Check Yo'self Before You Wreck Yo'self

Lately I have been consumed with learning as much as possible about personal dramas. My personal drama, other people's dramas, how I effect other people with my drama and how other people's personal dramas effect me. As I've been going about my drama research, the Universe has decided to provide me with teachable moments to experience how these dramas meet and interact on the daily. This has given me plenty of time to learn that no matter the situation I have to check myself before I wreck myself if I want to get out of interactions with people totally unflustered.

My first opportunity to check myself and not meet ego with ego, came while talking to my ex from high school on facebook. Every few years he pops up in my life, usually when he's single, to see how I am and 9 times out of 10 these conversations end in him insulting me because I am not interested. Our real problem is that while I see him as a 27 year old man that I have nothing in common with, he sees me as a 15 year old girl who is insecure, unsure of herself and would love to be with him. (Truthfully, I was painfully unsure of myself all through high school and stayed in a relationship with him because I thought he was as good as I could get...FALSE EXPERIENCE APPEARING REAL) Whatever our perspective differences our conversation went from me trying to end the conversation peacefully to him attacking me. I had to go back and reread the thread to see if I ever once attacked him, insinuated he was less than or anything and nope nothing. His issue was that he was expecting one reaction and got another, I say his issue because the way people perceive you is never your issue. Either way, eventually I found myself slipping into my "poor me" drama and had to check myself before I wreck myself. Instead of further engaging in a cyclical conversation that was upsetting and tiring us both out, I decided to get off the merry go round and just stopped answering his messages. Honestly I probably should have stopped answering them after a day or two but I didn't want him to feel like I was pulling a Gotye on him but it has been ten years and unlike my most recent ex and I, me and the high school beau don't have much in common. It's not a bad thing, he is just a person I would see in the park and say "cargo shorts, really?" and keep it moving. No judgement, we just aren't on the same wavelength mentally, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, culturally etc and that happens after 10 years. Anyway, my personal drama experience would have been done there with a BIG lesson learned--go with your gut and don't let people peck you--but my lesson was not done.

Thursday night I went to a party hosted by some of my favorite fab Atlantans at the Gucci store. Drinks were flowing, food was being passed, the energy was effervescent and I was totally soaking it all in. I even met a super cute guy who I think was sent my way not as a potential mate but more as a sign that I am beautiful and guys do like me. (We did exchange numbers and I'm sure he'll pop up on my cell when/if he's supposed to...I love this chill approach to dating and meeting guys.) While I was fully in my me-ness and feeling as bubbly as the prosecco that was being passed around, I was roped into a conversation with a guy that was all about me meeting his ego with defenselessness. This stranger, straight up to me I was going to need to wax my upper lip when I turn 30. It was like the record scratched and everyone at the party went "err?" At first I responded with my usual "poor me" defenses and tried fighting him off, however that is exactly what he wanted. (You see everyone has a way in which they attempt to get energy/attention from others and his way was to giveth then taketh away or as the Celestine Prophecies would say, he was an interrogator. ) After a minute or two, almost as if a light switch was thrown in my brain, I identified his compliment with a but as an attempt at getting a reaction from me and simply told him that he should end his compliments with the compliment and leave the buts out then I walked away. (After a bit of a tug-o-war with him hugging me and refusing to let go. FYI I am not as young as I look or as weak as you think, my dad was in the military so I know how to break a hold and throw a punch if necessary.) This interaction ignited something in me, along with the one with my ex from high school and a conversation that I had with a girlfriend about her boyfriend earlier that week. 

All my life I though I had to fight. I thought the only way to stop feeling like a "poor me" was to go from damsel in distress to Xena, boy was I wrong. As A Course in Miracles says, "In my defenselessness my safety lies," meaning before you defend against anything you need to take a minute and ask yourself what am I defending against. No, really what am I defending against? When I was talking to my ex on facebook there was nothing to defend against, because not only am I not capable of being attacked but defending against nonsense makes more nonsense. Did you get that? There is no way to make sense of nonsense and it is NOT my job or anyone else's to force people to see sense where they refuse to. People have to come to things on their own in their own time and no amount of forcing will make them change. So next time you feel someone spitting nonsense your way stop trying to check them and shake them into reality and check yourself then cross the street as Iyanla Vanzant would say.



As a part of learning to check myself and keep myself in check, I have committed to wearing a rubberband for 30 days and every time I feel myself acting out of fear, falling into the poor me trap, not living in the present, or just generally not living in my truth, I'll snap my rubberband to snap back to life and reality. So if you see me snapping myself with a rubberband anytime this month know I'm just working on me. 

Me Too...

Do you remember when you thought you could do or be anything? Yeah, me neither. It's time to remember what it feels like to believe that there is no limit to your life or love.

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

I am Queen of Comparison, or at least I used to be and sometimes still am but increasingly less often than I used to be. (Whew!) Why wouldn't I be? Comparison and competition are the American way. We keep up with the Joneses and the Kardashians, speak in terms of haves and have nots and are constantly on the hunt to be good, better, and the best in every field. After years of living the American dream of being better than my neighbors, I am sooo over it!

All my life I've compared myself to someone in an effort to be deemed stringer, better, faster, smarter, prettier, and more worthwhile. I compared my past with that of girls who were living my dream of marrying their soul mate, "They're really religious that's why they're getting married," "They both have amazing jobs and me, not so much, so we can't get married until I get a great job," and my favorite, "We're way cooler than they are." I compared my resume that the resumes of other people who had jobs I dreamed of, "She went to a better/worse school than I did," "He was super involved on campus," or the best most irrelevant one, "Their parents obviously were connected and have money so that's how they got a job that someone like me deserves." I had no idea how insane I sounded comparing my life to that of total strangers.  Until I did, and trust me it wasn't hearing someone else tell me how trapped in insanity I was that let me know how things were, it was finally opening my eyes to the truth that got me right. 

There was no big "Aha!!" moment that broke my cycle of comparing every aspect about myself to everyone around me, including my friends who in the grand tradition of girls were my favorite people to compare myself to. Actually I stopped comparing myself to others when I realized that there was nothing to compare essentially. I mean, I am not any of those people and I do not need their qualifications to get anything I need in MY life. They may need their qualifications for THEIR life but the ones I need for my success are unique to me. Hence the term MY life. Seriously, you cannot measure your life against someone else's because not only is their life path completely different from yours but their soul has a totally different purpose and they probably have a different set of goals to fulfill. So if you can't compare your life to someone else's what should you compare it to? Nothing. Your life isn't good or bad, right or wrong, it just is and every experience you have shapes it into something that you could have never imagined in your wildest dreams. Even your past experiences are a poor measuring stick because you are not your past. Perhaps you were your past but you are not your past. Just live the life you have and enjoy every minute of it. That's really all you can do.

So You Agree?

If you were Lindsay Lohan in Mean Girls, Regina George would be your ego. Only your ego would turn a compliment into a "Who are you to think that of yourself?" moment.