I had a very emotional last 2-3 days. I have been nervous and anxious, upset, freaked out, only because of a few people that have been mad at me, and even though they have no significance or any influence in my life, I feel I have been judged and juried by these 2 people that don’t even know me. They have assumed things about me that are not true at all. I feel I have been bullied. I don’t like to have aggressive people in my life, and I feel sorry for the people that have to deal with them on a regular basis.
Sunday night I was thrown into a lion’s den, sitting across from a very aggressive person. I have difficulty dealing with hostile people. I think they are irrational, very arrogant and don’t listen to anything you have to say so what’s the point in responding really. There is so much going on in their heads that there is no place for anybody else’s voice to get in, no way to reason with them. And yesterday morning, the same thing: I get a phone call from somebody that, again, did not listen, that made a mistake, and that was blaming me for their own distraction. This, for me, is very difficult to deal with and sometimes, unfortunately, I let these people influence the rest of my day or the rest of my week, depending on what happened.
There are no aggressive people in my life, because I chose, a long time ago not to live around toxic people. These people that spew garbage each time they open their mouth, the negative people that complain but make no effort to change.
I am reflecting today on the ways to immunize ourselves against these types of people. They obviously are the ones having the problem. They are the ones that feel the aggression and the tension and they simply try to pass this on to somebody else to relieve some of the pressure they feel. Or they just try to bully people to make themselves feel better or because they feel superior in some way. Why do we have to deal with this and why should we? If at all possible, the best way is to walk away, but what if you can’t because you have to deal with them either for business or otherwise? I think what is important is to stand up to them and not let them push you down. If you don’t, they will think you worthless and the aggressive bullying will continue.
What is also important is to realize that you should not let anybody rob you of your sense of self and your happiness. If they have a problem with aggression or tension, rage even, it is not your place to try to fix it for them. They are the only ones that can fix this.
I know for a fact yesterday’s caller will need a week to cool down and no matter what happens she will always think she was right. Some people are not able to look at the full picture. They are not able to shift their consciousness to see the other side of the coin, to find the joy in what is in front of them. I cannot do anything about it. She chose to react the way she did and I can only control my own behavior.
The other point I want to bring is that, the more you deal with people actually or the more people you deal with, the more chance there is to have such encounters once in a while, even if you don’t want to, to be on the receiving end of their bad moods or other bad behavior, to be misunderstood, but also to be loved and appreciated, to have fun and feel alive. That is life I suppose. We are social creatures.
OK so, to summarize this whole thing. I have had a terrible day yesterday actually, but, in reality, it was mostly the morning because I went shopping with my son at night and it was relaxing and fun, and I had good conversations and straightened out problems during the afternoon, So I did get some things accomplished, even if not half of what I was planning to. Some days are like that. They cannot all be perfect but it is our job to make the best of it.
When bad things happen or things we don’t like to deal with, it is good to be able to practice “selective remembering”. In other words we don’t have to ruin our days with remembering things that we are not happy about, that we don’t like. We have to let go of them, they are in the past now. As I spoke of control before, I realize that I still have a lot to learn about letting go and trusting life. Each day, I am being told to let go a little more. Yet I feel it is difficult in practice. We have to realize that we are sometimes instruments of a master plan that we don’t always understand. We should look at life with curiosity, look for inspirational ideas and follow that light when it comes on in our head.
As we know, our self-perception determines how we behave, how we react to things. When someone is aggressive in front of you, most of the time, they are angry at themselves and you have to think that they feel pretty uncomfortable with their life as with life in general. An angry person is not a happy person. Don’t let them rub this negativity onto you.
