Tuesday's Mental Musings....

In an ideal world we would be individually responsible for our behavior with the understanding that what we do isn't just about ourselves. We would understand that our actions create waves with ripples of affect and response. We would know that our words and deeds manifest a reality that others must also live in.

There was a time when I allowed the misbehavior of others to go unchecked. I didn't confront or react to someone when they chose to dump their emotional baggage. Instead I watched as they threw tantrums and spewed all manner of negativity without any regard to how it made those of us in the immediate vicinity feel. I believed that by ignoring and distancing myself from their behavior I wouldn't be affected, which is so untrue.

How others treat us isn't the lesson; it is how we let others treat us that is. Our acceptance and/or refusal to conform to the conceit of others helps define who or what we believe we are in this world. When we allow others to speak to us with disregard for our emotional welfare we begin to believe we don't deserve the basic respect all beings should be given. When we accept being treated as if our sole purpose is to serve those selfish enough to demand rather than ask we begin to see ourselves in roles that can and often do stifle our sense of self-worth; we become servants to the intent of others which can leave us impotent in all aspects of our lives.

Eliminating the brats in our lives is easier said than done. Most of us shrug at their misbehavior pacifying the hurt with the belief that "that's who they are", "they'll never change", "either you accept them for who they are or let go". But something must be wrong with that acceptance because most of us continue to bitch and moan about it all and distract ourselves from our hurt and shame with how it should have been handled instead of just confronting the misbehavior at the source of incident.

The word confrontation makes us uncomfortable; with it we sense aggression and other negative innuendos. Though it can be all those things, especially when we are new to dealing with it, it can also be a cathartic beginning to new level of self-definition and understanding. We choose to define how we confront others, whether in a calm and direct or passionate and direct manner the choice is ours. When we choose to address those who have wrongly decided it is OK to dump on us we teach them how they can or cannot treat us but more importantly we teach ourselves who and what we are in this world.