I remember a long time ago, I wrote an article called It Takes Courage To Be Yourself. For some reason, I really felt called to entitle this blog the same thing. Maybe it's because my thoughts are surrounding the same topic - I don't know. Sometimes, I'll get blog ideas and I'll let the thoughts circulate in my head for a few weeks. I'll sit on them, and think about how I want to express myself.
This particular blog stems from a recent experience I went through. It partly involves worrying about what people think about us, and also how we allow others to affect our mood and overall being.
We can all agree that we've had one or more experiences where we have let other people control our moods. When we're young, we don't have control over our emotions, and this isn't something we even consider. We usually just react. When we become adults, it's easy to say that we're more in control, but are we? How and why then, do our moods still change when other people hurt our feelings?
I'd say it's all in our reaction but that's still not true. We tend to hide our true feelings, especially when we think other people are watching us and judging us. So for example, I could say something really hurtful to someone and they might not react. But then, they might go home and cry in private. Or, maybe they repress the emotion and it shows up in some other way. This happens a lot in childhood when kids repress emotions and they show up later on in adulthood as a completely different emotion or habit.
As I've written before, I think we do a lot of growing in our twenties and thirties, so by the time we are in our forties, we understand that when people are coming at us with aggression, ill intent or dislike, it's not necessarily something that we did. A lot of negativity comes from the person who is judging you for the same action. For example, if someone is calling you names or making fun of you for some reason, they may have that same insecurity and they just don't know how to express it. So they take it out on someone else, without fully understanding that it is they themselves who are suffering.
In situations like this, it obviously doesn't help the situation at all to point that out. But as someone in my forties, I'm more apt to understand where they're coming from, rather than thinking that's it's a personal attack against me.
Also, I would hope that by the time we're in our forties, we have forgiven a lot of the insecurities we hold about ourselves. I for one have come to the realization that in the end, we all get old and it doesn't matter what we look like. I think it's more important what our bodies can do for us, and what we create with our minds, rather than any physical property of our actual person.
So in this case, when someone attacks us for the way we look, or for something we say, if we have a positive body image, or we're strong in the knowledge that we all hold power and our thoughts are powerful and important, we know that whatever they said couldn't possibly be about us. Hence, if it's not about us, then it must be something about what they have internalized - that they're hurting inside for some reason or another.
For this reason, I think it's so important that we just be ourselves. Who cares what someone else thinks? I use to worry about that so much when I was younger and now I realize it doesn't even matter. The greatest thing we could do for ourselves is give each other freedom and the space of being our own individuals. That's what makes life fun - how privileged are we to do life with everyone that's here? We'll see a few future generations, but that's it. - we're stuck with each other.
So if someone is being a terrible person and still treating you bad, remember it may or may not be on purpose, but you are much greater than that. We're more valuable than someone else's opinion about us. Don't let them take away your ray of sunshine, especially if something you're doing makes you happy. Keep on doing it and ignore the haters. Remember that it's not your business what someone else thinks about you. Let them hold on to that negativity and keep moving forward with your goals and your own happiness. In the end, you are the only one holding yourself back. So keep on shining!!!
Sandra
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