deflect

Your Bad Behavior Doesn’t Give Me Permission For My Bad Behavior

Some of us never grow out of that playground mentality from our childhood, that if someone hits you, you get to hit them back. I know when I was living in the dark, especially when I was feeling my worst, I would hope someone would act out and invite me to do the same, I’d even go as far as try to incite someone to act out so I could unleash my own bad behavior without guilt. Or at least I thought I was getting off scot-free, but deep down I knew I was baiting someone just so I could act out and take out my anger and frustrations on someone else, and, in the end, it only made me feel worse, because really, as much as I wanted to tell myself I was a bad person, I wasn’t, I was just doing bad things, and, making bad decisions.

When I changed paths, and stepped onto the path I am now, I was told that I had to keep my side of the street clean. My side of the street, at that time, was littered with garbage, so I had to work on cleaning that up, but also not adding anymore junk to what was already there. Feeling vulnerable in this new place I had to be extra vigilant to not try to bait anyone into bad behavior and look for an excuse to exercise mine, and, when I felt baited, retreat, walk away and not engage, which was not always easy, but I knew if I was to find any kind of success and find the happiness I was working for I had to stay away from any traps to fall back into my old ways. I found that I also had to forgive myself for my old behavior and understand why I had chosen to behave the way I had, which, as it turned out, was always self-serving and a way to deflect my feelings from how badly I felt about myself as well as giving me the continued narrative of playing a victim. So, if I needed some extra material to keep telling the story the way I wanted to, I created the opportunities to make that happen. I spent a lot of time masterminding ways to stay sick, so once I turned all that energy toward my own good, things started to change pretty quickly. I also began to notice that when I didn’t participate in my bad behavior I didn’t feel, well, bad. Go figure. And, when I chose to perform esteemable acts, I began to feel good about myself and I didn’t want to go looking for situations that were going to change that. Now, that’s not to say that there haven’t been times that I have engaged and dipped my toe back into those murky waters, and, for a split second, I have gotten that surge of electricity that I used to get when my bad behavior kicks in, but it’s very short-lived, and it’s quickly replaced with shame and guilt, and when I remind myself of that it stops me from engaging the next time.

We all find ourselves in situations when someone is acting out in bad behavior, and we always have a choice to accept their invitation to do the same, or, choose to act in a way that honors ourselves, and them, even if they aren’t doing it themselves. It isn’t always easy to do the right thing, but it’s worth it when we do and don’t allow ourselves to be sucked into someone else’s battle, bad day, or just plain bad behavior. Ask yourself if jumping in the ring of bad behavior is worth how you’ll feel afterwards, in my experience, it never is. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you react and get involved with other people’s bad behavior? How do you do this? How do you feel afterwards? How does this hurt you? Write down an example. How does it challenge relationships in your life? Have you walked away from situations where someone is acting out on their bad behavior? How did you feel after to not have engaged? Write down an example. Do you feel like not engaging makes you weak or a pushover? Why do you think that? It doesn’t SLAYER, it actually makes you the stronger person, to stand up for who you are, to love and honor yourself enough to not put yourself in a negative situation when you don’t belong there. Don’t let someone else’s bad behavior invite you to use yours.

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

Laughter: A Sign Of Good Health

When I first stepped on this path and made a commitment to get better there wasn’t much to laugh about. I had hit the lowest bottom I ever had, emotionally, physically and spiritually, my life was hanging in the balance and every moment felt very fragile. When I began to look for support, and for others like me, who were struggling to find a new way of living, and those who already had, I was surprised to find how much laughter there was in their recovery. I had not yet found the humor in where I found myself at all, and yet, often I would hear people share their stories or offer comfort to others with a sense of humor and laughter at the places they had come from or things they had once did. That laughter, that sense of humor about where we had come from and where we found ourselves in that moment helped to make things OK, it helped me to realize that the place I found myself was not a death sentence, nor was it a place where I was meant to suffer for the rest of my life and have no fun, the work I had to do was serious, but I didn’t have to take myself so seriously, in fact, to recover, to get better, to find this new way of life, it was going to help tremendously to find some humor in my own situation if I was going to be able to let go and move on.

My Mom, who has had her struggles with health over the years, has always said, “if I’ve lost my sense of humor I’ve lost everything,” even in the moments when she was in the worst pain or discomfort. I remembered that as I set out in this new journey, that I too needed to hold on to my sense of humor as I stepped forward and began to heal. Even in the very serious place I found myself, in terms of needing to come clean and get help for the way I had been living, and to find a way to live with my mental illness, it helped to look for those moments that I could laugh at, and they were harder to find at the start, but they were there. Life is really what we make it, and even in our darkest days we have a choice how we’re going to look at it and deal with it. As painful as much of my early recovery was emotionally, it helped to lighten the load with some laughter where I could, but, I had to be careful. I had built up such a strong wall to protect myself that I had also used my sense of humor to deflect and hide behind. I had to be careful in those early days to not use my laughter to try to escape the truth and brush off the work I was needing to do. The laughter could not be self-deprecating, it couldn’t be an act to hide how I truly felt, and it couldn’t be at someone else’s expense, my laughter had to come from a place of humility, to connected and relation to someone like myself and as an act of healing.

As I got better so did my sense of humor about the road that had brought me to my knees. I realized that my suffering was a result of my disease along with choices I had been making, and many of those choices, looking back, now seem pretty funny, even though I had justified them at the time, but to be able to look back and find the humor from a happier and healthier place, allowed me to put some perspective on how bad things were and how bad many of my choices were. And that laughter helped me to create bonds with others, like myself, who had traveled down similar roads. Our laughter united us and made us stronger.

When we find ourselves on those dark moments of our life it can be difficult to find the humor in our situation, but just finding one thing could make the difference of struggling through another day, or finding the light on an otherwise dark existence, that laughter just may be the key to opening the door and setting yourself free. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you take yourself seriously or are you able to find the humor in things? If you’re not able to, why not? If you are, how do you look for the humor in your day-to-day life? How has humor helped you through a difficult time? How has it connected you to people like yourself? And how have those connections helped you on your journey? If you have trouble finding the humor your day, how can you look for those moments to find it and maybe lighten your mood? Can you think of something in your past, that now, looking back, may seem funny to you? Do you see how finding the humor in those moments allows the light to come in? Find those moments SLAYER. Look for the humor in your life, allow yourself to laugh and let yourself heal from those darkest days.

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

If You Spot It You’ve Got It

Typically those things we find irritating others, those things we judge, or dislike, are things we also have, or dislike about ourselves. We may not always recognize that, we may be in denial that we too exhibit the same behavior, quirk or flaw, but there’s a reason we’re zeroing in on someone else and picking out those things in them, we recognize ourselves there.

Before stepping on this path, and before doing the work to acknowledge my own issues, I often judged other people. I judged them for exhibiting the same behaviors as I was, even though I would never admit that I was behaving that way, or had the issues “they” had. I always had an opinion about what they should be doing, or how they could do it better. And when they failed, I thought, they’re not strong like I am. But what I wasn’t willing to see is that all of that judgment I placed on other people was to deflect my own behavior and actions. If I could put the focus on everyone else, shine a spotlight on their character defects or bad decisions, I could keep doing what I was doing in the dark without anyone noticing, or so I thought. I was noticing. Maybe not consciously, but subconsciously, there was no hiding from myself. And once I made the commitment to get honest, and get better, I realized what I had been doing most of my life, pointing out other people’s flaws and mistakes, I was guilty of doing all of the same things. That was a tough pill to swallow at first because I had stood with my head held high like I was better, smarter and healthier than those I judged, and in the end I was just as bad, maybe even worse, and that was a big piece of humble pie.

Today when I start to judge someone, and it happens, I pause, and I take a look at why I am feeling the need to tear someone else down, and what may be missing or needing work on my end? What do I need to look at, and am avoiding, that’s causing me to want to shine the spotlight on someone else, instead of looking at myself? It’s a good indicator that I have work to do. And, I can now use my acknowledgment of someone else’s stuff as a form of compassion, or understanding, because I likely share in that same behavior. I have been able to turn my judgment of others into something positive, for me, and as a way to connect to those around me.

What we find disturbing or irritating in others is typically what we find disturbing or irritating in ourselves. And that, is our problem. We are all responsible for ourselves and our own behavior, what someone else is doing is none of your business. It is not up to us to judge them or school them on how they should be living their lives, but we can certainly look at how we’re living ours when we find our focus shifts to someone else. Our focus on someone else’s behavior is the best indicator that we need to shift our focus back on us. SLAY on!

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you tend to judge others for how they’re living their lives? Why do you think you do this? Do you try to give that person advice? How is that usually received? What behavior or character traits usually catch your eye as something that should be fixed? Do you see those same things in yourself? What can you do to place the focus back on yourself and away from judging someone else? What are some of the things that you pick out in others that you also have yourself? When you look at that list, how do you feel? What don’t you like about what’s written on that list? What can you do to fix that? We all have moments when we judge others. It’s what we do when we notice we’re doing that sets us apart. Use those moments to take a look at your own behavior and actions, use those urges to fix someone to fix yourself. Find away to let that stuff go.

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