Occupy Space

 

I've been noticing something extremely common. People apologizing for just being. Sorry my purse is on the table. Sorry I brushed you when I passed you. Sorry for taking a moment of your time. Sorry for making a sound. Sorry for bothering you. Sorry I am a burden. Sorry for drawing our attention somehow. Sorry for disagreeing. Sorry for liking something different from you. Sorry, you probably are too busy to talk to me. Sorry, you probably don't want to really be my friend. Sorry for apologizing. Sorry for asking for the things that I want or need. Sorry for sitting here. Sorry for standing in your way. Sorry for forgetting. Sorry for remembering. Sorry for occupying this space. Sorry.
Sorry.

Some men apologize often. And women? Wow, we apologize ALOT. We apologize for our very presence sometimes.


I'm here to tell you to PLEASE TAKE UP SPACE.
Be there.
Open your mirror and put on your lipstick.
Chew your gum.
Ask for a refill.
Send back a cold meal.
Tell me about the new thing you learned.
Request better seats.
Leave all bad relationships behind.
Step forward.
Explore your world.
Experiment.
Know your rights.
Discover new interests.
Ask for the type of love and affection you desire.
Toss your coat onto the couch.
Stand up to drink your coffee.
Sit at the head of the table.
Get the sex you love.
Put your purse on the table and rummage through it.
Extend your arms to put your coat on.
Stick your legs out a bit when you sit.
Sneeze louder.
Stand anyplace you like.
Speak up.
Change your mind.
Express your values.
Tell your truth.
And just BE.

OCCUPY SPACE, My Friend.
I want you there.
I want to hear you.
I want to see you.
You are totally worthy.

 

Peace and Compassion

 

I tend to take things personally - that is, until I finally begin to see that someone else's behavior actually has nothing Nothing NOTHING to do with me.
Do you do this?

This behavior (of taking things personally) probably began as a young girl with my sensitivity to the emotions of those around me and of the other external factors that influenced me as well. Most likely I learned to be self-critical and other-compassionate pretty early in life...because it's been one of those battles that I struggle with pretty often, as it turns out.

It would be one thing if this propensity only hurt me. Which it does. But I have also hurt other people with it. I remember years ago feeling that internal pain and confusion and other more physical expressions of the emotions about a friend of mine who, in my mind, was behaving in a certain way toward me. By the time I figured out that her stuff was, in no way, about me, I had really damaged that friendship.

This month I've been relearning this.
Again.

Some things have been feeling personally hurtful (sorry for the vague blogging) and, again, after about a month of dealing with it badly, I, again, realize that it's time to learn that lesson again, the one where other people's issues aren't about ME. I have to be vague about it because it's the right thing to do as it's not my issue, but believe me when I tell you that I need to post this particular meme on my wall or something. It sure makes me tend to damage things by accident...things that are already fragile, fractured, or simply burgeoning.

And so, as I learn this lesson yet again, join me in learning that when you finally learn that a person's behavior has more to do with their own internal struggles than they ever did with you, you learn peace and compassion.

And it changes everything.

 

Imposter Syndrome

 

Let's begin with this, despite your inner narrative,  You are real and you deserve your successes. 

I don't know why most of the human condition is the way that it is. I don't get it why we have to suffer and struggle with painful emotional issues and psychological disorders. It doesn't make sense that our own thoughts would fight us, work against us, undermine us. 

Intellectual fraud, that's what imposter syndrome is, what it feels like. It's the sinking suspicion that you don't deserve your success, that others can see what a phony you are. It's the fundamental inability to accept your accomplishments.

So why am I talking about this?

I remember the day that I realized that I felt like an utter fake.
I was in my late twenties and I was in a position of authority at work. I had an amazing reputation, a reputation that I had earned. But still I felt like a phony. It was weird. What I remember about those years, thirty years ago, is that I was working hard. Staying late. Doing more. Always learning. No one gave it to me; I earned it. So why did I feel so unworthy? It was weird.

And, know what? It's not uncommon.
You might have experienced it before.
Many successful, hard working people experience it at some point in their life.


What To Do About It?

Remember this one thing: Thoughts and feelings aren't facts.
First, realize that the script in your head needs rewriting. So start out by riding the fear and doubt and by continuing to do your thing. Then, start saying nice things to yourself, possibly including reminding yourself of your successes, your accomplishments, your best qualities. Notice the positive feedback others are giving you without discounting that feedback.

Feeling like a fraud is an unfair attack on yourself. Our brains are bizarre things. Let's acknowledge that, remember that. Because our thoughts and feelings aren't facts, yet we are responding to them as though they are. They are merely events happening in our brains. Powerful, yet not real. While success and accomplishment happen in the world, outside of our brains.

Another thing to do to for yourself, ask your trusted friends or co workers to help you figure out your positive qualities. Ask them to help you bust the fraud idea with reality. Get some help enumerating your steps to success. Figure out what you mean by success. What would make you a real success? Figure out those points.

And then, create successes for yourself. Engage in activities that bring you small successes, that remind you that you are a worthy and accomplished human being. Take some time to look for evidence of your quality or success. Go out and make achievements your bitch. You're not fake; in fact, you're trying hard. You're not just charming; in fact, you're actually qualified. You're not lucky; in fact, you've earned your place. And the odds are totally against chance. 

 

Neutral Affirmations

 

So many of us work hard to improve our self-esteem and self-confidence and one of the common strategies for making improvements is to use affirmations. Affirmations are statements that we can use as a form of positive self-talk in order to get into the habit of substituting negative thoughts about ourselves to positive thoughts. You might be considering using affirmations for yourself or even for your child.

If you were to pay attention to all of your thoughts in a given day and to count all of the negative things you say to yourself in a single twenty-four hour period, how many negative thoughts about yourself would you guess you say to yourself? Five? Fifty? Five hundred? Some studies estimate that we have over fifteen thousand thoughts in a given day and that, conservatively, over 75% of those thoughts are self-judging thoughts. That can be over eleven thousand negative thoughts in a single day!

Think of that! Thousands of negative thoughts in a single day!

We know that it is our thoughts, conscious and unconscious, that strongly impact our mood for the day, that can limit our sense of personal power, that can impact how we feel about ourselves, including how hopeful we are in life, and can even affect our physical health. As a part of good self care, affirmations are often recommended or used to lift our moods, to improve our thoughts of ourselves, and to remind us to speak kindly to ourselves. You can see how you might use affirmations to help your child with their own thinking patterns.

But there might be a huge problem for some of us when using affirmations. They can feel incredibly unrealistic, absurd, and unbelievable.

I attract positivity to myself!

I am successful in whatever I do!

I feel an abundance of joy!

Today will be amazing!

Money comes to me easily and effortlessly.

I get love in abundance.

I'm always on my own side!

I can perform perfectly at school!

I am blessed with an incredible friend group!

If these affirmations are untrue I might become very resentful of someone encouraging them. I might even feel shame that such statements have no positive impact on me.

If you are one of those people who feel annoyed by, bewildered by, shamed, or just turned off by affirmations, here’s an idea. Consider an entirely different type of affirmation, something I call the Neutral Affirmation. These statements are neutral but true. They are the kind of thoughts you might have that would remind you to lay off of the self-criticism or judging of self and to, instead, use rational and true statements to challenge the negativity.

Here are a few examples of Neutral Affirmations:

• Some days are harder than others; I’m doing my best today.
  Today I’m OK.
• I’m working on accepting me just as I am
•  Feelings are not facts.
•  I can ride this wave and get back to work.
•  Professionals ask for support every day.
• With time and effort, I’m getting better.
•  I’m smart and capable.
• I can handle this.
• I’m not going to give up.
• I know who is on my side. First, I am.
• Just for today I will...
• I’m going to say something positive to myself instead.
• I’ll give it another try.
• Tomorrow is another day.
• I will not judge myself on cultural stereotypes.
• I can feel the fear and do it anyway.
• I am doing active work to improve my life.
• I notice I handle things better when I correct my limiting thought
  distortions.
• I’m not feeling confident, but I’ll still do my best work today.

Using Neutral Affirmations do not offer pie-in-the sky sentiment or artificial optimism to correct negative self-talk, but, rather, realistic, believable, logical, true statements to remind us to nip the black and white thinking in the bud. Neutral Affirmations can prompt our thoughts to challenge the many habits of distorted thoughts that we use regularly without even being aware of it. We are already thinking thousands of thoughts each day, why not work to deliberately improve what we feed our minds!

Work with yourself or with your child (or with your therapist) to create a list of neutral affirmations that can address your specific thought distortions.

What do YOU think? 

 

Do You Have a Motto?

Do you have a motto in life?

I do, for me it's Question Everything! 

Many years ago when I was in therapy I was constantly being stumped by thoughts that I thought were true, assumptions that I thought were reality, truths that I thought were universal. These assumptions were like huge road blocks in my pursuit of the truth.

While I am fortunate to have been a young girl who knew that her parents loved her and did their best for her...until that day when all of that changed, a day that became my bookmark for everything to come.  From this event forward an event was classified either before or after the divorce: 1977-1978. Those were the hideous years.

I know what I'm talking about.  ;)

Why were those years so pivotal for me?
People get divorced every day!
Those years were acute for me because both of my parents instantly became strangers, delusive, victimy, unavailable, isolating, unhealthy with boundaries and relationships, and oddly spectral.

Both of them, in their own very disparate ways, began to think of themselves first, often leaving the kids completely out of the equation. They were both wounded, I know. It was a period of time when all of those things that I thought I knew were honestly and truly crushed, when the parents that I had known became incredibly inaccessible and self-absorbed, and when my custodial parent began a long-term program of indoctrination and brainwashing and slavishly requiring unquestioned trust.
(I assure you, these words are not too strong or too dramatic; they are completely accurate.)

And the brainwashing was thorough, Man. It was a true brain fuck. I spent many years in therapy where I strongly resisted challenging the truths that I thought I knew.  
It was arduous and painful and extraordinary and odd.Things finally started to click for me I learned to 
 Question Everything!

And I'm grateful for that moment because the dark years, the missing years, those years that are misty for me, do not go away. Not a single extended family member is aware of how things were for us. Most of them consider me in particular to be disrespectful, cruel, deceitful, perfidious, even profane. They do not know, or cannot know how victimized we were because they, too, are victims of that brainwashing, but they don't even know it. My sibs and I still struggle with this crap today in our forties and fifties.

 ***

The reading, researching, talking, thinking, writing cycle went on for many years. When I read my journals and poetry from those years I still feel the specter of confusion and pain and anguish in which I was drowning in those days.  

I remember where that phrase came from.

I was working with an older guy who was very wise and kind and larger-than-life in my eyes. I didn't share my story with many people; I didn't share it with him. But in how he lived his life he sent out the phrase 

Question Everything!  

and I figured out how to do that in my own life.

It changed everything! Questioning Everything brought me into the light! It is why I am honest-to-a-fault. It is also why it is freaky hard for me to make some types of decisions, because I can so deeply and intimately see both sides to an issue. It is why honesty is essential to me. It is why I will always speak the truth, however alone I am in that. It is why I will stand alone in my integrity. It is why I am so weird and timorous at times. It is why I will raise my children in reality. It is why I am perceptive and intuitive at the same time that I am unaware of things.  I question everything.

Try it.
Try Questioning Everything and see what happens.
You might just learn something...about yourself and about this amazing world in which we live.

Question Everything!

So, do you have a motto?

OCCUPY SPACE!!!

This month I've been noticing something extremely common. People apologizing for just being. Sorry my purse is on the table. Sorry I brushed you when I passed by. Sorry for taking a moment of your time. Sorry for making a sound. Sorry for bothering you. Sorry I am a burden. Sorry for drawing our attention somehow. Sorry for disagreeing. Sorry for liking something different from you. Sorry, you are probably too busy to deal with me. Sorry, you've got more important things to do. Sorry for having something to say. Sorry, you probably don't want to really be my friend. Sorry for apologizing. Sorry for asking for the things that I want or need. Sorry for sitting here. Sorry for standing in your way. Sorry for forgetting. Sorry for remembering. Sorry for occupying this space. Sorry.  
Sorry.
 
Some men apologize often. And women? Wow, we apologize ALOT. We apologize for our very presence sometimes.

 

I'm here to tell you to PLEASE TAKE UP SPACE.
 
Be there. 
Open your mirror and put on your lipstick.
Chew your gum.  
Ask for a refill.  
Send back a cold meal.
Tell me about the new thing you learned. 
Request better seats.
Leave all bad relationships behind.  
Step forward.  
Occupy public spaces boldly.
Explore your world.
Experiment.
Discover new interests.  
Ask for the type of love and affection you desire.  
Toss your coat onto the couch.  
Stand up to drink your coffee. 
Sit at the head of the table.
Get the sex you love.  
Put your purse on the table and rummage through it.  
Extend your arms to put your coat on.  
Stick your legs out a bit when you sit.  
Sneeze louder.  
Stand anyplace you like.  
Speak up.  
Change your mind.  
Express your values.  
Tell your truth.  
And just BE.


OCCUPY SPACE, My Friend.
I want you there.
You are valid.
I want to hear you.
I want to see you.  
You are totally worthy.

I'm Offended

On the social media sites, nearly everybody loves that moment when someone pipes up and says That Offends Me!, because now we all get to all gleefully call that person BUTTHURT.

For nearly all of history the quiet, the nice, the introverted, the timid, the trampled on, the sensitive, the wounded, the abused, the neglected, the disenfranchised people have silently accepted and allowed all words to pass them by...no confrontations.

No confrontations, no rebuttal, no contradictions, no self-defense, no assertively saying NO, no audacity, no guts, no challenge, no friction. No comment. And those who seem to not notice their abusive ways could safely ignore the wounded human being who became collateral damage to the wit, the sarcasm, the venting, the anger, the aggression, the narcissism, the self-aggrandized bloviating.


But something is happening and I, for one, am DELIGHTED.
For it is happening to me as well.
The silent have begun to stand up for themselves, for their sensitivities, for their rights. This silent underbelly has begun to stand up and say NO, that is inappropriate and you have injured me or others with that statement. And I'm not going to take it quietly anymore.

This is NOT the same as saying Hey I disagree with you, nor is it Your opinion is different from mine nor is it I need you to think the same way that I do, though that is the accusation leveled at the assertions belatedly- and bravely-spoken.


Allow me to let a few memes speak for me:

Now allow me to speak for myself:

I miss the good old days when I could actually have an opinion without offending someone.
GUESS WHAT: you DID offend someone. They simply kept it to themselves and took the hit.
You never noticed.
You get to have any opinion you want. But you now are being called on the carpet for your boorishness. Rather than learning from the brave person who stood up to your brashness, you have decided to deprecate the speaker, to ignore their brave message, and to feel offended yourself.
IRONIC. And manipulative.
And, from the number of times I see you posting memes such as this, I see that you are missing the point. What you miss is the days when you weren't called out on your acerbity.


It's called a joke. We used to tell them before people became offended by everything.
GUESS WHAT: some so-called jokes are very thinly-veiled criticism or verbal abuse hidden as humor. This isn't funny, nor are we buying it anymore. Your racist, genderist, ableist, abusive "jokes" are being called out for what they actually are: simple-minded ignorance from someone who believes that they are clever. I see, again, that you are missing this opportunity to become woke. It's very difficult confronting someone with little to no self-awareness.

I'm not being rude, I'm just saying what everyone else is thinking.
GUESS WHAT: you are being rude. Incredible that this has to be explained to you. Again, and this is becoming tiresome for me as well, you are missing this chance to learn appropriateness, courtesy, kindness, consideration, gentleness, respect, manners, decorum, honor, civility, class, politeness, etiquette, moderation, humanity, decency, forbearance, affability, stop me when you get it...

Before you get all butthurt and offended, ask yourself why it bothers you so much. Maybe the problem is you, not it. Only the weak are constantly offended by things that have nothing to do with them.
GUESS WHAT: This sounds exactly like  a narcissist telling me how wrong I am to be offended by rudeness, ridicule or sarcasm. Even in the meme itself is an attack.

Maybe you are weak: Maybe I'm strong and you aren't used to it.
Well get used to it!

If I say that what you are saying is offensive, you don't get to say that I'm wrong that your words are offensive. That is totally my call to make. You can call me butt hurt, but, again, that is simply name-calling, no better than a child, and missing the chance to freaking LISTEN and improve our relationship.
Of course, you could ignore me, consider it my problem, and never ever learn to be a better person.

Welcome to the era of over-sensitive, easily offended whiners.
GUESS WHAT: Welcome to the era of those of us who have had it and are saying NO MORE. Welcome to the era of people expecting you to face the consequences of your words and actions. Welcome to the era of people refusing to silently accepting your crass, rude abuse sitting down. Welcome to the era of learning clear and healthy communication. Welcome to the era of being empowered to no longer accept toxicity.

Standing up and telling you that your words are offensive is not whiny, it's strong and it's bad ass AF.

Being constantly offended doesn't mean you're right. It just means you're too narcissistic to tolerate opinions different than yours.
GUESS WHAT: Being constantly offended probably means that I'm living with a toxic, obtuse narcissist. Feel free to use the word narcissist, but do so with the knowledge of what it means. If someone is suggesting to you that they are constantly offended when they are around you I honestly think it's time you take a look at your behavior. Getting angry that I'm angry with you shows a clear lack of self-awareness as well as an unlikely opportunity to learn to take a moment and think about the people around you, rather than yourself, first.


More and more people are learning to no longer tolerate negativity and toxicity in their lives and, sometimes, this means that they are standing up to and calling out the people who criticize, insult, and put them down in condescending manners.

And that takes courage!
It takes practice!
It takes an amazing quantity of self-awareness!
It takes utter maturity to respond to abuse with assertiveness.

SO, when you see the memes about how ridiculous I am for being BUTT HURT, KNOW that I am looking back at you and wondering when you are ever  going to get it...