Sipping my coffee and letting my thoughts drift this morning. There’s a lot of fucking drama swirling around me, and people dear to me seem mired in it. Upon a closer look, they’re often causing it, seeking it, stoking it, creating it, and wrapping themselves in it as if for warmth. Yeesh. If you don’t want drama in your life… choose something else. Just saying.
Yes, I mean that seriously. lol It’s feasible.
Yes. Yes it is entirely feasible.
No, I’m not kidding.
Let’s start somewhere obvious (to me). Let’s start with language. Defining things is a thing we do. We use “is” to take a thing, and firmly connect it to a characteristic, which will then define that thing. “This ball is blue.” Easy example. I haven’t shown you a photograph, or provided any evidence, but now, you can picture, for yourself, that “the ball E.H. has is blue” and even “see” that, in your mind.
By the way; I’ve got no ball, blue or otherwise. Whole thing is a made up example. Just saying; we do this sort of thing to ourselves, with our own “defining characteristics” – and the things we think about other people – all the fucking time. Instant drama, particularly when there’s no ball there at all.
Seriously. That shit isn’t real. Or true. It’s totally made up.
Yeah…but… what color is my imaginary ball? You know, the one I was talking about?
Oh. That ball. It’s blue. Obviously. I already said.
…You see where this could go? How easily we can be misled? By our own words?
Whatever characteristics you ascribe to yourself through “is” and “am” have real power to change how you think and talk about yourself, how you treat yourself, how you treat others, and how you behave. It changes who you see yourself to be. When you ascribe characteristics to others, through “is”, you create a clear picture of them in your mind, of who they “are”, and in so doing, you change who you see them to be – without any actual connection to their actual self. Who you think they are will change how you treat them, but it does not change who they in fact are. lol
I’m just saying, be careful with your words. Be careful with defining things – or yourself. You can really lock yourself into a set of behaviors or characteristics that may not be the person you most want to be.
Do you see where this is leading? Toward the suggestion that you use great care and precision when defining yourself? A suggestion to maybe not define yourself so specifically at all? A suggestion that there is value in disconnecting your sense of self from your historical actions, to lift yourself out of less than ideally desirable patterns of behavior, and allow yourself freedom to move on from all that? Yes. That’s where this is going. Do that. 🙂
You’ll still be accountable (and responsible) for your actions. This is not about that. This is, though, about moving on, and becoming well, and making positive changes. This is about perception, language, and how language influences how we treat ourselves and others.
Show yourself some kindness, for fuck’s sake. You can do better, and you surely deserve some kindness, and encouragement, from the person in the mirror. 🙂
I take one last look at this blue ball, before I toss it away. It takes practice to refrain from defining ourselves by our mistakes, our worst decisions, our perceived flaws, the essence of how we are criticized in life, or the bullshit we hear (even from ourselves) every day. That ball may bounce, but trust me, it’s not real anyway. Let it go.
It’s time to begin again. 🙂
Evening Light 