There's a payoff for everything we do. What's your payoff for continuing to fight, for sticking it out, for not walking away?
Do you get to burn off some frustrations? Do you get to misplace some anger?
(I find that I'm more inclined to dig my heels in and fight to the bitter end on an issue with a person who is of little consequence to my regular daily life because it's more safe. So what if I make an ass out of myself with this person? I don't live with them. So what if I go a little whacko on this issue? It's not like it will negatively impact my relationship with my spouse / kids / dogs. I can let loose
here because I really can't afford to let loose where I'd
really like to let loose: at the source of the frustrations, anger and resentment. This is a much easier and safer target for me.)
Is there some sort of "hey, I can be cool like this other person who's always fighting too - he seems to benefit from it so I should be able to benefit as well" going on?
Could it be that you've only ever known how to fight, that you've never learned and never had it modeled to you as to
how a person can walk away? (Without being dismissive, invalidating, etc.)
When you say:
jodyisme wrote:
i still have the problem with letting something go that someone keeps on and on about. i have so much of a fighter in me....i dont know exactly what to do with it. something about being disrespected and all...
It strikes me that maybe you have a vision of "disrespect" that might be a bit on the borderline side still.
You're saying that you're willing to fight with someone who says "Jody is a purple martian" because you're finding it disrespectful of that person to call you a purple martian.
Them saying "you're a purple martian" doesn't MAKE you into a purple martian but the borderline piece is not recognizing the boundaries between yourself and that person.
If that person says it, by god, it must be true and you're going to fight to the death to make sure it's
NOT true, come hell or high water!
How dare they call you a purple martian! That's not right, you know it's not right and dadgummit, you're going to
MAKE them see that it's not right because everything seen by everyone else has to be seen exactly the way you're seeing it or else the things you're seeing can't be true and the whole world will collapse, oh the horror of it all!
Someone calling you a purple martian isn't a form of disrespect, Jody. It's their perspective. You're trying to fight something you have no control over. Since you have no control over it, the fight is completely ineffective. The harder you fight, the less things change. That
must mean it helps to fight more, longer and harder, right? (Wrong, btw.)
I ask in all seriousness: have you read "The Four Agreements"? Not the web page here. The actual book.
I really think it can help you with this.
DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.
The book has so much more than just this piece (above.) It can help you see that your reality is your own. It doesn't matter what other people have created in their realities, in the stories they've written about themselves or about you. So what if they're portraying your character as a purple martian? In
your reality, in
your story, you're a pink human. And since you live in
your story, in
your reality, it
doesn't make a damn bit of difference what someone else's story or reality says about you.
When you try to fight against someone else when they've written you as a purple martian, you're tilting at windmills and trying to fight city hall. No amount of bitching, petitioning, pleading, cajoling, coercing, screaming, yelling, punching, kicking or anything else is going to make anything change. It is what it is.
I used to get horribly embarassed by the clothes my husband would wear out in public. I was mortified - the mismatches, the bad combinations, the stains, the tears, the ill-fitting outfits - all of it. Then a friend of mine, Donna, said "Oh what's the big deal? I figure most people are looking at the two of you thinking 'Wow, what does that hot chick see in that doofus of a guy?'" It really got me to thinking ... it's not necessarily a reflection of me. People aren't necessarily thinking I dressed him so horribly. They're not pointing and laughing at me; they're laughing at him (if they're even noticing any of it.) It's his outfit, not mine.
It's his outfit and he has to wear it. It's someone else's perception that's horribly embarassing and they have to live with it. NOT YOU.