Recently I found myself drawn into a conversation about a person whom at the time I detested. I joined right in with the other person and even (I am ashamed to say) made the following comment : " If she were on fire, I would not piss on her to put her out." What a horrible thing to say. When you take the fact that I am a volunteer fire fighter, its even worse.
I would like to say that I got caught up in the moment, that it was the other people in the conversation and their negativity that was drawing me to speak such venomous words, and although that might be only partly true, (the negativity at least) I was just being plain mean.
I believe in the law of attraction. I believe you draw to you what you put out to the universe. I believe that every person has a purpose and a reason for being.
Later while I was putting some jewelry together, ( I make things, my hands don't like to be still) I decided to listen to a book about the law of attraction. Sometimes you can find a good audio book on YouTube, and that day I decided to listen to The Power by Rhonda Byrne and she began to talk about how we should handle unpleasant people and relationships.
As she was talking about not judging others lest you draw that to yourself and sending people love and then letting go, a very uncomfortable thought began to form in my head.. I was a VERY judgmental person. I was putting some very bad mojo out there to the universe. This was not good. This was one of life's lemons. This would make some very bitter lemonade. This needed to be fixed ASAP.
This lead me to put some serious thought in how I spoke to others and thought about others. I do try to practice kindness every single day. But it dawned on me I only practiced it with people I loved, or strangers, How was I treating the people I didn't love? While I did not openly attack every single person whom I did not care for, I certainly gave out some bad energy to the universe about them. I am known to say "Be positive!" " Think happy thoughts, and you can turn anything around." But the truth was I was not always doing this myself.
This made me very unhappy. I sat down and had to really give it some deep thought. It occurred to me that although I believed I had good reason for feeling the way I did, maybe my reasons were not valid.
By putting out that negativity I was pulling the same negativity back to me. It might not be coming in the form of someone saying something mean about me, but it was there. And I had done it to myself.
We all have a person or people in our life, family or community that we wish we could just banish. There are a lot of reasons for this. Perhaps the person treated you badly, perhaps they broke your heart.
Sometimes, two people are just not compatible. Whatever the reason, we all have a person whom we think or speak or treat badly.
For me, I had witnessed this person hurt a good friend of mine. I forgot that every person has their own life and reasons for doing what they do. This person is not well liked in our community to begin with and instead of being neutral, I had jumped on the band wagon, armed with the "evidence" of what I had witnessed with my friend. So I climbed wayyyy up on my high horse and passed judgement. I forgot that this other person is none of my business.
I was ashamed of myself. No matter what she had done, no one deserved that kind of thought directed toward them. I sat down and really thought about why I did not like her. Had she hurt me directly?
No. Was I jealous of her? No. I had bought into other's perceptions of her. She does have some good qualities that I can admire. I decided to focus on that. Now when I see her, or hear someone mention her I focus on those qualities. I don't dwell on how I once felt. I began applying this technique to other's that I found unpleasant. If I cannot say something nice, I wont say anything. If drawn into a conversation about another that is unpleasant or mean, I ask why the other person feels that way. I no longer climb on the horse.
It wasn't easy. I had to work at it. Some days I still do. But then a strange thing happened. I began to feel better about me. I didn't even know I was feeling bad about myself until I no longer did. My days seemed brighter and I was able to forgive more easily. Forgiving is truly healing. Forgiving does not mean another's bad behavior was ok. It means you have moved on. It takes work but once you can find the good in everyone , You set your self free.
Now If someone has abused you then you might have more trouble. If a person has truly harmed you in some way. I don't mean just unkindness, I mean true harm , physical or mental harm, Then I advise completely walking away. That person no longer deserves to be in your life in any way. But then let it go. Forgive them and move on. If you need to see a professional to help you do this, then you should. But let it go. You are not saying it was ok. It certainly was not. But don't let it rule or change you. Do not let it poison the wonderful person you are.
When you learn to let go, truly let go , it opens a whole world before you, that you may not have even known was there. You will be truly free.
This post turned out to be much longer than I planned. I would like to hear how you deal with the unlovables in your life. Please leave me a comment or jot me an email. I would love to hear from you. until tomorrow...
This is so true
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