Friday, August 18, 2006
Lessons
I learned this week that when people share gossip with you saying that they are warning you what is being said about you, to make you aware you have enemies, to make you aware of what is going on...really, they tell you as a confession. You listen to bless them like a priest in the confessonal, they go away cleansed and you hope you can eventually be cleansed as well.
My husband tells me I am the nicest person he knows. That I am incredibly sweet and don't deserve this.
I wonder. My heart reminds me of all the little lies, all the small gossips. I try, I really try to squash my need to gossip, but I know, I'm not innocent of gossip. Still, I don't believe I've ever bandied about anything as wicked as what they are saying about me (unless we go back to high school, high school girls are cruel cruel cruel. Perhaps this karma comes from there).
I've learned this week that I'm more beautiful, more powerful and more of a threat to women around me than I have ever been in my life. Why? I don't know. With power, with presence, with success comes hatred, dislike, gossip and attacks. Life lessons.
So, this too will pass.
A friend told a story. When she was younger, she worked for an older doctor--he was perhaps 60, but looked younger. She had worked for him several years and one day he told her...you know, people talk about us. Really? she said. They say we have a thing going on, he laughed. Its ok though. Why is it ok, she said. Well, if they are talking about us, they aren't attacking anyone else.
So, if they attack me, they aren't attacking anyone else. Is that a comfort?
The hurt, of course, is the originator of the stories. A friend, someone I trusted, gave my love to, protected, defended from other people that would gossip and attack her. She made these stories up, sewn together from bits of truth, outright fabrication and a need to hurt the things I love most in my life right now. I wander, how badly is she hurting to have this strong need to attack me? I wonder, why did she never once ask me my version, confirm any portion of what she thought happened? That's what hurts most--the real person who hurt her, a man....she attacked me instead of him and I never saw it coming.
These things pass. People forget. the people that share rumors, believe them, dislike me...they would find another reason to dislike me.
I've learned that I have an almost phobic fear of being disliked. I've been dealing...healing this fear ever since I moved here to the desert. Many of my lessons in the last year have dealt with the need to heal and move past this need to be liked by all. A fear of doing anything that could possibly make people dislike me.
Something like this would have half-killed me a year ago...I'm not sure I..oh. Nonsense. You can handle most anything...think of your life: a childhood of emotional trama, your mother dies when you are 23, your sister 5 years later. You work like a dog, endure sexual discrimination at work, survive post-partum depression, panic attacks. You leave an old life behind, you create a new life in a new place. You've climbed mountains, hiked in other countries, eaten mussels crawling with sea creatures on a raft with white wine, made friends, lost friends, have been punished by love and given the gift of true love, birthed a child without drugs, raised that child.
I'll be fine! ¶ 7:35 PM
I learned this week that when people share gossip with you saying that they are warning you what is being said about you, to make you aware you have enemies, to make you aware of what is going on...really, they tell you as a confession. You listen to bless them like a priest in the confessonal, they go away cleansed and you hope you can eventually be cleansed as well.
My husband tells me I am the nicest person he knows. That I am incredibly sweet and don't deserve this.
I wonder. My heart reminds me of all the little lies, all the small gossips. I try, I really try to squash my need to gossip, but I know, I'm not innocent of gossip. Still, I don't believe I've ever bandied about anything as wicked as what they are saying about me (unless we go back to high school, high school girls are cruel cruel cruel. Perhaps this karma comes from there).
I've learned this week that I'm more beautiful, more powerful and more of a threat to women around me than I have ever been in my life. Why? I don't know. With power, with presence, with success comes hatred, dislike, gossip and attacks. Life lessons.
So, this too will pass.
A friend told a story. When she was younger, she worked for an older doctor--he was perhaps 60, but looked younger. She had worked for him several years and one day he told her...you know, people talk about us. Really? she said. They say we have a thing going on, he laughed. Its ok though. Why is it ok, she said. Well, if they are talking about us, they aren't attacking anyone else.
So, if they attack me, they aren't attacking anyone else. Is that a comfort?
The hurt, of course, is the originator of the stories. A friend, someone I trusted, gave my love to, protected, defended from other people that would gossip and attack her. She made these stories up, sewn together from bits of truth, outright fabrication and a need to hurt the things I love most in my life right now. I wander, how badly is she hurting to have this strong need to attack me? I wonder, why did she never once ask me my version, confirm any portion of what she thought happened? That's what hurts most--the real person who hurt her, a man....she attacked me instead of him and I never saw it coming.
These things pass. People forget. the people that share rumors, believe them, dislike me...they would find another reason to dislike me.
I've learned that I have an almost phobic fear of being disliked. I've been dealing...healing this fear ever since I moved here to the desert. Many of my lessons in the last year have dealt with the need to heal and move past this need to be liked by all. A fear of doing anything that could possibly make people dislike me.
Something like this would have half-killed me a year ago...I'm not sure I..oh. Nonsense. You can handle most anything...think of your life: a childhood of emotional trama, your mother dies when you are 23, your sister 5 years later. You work like a dog, endure sexual discrimination at work, survive post-partum depression, panic attacks. You leave an old life behind, you create a new life in a new place. You've climbed mountains, hiked in other countries, eaten mussels crawling with sea creatures on a raft with white wine, made friends, lost friends, have been punished by love and given the gift of true love, birthed a child without drugs, raised that child.
I'll be fine! ¶ 7:35 PM
