When Your Past Comes Back

I recently got a phone call from someone I know who works in the same industry I do. I have known this person for many years and they had called me to say some things they had never said before, nice things, that meant a lot, but what caused this person to reach out was a conversation they had had with someone who had once been a very close friend, a friend I considered family, who abruptly chose to end our friendship because I had called him out on what I considered bad behavior, putting their desire to succeed or appear to be getting ahead of true relationships and friendships, in some ways, doing exactly what I had pointed out to him years prior, using people to make connections in my industry. I was shocked to hear that this former friend had used my name to connect with someone I know and had introduced him to at functions I had brought him to years before, and that he had spoken as if we were still just close and in each other’s lives. When I first learned that this had happened, and it wasn’t the first time since the friendship was terminated, I was taken aback, and then the anger set in.

Many of us can relate to situations like mine and have found themselves in my position. The hurt part of me, and the hurt is still in there, more than I actually realized until that phone call, wanted to start typing and put this person in their place. How dare he use my name, after dumping me and my friendship, to get into the good graces of someone with the hope of getting work from them. Regardless of feelings, that is just not right. You don’t throw away a close friendship of many years because you don’t want to hear what that friend has to say, and then use that friend’s name and reputation to benefit you when you see an opportunity. I sat there hands trembling, phone in hand, my anger bubbling up. Luckily took a deep breath and walked away. See, it benefits no one for me to lash out at this person. My response, initially, during the phone call made it known that the individual who was using my name was no longer in my life, and if the person I was talking to was listening, and I’m sure he was, he would have known in that moment that the individual who used my name was not being truthful about the nature of our relationship, that’s all that needed to happen. I didn’t call him out because then I look like the spiteful one, I only spoke the truth, but left out anything that could be construed as malicious, after all, I had nothing to hide or be ashamed of, but if I had laid out all the dirty laundry regarding this person I would be the one that came off looking bad.

Not even a week later I had to sit through a video call with that person on my screen, who made the point to say he was there because of me, I smiled tightly and kept my mouth shut, as I knew the others on that call would realize the truth in time and it would not benefit me mentally or spiritually to call out a rat in front of my colleagues.

I am grateful for what my current path has taught me. I have learned to always be true to myself, to worry not so much about being right but being happy, and to worry about keeping my side of the street clean, and someone else’s side is not my concern. People will do what they do, and they will hurt us, we may hurt others, even without knowing it, or perhaps we will know, but life isn’t about a scorecard, it’s about doing the best we can each day and focusing on letting go of those things in our lives that distract us or are meant to take us off course. Life sometimes throws us those little curveballs, and we can choose to catch them and throw them back and play ball, or we can dodge them and focus on the positive aspects of your lives, and those people, places and things that fill us with light, diving down the rabbit hole of a past grievance will never bring us light, it will only pull us down into the dark.

Stay focused on your best self and don’t allow someone else to divert you down a path that will dim your light within. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Have you in the past confronted someone who may have hurt you long after the event happened? What was the result? How did that make you feel? If you felt good, in the moment, did that feeling last? How did you feel later? Was that feeling, either initially or later, something that no longer felt good? Why do you think that is? Are you someone who can let things go and move on or do you feel compelled to dive back in? Does it feel good to go back? How does it feel? There are many triggers and many people who will try to pull us back, but we are not meant to go there, we are meant to live our best lives today, to work on those events that may have hurt us and learn to let them go, carrying them around only harms us, and instead of holding on to the hurt we should choose to break those chains from our past and find a new freedom in our lives today.

S – self  L – love A – appreciate Y – you