Day 10 of 30 Day Challenges
The blog series in which I am completing my challenge from 30dayblogchallenge.com!
As well as a self-made challenge inspired by Abraham Hicks in which I self-soothe myself through negative emotion.
At the end of this 30 day journey I intend to be more fully on my life’s path, “all systems go.”
Hey now!
Progress at last! Thank God! And thank you to Matt from 30 Day Blog Challenge.
I am now officially connected to the challenge and can move forward with it. Woohoo!
Alright, back to business.
I am not sad about this past week’s hold-up with the technical difficulties. I love the momentum I have already built in my blog and my writing.
Sure, it’s been a bit of here and there and all over. Get used to it if you follow me. I mean it. I will do that a lot. A little bit of this and that and everything.
Yea, I may get focused on topics sometimes. And I want to write stories, too, some exclusive for the blog and others that may leapfrog into other mediums. I am excited for what is to come.
Wow, I feel like all my time spent waiting on the IT help has finally come to a calm repose. I almost don’t know what to do with myself. I feel giddy but have nothing in mind to speak about tonight! How unusual!
I am sure if I keep writing that something will occur to me.
Yes. Here it is.
What is it about some people that they believe they can manipulate you with guilt?
Yea, jumped right in, huh? Opened a can of worms for many of you I’m sure. Maybe all of you. We have likely all dealt with people like this in our lives. Maybe almost everyone in your life is like that. Maybe you or I are like that…
Well, I know I am conscious about not being that way. I may have fallen in line with that energy in my past, though I do not believe I did it a tremendous amount. It’s one of those monkey-see-monkey-do kind of things. But I didn’t like how it felt to be conniving in that way. Or conniving in any way for that matter.
I strive always to be honest, open and truthful and to get things accomplished through more cooperative, friendly means. Instead of making someone feel bad to get my way, I would rather ask nicely and inspire in them all the reasons they should help. Or else just do it myself!
But what is it with people who want to actively pull you down and beat you up with their words, then expect you to bend to their every whim?
I have known many, many people like this in my life. Far too many. I believed it was normal. Until I didn’t.
Someone amazing stepped into my life to prove this fact more blatantly than I could have imagined. She proved that people don’t have to act in this conniving, manipulative, guilt-tripping manner. This person is now my wife and greatest confidante and friend and lover.
And what she made me realize is that it was a reckoning time. A huge one. One that toppled much of the life I had known, as well as the community of people I had built into my life. It showed me that things had to change, in a big way. A way I never expected must must surely have intended on some level, even unconscious to me. It was a necessary change. I wouldn’t be here doing this blog without that change.
Toxicity. That’s the word for it. Toxic people.
I have thought of it this way. No one likes to be called toxic. If you were to try to explain it to the person, prove to them their own toxic nature, they would deny it. They might even say that it’s in your head, that the fault is not their own.
My analogy is this: the weed doesn’t see itself as bad or harmful in the garden. But the gardener very likely does. The gardener wants to remove the weed to make room for the life and growth that he or she wants to see in the garden.
The weed, or the toxic plant, may be spewing poisons into its environment. But it does not fault itself for this action. This is by its very nature the action that it is intended to perform. The weed, the toxic plant, loves itself for what it is. It doesn’t hate on itself, it doesn’t believe it is doing any wrong or that it is in need of any change.
Likewise, toxic people often live this way. They do not believe themselves in the wrong or that they are doing harm to others. They are simply living the way they know how, the way they are built and structured to behave.
Like the weed, I do not fault the toxic person. Weeds are of God. Toxic people are, too. But toxic people do have a choice that perhaps the weed does not. People have free will, to continue in a toxic manner or not.
But I also realize that their toxic nature could come from a complex mix of life experiences, people they’ve known, and other interactions with the world. It may be challenging for them to see their way out of toxicity. Not without help, perhaps. And especially if they are still steeped in toxicity in the life they’ve built around them.
Even still, maybe they were just born that way. Maybe they chose a particular lifetime in which to be toxic. To experience the toxic nature, its repercussions, and allow others around them to learn from them and make choices for or against toxicity. Maybe…
Does that get them off the hook for their behavior?
Not at all!
Does that mean you spend time with them?
Not if you know better! Get far away from them if you can!
Toxic energy will bring down in all areas of your life, hold you back from your greatest potentials, and make you miserable. Especially if that toxic person is someone close and dear to you. Someone whom you see every day. Maybe even someone you spend, or intend to spend, the rest of your life with.
You may guess what I am getting at here. I don’t write this to point fingers or cast aspersions at anyone, whether I state it outright or not. This is meant to be a general topic in many ways that can speak to any of you who read it.
And my hope for any who are reading this is to begin to notice people like this in your own life. I am not going to write the blog describing the traits of the toxic person or how to deal with them. There are other resources already out there for you if you wish to Google them.
Guilt is a terrible feeling
Guilt, shame, condemnation…
Seriously folks! What is with guilt!? It’s such a terrible feeling. And to actively cast guilt at someone else in order to control them is just, so, low! I can’t stand it for even a second anymore, now that I recognize it. I guess I put up with it for far too long.
So every time I sense it even a little bit, I just go hard into a mode of protecting myself against that energy. It feels so icky. Mostly I just ignore or don’t engage. Engaging just amplifies it, let’s it come at you more.
Never, ever, ever let someone else tell you that you are not who you are or not what you say you are. If you know you are a good person with a good heart and good intentions, do not let another dictate to you that you are bad or doing wrong in some way.
Do not believe them just because they use harsh words to describe you or your behavior, or try to convince you that your words or actions are something other than what they are. You are the decider in this, not other people. You know who you are and you know what your intentions are.
God does not guilt. If you have a God that guilts you, I swear to you that that god is not the One Love and Creator of All That Is that I know. That god is a false god, a man-made god meant to control you into submission.
God does not control, God gives free will…
People seek to control…
You are bigger than control! You are greater than that! Be who you are! Be who you are meant to be, who you are designed to be! Be the child of God that is full of Love! Full of God’s Love! Not some controlled little puppet made to feel small by accepting all those bad feelings of guilt and shame.
Good grief. Enough of that, dear world. Please, readers, at least hear my call. Look out for guilt and toxicity and all that diminishing, controlling energy. Get away from it if you can. And fast.
If you can’t, God help you. Really. Ask for help. God is always ready to show you the way to Love and freedom.
Whew, I am wiped from that one. Releasing. Self-soothing. Back to calm. I will speak again tomorrow.
Blessings to you all,
Matthew