This is not my usual random post of nothingness, nor is it a “dancing in the rain” post. It’s about something that happened this week that truly stopped me in my tracks and made me think about myself in a way that I really haven’t before. So I guess it is a good thing I am going to write about, but also a strange thing.
Of course, it will take a story to get to my point. I could just get straight to the point, but the point wouldn’t make much sense without the story that leads up to the point. I will say before I get started though that this little situation was kind of turning point for me in a way. There have been way too many times in my life when someone has said something to me that was so cutting that I haven’t forgotten the harsh words. I am not going to list them all here, so don’t worry. But, at times in my life when things aren’t going so well and I’m feeling bad about myself, I sometimes conjur up those hurtful things as if they are proof that I am right for feeling bad about myself.
Now that I’ve probably totally lost you and/or thoroughly depressed you/and or made you think I need to seek therapy, I will tell my story.
A few days ago, I read something that a Facebook friend posted that made me cringe, and made me think so much of myself that I had to respond to her, even though she is not someone I normally interact with on FB. And as I was writing to her, something happened…it was a proverbial “light bulb” moment…as I was trying to boost her up, I thought to myself, “why the hell don’t I take my own advice that I am so freely doling out to someone else?”
So here’s what she wrote about. This gal is someone who while I don’t really know her well, I really admire her. She is very overweight, and she recently had some kind of gastric surgery, a sleeve, no idea what that is, but she has lost 60 pounds. She still has a long way to go, probably over 100 pounds still to lose, but she is doing a great job. She is working out, she posts pictures of herself periodically, and when I look at her photos, it is easy to see that she is so proud of how far she has come. It seems like she has a good support system of family and friends cheering her on.
Last Friday, she posted about how she and her family went out to eat, and some woman driving too fast in the parking lot nearly ran over her children. She shouted something to the woman, and of course, the woman yelled something nasty back. She called her a fat bitch.
A few days later, she posted an anti-bullying message that has been going around FB as her status. The first line of it was something like “the person you just called fat may have struggled to lose 30 pounds.” There was more, but the point of her post was how much that nasty woman in the parking lot calling her a fat bitch had affected her. She wrote:
I've felt fat ever since. I can't believe the effect it had on me, even though I know she was an ugly person on the inside. I feel like the almost 60 lbs I've lost are 60 lbs I've gained.
I don’t know this person well at all. But I wanted to cry for her when I read that. She has been doing so well, and is so inspiring to those who DO know her well, and to think that some random person who doesn’t even know her could make such a scathing remark that would now make her feel like she hasn’t accomplished anything at all…well, it pissed me off and made me feel the need to respond to her, even though I have never before responded to her on FB.
I wrote how I totally understood how she was feeling, that I am also a person who takes things people say to me way too much to heart. I wish that I didn’t, but I do, even when my brain is telling me that I shouldn’t. I have always wished I was the kind of person who could laugh, think to myself “bitch” and let nasty comments roll off my back, but I am not. I never will be, so I have just learned ways to live with that unwelcome and hated part of myself over the years. But, like I said in the beginning of this post, I struggle with it. It’s probably one of my greatest struggles. There are so many times I have been unable to get some nasty remark out of my head. And like I also said, they all come rushing in like a tidal wave and drown out anything good that I may feel about myself.
I didn’t tell her all of that, but I started telling her about something I have done for several years to help combat my self-hate feelings of insecurity.
Several years ago, someone from the Share boards wrote something to me that is one of those things that often creeps into my mind and threatens to destroy whatever tiny little bit of self esteem I do have. I’m not going to write it here, because it doesn’t matter what words she said. What matters is the feeling she evoked with her words. I did not know her in person. She knew absolutely nothing about me. Nothing. She knew nothing about the kind of person or friend or mom that I am. She knew nothing about how much of my heart and soul and tears I put into my job. She knew nothing about me at all. And while we had butted heads in the past, it didn’t affect me so profoundly until she made it personal and said some very hurtful things to me about the person she perceived me to be. And I am embarrassed to say that I let her hateful words affect me. I have no idea why.
I remember sitting in my boss’s office in tears (not an uncommon thing to happen by the way! LOL). That day, she told me that what I needed to do was start a “Warm Fuzzy” file…a file of emails, cards, notes, anything else I received thanking me or praising me for what I had done, or just anything that made me feel good and loved and cared about. She said that whenever someone said something to me that was hurtful or unkind or ungrateful, I needed to get that file out and read everything that was in it so that I could put the focus back where it should be…on all of the people who appreciate me and love me rather than on the folks who are Negative Nellies who probably wouldn’t be pleased by anything.
Why is it that so many of us women only focus on the people who cut us down rather than those who lift us up? I wish I had the answer to that.
Anyway…as I was writing to her about the Warm Fuzzy file I keep, and how it really does help me on bad days, and how she is doing an amazing job at getting herself healthy and she needs to focus on that instead of some random bitchy woman, that was when I had my light bulb moment and wondered why I could so easily tell someone else to not let a nasty comment affect her when I can’t do that myself? I started feeling so fortunate that I have had way more positive, supportive uplifting people in my life than negative bitchy people. And if you are reading this, you are one of the good ones!
And THEN…a funny thing happened. The person who said the nasty thing that ended with me in tears in my boss’s office replied. I didn’t even know she was FB friends with the person I was responding to. And she wrote that my Warm Fuzzy file was a great idea, that she needed to try it. And I had to restrain myself from writing back something to the effect of “you are the bitch that said something nasty that sent me to my boss’s office in tears and made me start my Warm Fuzzy file!”
And then I had another revelation. For several years, I have let this person’s nasty comment hang over me, affect me, and she had no clue. She obviously had forgotten it when I hadn’t. And I thought to myself/berated myself…how can I have let this one person have such power and control over me and how I feel about myself? And that led me to thinking about the other things said to me that have had a similar effect, some of them dating back to when I was a kid. I thought about how the person who said whatever it was has long forgotten it…how it has NO effect on their life whatsoever, so why should I let it have an effect on MINE? I shouldn’t!!
Why can’t my aging memory that makes me forget why I walked upstairs make me forget mean things that were said to me years ago?
Anyway, I felt ridiculous and embarrassed for myself. And I made a pact with myself. The next time I start focusing on some nasty off hand comment that someone made to me years or weeks ago, I’m going to mentally think of my Warm Fuzzy file if I can’t physically look through it. I copied and pasted what I posted to my FB friend into a word document and printed it off. I think I will put a copy of it in my wallet so that when I start letting negative people get me down, I can read what I wrote to her. And hopefully, it will inspire/encourage me to take my own advice.
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