and how they snap under too much pressure; I think about how load-bearing walls are there for a reason; I think about how hurricanes and tornadoes and earthquakes and mudslides show us how when enough is enough, it’s often too much.

I have been a jerk to people and they’ve summarily cut me out. I get mad, defensive and feel like they’re insensitive to MY needs, that for some reason, I should be tolerated for epochs and should be able to just chip away at people because hey, “I’m flawed. Love me anyway, ok? Love me for me….”

Why? Why should people love me for me? Are they Jesus? Are they the Dalai Lama? Are they Mother Theresa? No. They are not limitless in their compassion (which means “to co-suffer,” by the way), and often it’s their compassion that needs to kick me to the curb. They need to get out of my way so that I can look at myself in all my idiocy, with all my raw data and no filter to see myself, as I can be: an asshole at times.

Enter nine years of therapy. Being raised by a brilliant, distant, narcissistic, elegant-on-the-outside, tortured-on-the-inside, terrified, caustic parent has prepared me for others like her all my life. I get it now: Mom prepared me all my life to be on the lookout for more people just like her.

Exploiting Kindness

Even Mom said to me when I simply couldn’t handle any further duplicity or hurt, “You have nooooooooooo problem just cutting people out of your life…. you just cut them off because you can’t handle what they show you about yourself… You’re not strong…. you’re weak….” and I used to believe that.

I used to think, “Holy shit. She’s right: I am unable to cope with this, I must be stronger and show myself that I can take it….After all, ‘what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,’ right?” which from my now very-cheap seats, that kind of self-talk sounds a lot like masochism, and self-abuse. It looks a lot like enabling too: if we keep letting it happen, if we keep exposing ourselves to the same people who hurt us or that make us uncomfortable, then we are tacitly endorsing it, we are allowing it. All of this, and many more forms I’ve likely not mentioned looks a lot like putting ourselves last.

When we take a stand, we hear the appeals and the apologies and the boo-hooing and before you know it, you’re shoving your intuition down the tubes and taking care of the offender, by putting them first. You’re suddenly responsible for their feelings. You’re suddenly telling them it’ll be ok and thrust into feeling bad for making them see the truth. (More below.) It’s verrrrrry sneeeeeeaky.

I’m not talking about the discomfort that arises when you do something uncool and someone calls you out on it. I’m talking about witnessing an uncool act and then saying nothing about it. The former is an opportunity for change; the latter is fertile soil for codependency and continued ugliness.

Over time, the bridge can only handle so much load. Over time, the walls cave in. Over time, the bough breaks and down will come baby, cradle and all.

If you’re like me: you were conditioned to doubt what you saw and what you felt and rationalize everything that hurt. You were conditioned to try harder, longer and put up with more, to essentially stand in the lightning storm under a tree, then the guts and the gumption to begin to decide to cut people out often comes at a price: we are bruised, we are broken, we have suffered and we have poured out our spleen on the table — only to have to defend it. It’s madness.

But we still try. We try to keep the broken wagon rolling because we have been conditioned to do ALL WE CAN to abate the pain of the offender. We don’t want the other to feel bad for our exposure of their treatment …

Then there’s the actual decision: incredible self-doubt to make the decision to sit up, to stand up, to leave, to walk and to not look back. NONE OF THIS IS EASY.

Then there’s the weight of the decision, the appeals and the blame and the “but you’re not perfect either and I love you anyway!” music from the person who can’t sit with your decision, who can’t sit with the hurt they’ve inflicted on you, who can’t look themselves in the mirror and dig deep inside themselves to shine a light and look at why they do what they do — and not just to you, but to lots of people. Why they stir pots, why they fight so much, why they pick and tear at people and their psychic fabrics. They have to keep flapping because that keeps the dust flying. If they were to stop flapping and let the dust settle, they’d see the wash of destruction and hurt they’ve inflicted on people.

Another point, and it’s very subtly played out: When person A starts out with an apology, but it morphs into “you’re no prize either, I’ve seen you do some crazy shit…” You, person B, have naively slipped into the defending-yourself-for-no-apparent-reason-when-this-was-supposed-to-be-an-apology-from-the-other-person zone. It’s a slick slope.

I don’t like this feeling when I cut people out: the supposition that I’m intolerant, that I’m hard, that I have no flexibility, that I’m the one who is unkind, that I don’t forgive and forget, that I’m super-sensitive and that I have no compassion.

But is that me? Am I projecting that opinion on to myself and placing it on society? When I’ve heard similar stories from other people about treatment they’ve endured up until a point or whilst in the midst of it, I’m certain I’ve said, “That sucks. You need to cut bait and leave…” So why should I, why should you, why should anyone stick around?

Is there some great grand lesson? Heck yes! The lesson is this: IF IT HURTS, STOP DOING IT OR IT WILL CONTINUE.

This is what we say in yoga, “Take the pose to your edge, no pain. If you feel pain, back off. You are not supposed to feel pain.”

I can’t believe for ONE second that we are put on this earth to suffer; that God or whatever you want to call it is so spiteful that we are supposed to ENDURE needless emotional pain, for that’s what lasts the most.

But I Love You Anyway…

Those people who try to pull this on you, say “I love you for you” and “You’re messed up just like I am…” are again placing their crap on you. It’s subtle and sneaky and I like to believe it’s even unconscious, but they are again saying, “Take me for how I am with all my shit [because I’m unlikely to change] because I take you with all your shit [which is equally screwed up; but even if it’s not*, my misery loves company and I can’t bear to be left alone with myself] and you and I will get along fine… [Just don’t remind me of what I do…]”

Don’t be fooled by it! They are trying to lump you in with their bad behavior; they are trying to point the finger at you; they are trying to play the upper hand, and BELIEVE ME: THEY ARE JUDGING YOU! Right there! They are judging you! It’s very very very subtle, but you’ve just been judged. They’re keeping score, they’ve been watching you screw up all along so that when the freaking hammer falls, they’ve got an ace to throw on the table. *if you’re drawing a line, if you’ve hit your limit, chances are you’re no longer as equally screwed up…

The last time I checked: if I didn’t give birth to you or marry you, I don’t have to take this. I can be nice, I can be civil, but there’s nothing else I need to give to you. Speaking of children, what are we modeling for them if we just keep taking it? To teach them resilience AND self-care, we must model strength in all its forms.

People who are close to self-actualized play fair and this recent bullying experience has shown me all I need to know: if an adult is an actual adult, and possibly your friend, s/he doesn’t go after your kid to attack or argue with. They go after you. They don’t rationalize what they’ve done as “crazy” and they don’t offer forced apologies to continue to rationalize their behavior.

Any adult who goes after a child is a predator, no matter how you slice it: they go after the weaker and the smaller and I simply don’t have time for that.

God gave me my mother for a reason and I’m so grateful now. Mom showed me that I had to put up with only one person like her, because she honed me to deal with life in a very clear cut way: I must stand up for myself because expecting someone else to is folly. Shrouding abuse as friendship / love / marriage is really insidious.

As Travolta said …

Cutting people out is never easy. There can be community repercussions, you might lose some sleep over the decision, you might want to run back hours or days later and say, “I didn’t mean it! I am sorry I cut you out after you abused me! You’re right! I should’ve been stronger! We all make mistakes!” (DON’T DO THAT.)

Sometimes, it’s the only way. You don’t have to take it. You can’t be a jerk about it, but you don’t have to take it. A clean cut, no matter how difficult and uncomfortable, will also, my friends create a pearl, or brighter yet: a diamond, and that sparkly, shiny thing is you.

Thank you.