Tag Archives: toxic

But I Love ALL People

I often wonder if we truly came to realize how much our apathy, our overt and covert racism, homophobia, genderism (or pick an ism/phobia) hurts us on a personal level — would we finally do something about it? If we found out it was making us sick, if we felt it in our own lives, on our own bodies, in our own homes, in our own minds, would we finally be compelled to do something? Or would we still just be stuck on “right” to save face and suffer silently, or blame it on “them?” I think we put a lot of energy into saving face, and a lot of running from the truth… or even mangling it, covering it up. We think, “I’m not the one; surely it’s not me,” and even get mad when confronted.

We put a LOT of energy into this, and yet we think we remain unaffected by the covering up, the pretending, the avoidance to look at ourselves squarely and honestly. We put on a mask when we go about our daily business outside of the home, but when we return the mask is put away and we discuss all about “those people,” and we have strong opinions on people we can’t even see honestly. We pretend (or do we really believe this) that if we don’t talk about it, refuse to give it attention, that we somehow are not contributing to the racism, the homophobia, Islamic hatred, etc. We tell ourselves and others that we just won’t participate in the discussions because that would be contributing to the problem. But…

WHEN HAS IGNORING SOMETHING EVER MADE IT BETTER?

If you let it, this might set you free from the invisible box you have created for yourself and probably the children you might be influencing…. Do you know that you don’t even have to understand how or why people are who they are to just let them live, and even to love them? And here’s the REAL personal freedom…. Once you are able to embrace that, it’s no effort to embrace them just as they are. That’s where love lives, and that’s what it looks like.

We like to say that we love all people, don’t we? It sounds right, and feels good to say — even seems logical. For added theatrics or emphasis, we even wave our hand when we say it as if we’re brushing off how ridiculous it is to even have to say it out loud.

  • You have a good relationship with your Black neighbor, and your kids even play together.
    • But do you love Black PEOPLE?
  • That Muslim woman in the next cubicle is hilarious, and you frequently lunch together.
    • But do you love Muslim PEOPLE?
  • The Mexican woman who babysits your children during the past four summers is a wonderful addition to your lives and with whom you entrust your children. She even teaches them Spanish!
    • But do you love Mexican PEOPLE?
  • You’re nice to Emily, the transgender checker at the grocery store that you look forward to seeing every week.
    • But do you love transgender PEOPLE?
  • Your love your cousin who is gay and you get along great with him and his husband.
    • But do you love gay PEOPLE?

I’m sure you’re onto me by now, and may have already begun making excuses before you reached the end of the list or stopped reading the list altogether. Hopefully none of that’s true and you get the point. But if it is true, I hope you ask yourself why that is, and I hope you go even further and begin really thinking about this. One thing that can happen is that you will start showing up as the person you’ve been saying you are. You remember — the one that loves all people!

I get it. (I don’t, actually, but I do know something about this personally.) You’re secretly afraid of what other people in your circles might think. You don’t want to admit it, but it’s true. You’re afraid of what you will lose, and this is a driving force for so many of us that causes us sometimes to double down on the excuses, and why so many of us turn to apathy, ignoring, or defending all the “good people on both sides.” We are more afraid of how we might look, what we might lose, or even who we might have to talk to in a new way.

Freedom. That’s what you get. You get freedom from the excuses, freedom from toxic ideas and people. You get new vision, and you get to do the work of self-repair, self-reflection, and self-love instead of the arduous work of covering up, the laziness of apathy and tolerating, and the sweat-work of defending terrible people, systems and ideations. You get freedom from the pain of giving and being an assist to systems that hurt other people. You will lose some; you will. And then you will be free from people who won’t operate on a higher level of humanity.

Operating from this is also work, but it isn’t the kind that hurts us on a soul level or the level of hurting humanity. In fact, it’s actually restorative on a cellular level. And the best part of all… you will be on your way to telling the truth when you say, “I LOVE ALL PEOPLE.”

Cobwebs, Dirty Floors, and Love

If you’re going to tell me that I need to learn to love myself (or ourselves, in a group setting) in order to love you with the love and respect you deserve, I can’t hear you if you aren’t loving me. I can’t hear you if you are coming from grudge (or anger, yelling, vitriol) vs. love.

It’s tricky, isn’t it? What I hear you saying may very well be the truth, or may certainly have some true parts. But it’s like giving advice to someone else on how to keep their house clean while you have cobwebs all over yours. Your cobwebs don’t actually make any of the truth less true. However, they make you less believable about what you know and want, so you are now suspect for motives, suspect as to what will be returned for changed behavior. Your intention isn’t coming from the same energy that you wish to receive.

Now, you will get a few on board who will hear you and see the truth in spite of your own cobwebs and adjust accordingly; and you will have some form of agreement from the few self-loathing as well. But you will not ultimately get the return you were going for, which is a transformed group.

What a conundrum. Sometimes we really need to be heard, or sometimes we really need to hear. How difficult it can be to express hurt, fear, or anger and be heard fully without losing humanity towards the other person our group!

Love is some tricky shit when you think you can out-maneuver it.

Forgive and Forget

This subject was heavy on my mind this morning as I listened to Joel Osteen speak about how God forgives always, and how His forgiveness is always greater than any error one could ever commit.  I got to thinking about a couple of people I have chosen not to forgive and whose transgressions I refuse to forget.  What would it mean for me to forgive these people?  I am a forgiving person, and have long understood that “forgive and forget” does not translate into allowing harmful or toxic people to continue in my life.  So why have I chosen, knowingly, to hang onto the pains caused by these people?  They are not still doing anything to me, and this allows them to continue in my life in a toxic way.  This is my self-examination today.
From Dictionary.com
Word Origin & History
FORGIVE
O.E. forgiefan “give, grant, allow,” also “to give up” and “to give in marriage;” from for- “completely” + giefan “give” (see give). The modern sense of “to give up desire or power to punish” is from use of the compound as a Gmc. loan-translation of L. perdonare (cf. Du. vergeven, Ger. vergeben; see pardon).
From Merriam-Webster.com
Full Definition of FORGIVE
transitive verb
1          a :  to give up resentment of or claim to requital for
            b :  to grant relief from payment of
2          :  to cease to feel resentment against (an offender) :  pardon
From Dictionary.com
Word Origin & History
FORGET
O.E. forgytan, from for- “passing by, letting go” (cf. forbear, forgo) + gietan “to grasp” (see get). A common Gmc. construction (cf. O.S. fargetan, Du. vergeten, Ger. vergessen “to forget”). The literal sense would be “to lose (one’s) grip on,” but that is not recorded in any
Germanic language.
  
From Merriam-Webster.com
Full Definition of FORGET
transitive verb
1          a :  to lose the remembrance of :  be unable to think of or recall
            b obsolete :  to cease from doing
2          :  to treat with inattention or disregard
3          a :  to disregard intentionally :  overlook —usually used in the imperative
            b :  to give up hope for or expectation of —usually used in the imperative
intransitive verb
1          :  to cease remembering or noticing
2          :  to fail to become mindful at the proper time
So… to completely give a let-go!  This is why it is a gift to oneself.  
“Forgive and forget” is made a difficult practice by the confusion that it means to release another from his or her transgressions and allow them back – back in one’s life, back home, back in a group, etc.  This is faulty thinking and leads only to heartache and often bitterness of the one preoccupied and determined not to forgive.  That takes effort, but forgiveness actually takes far less effort!  Every action receives a reaction from the universe.  So consider if we forgive, we receive a certain path to take, and if we do not, we receive another.  Which would you have – one chosen for you, or one that you choose freely and with far less effort?
One can find many Bible verses about forgiveness.  Whether you claim a religion or not, they are all good advice, and worthy of much consideration and action.  However, I have yet to find a verse that says we should forgive AND forget.  I think forgetting, as in something being involuntarily or voluntarily wiped from one’s memory is impossible – at least in a force-it-out kind of way. 
As used in the context of forgive and forget, the forgetting is in letting go; it is a ceasing of purposely and purposefully recalling.  Let go of the attachment you have to the error.  Let go of the emotion you have attached to the error.  Most importantly, let go of how right you are about the error.  Whether you are right or not about the error, it is still the error.  Just let it gooooooo…   and let the universe swallow it up for you.  It is just as simple (or difficult, depending on one’s outlook) to practice letting go as it is to practice harboring the judgment and anger.  Yes, it is a practice.  We become better at that which we focus – positive or negative.  Much like forgiveness, there is another choice about direction here.  Which will you choose?
Forgiving and forgetting is not releasing the one (or ones) who hurt you.  To the contrary, it is about releasing yourself from the hurt.  The life path of the person who hurt you does not change whether you choose to forgive and forget, or not.  But yours DOES!  We choose our own paths, even when we are asleep at the wheel, and inaction is still an action. 
Wake up!  Pay attention!  Turn on your conscious GPS!  If you could draw out your choices over your lifetime as a map, how would those twists and turns look?  Where have they taken you, and what journey are you still on?  Are you progressing?  Do you feel good about your direction?  Are you going in circles only to end up in the same spot all the time?  Are you lost – wandering aimlessly?  Each choice takes a particular path.  Each choice rewards us with something.  We each created our own maps, life journeys, and painted ourselves into a particular picture.  Where are you headed?
(It is important to remember that transgressions, whether real or perceived, are always real to the one who owns the experience.)
  
References
Forget. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved January 19, 2014, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Forget
Forget. (n.d.). Merriam-Webster.com. Retrieved January 19, 2014, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/forget
Forgive. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrieved January 19, 2014, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/Forgive

Forgive. Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Retrieved January 19, 2014. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/forgive