Hurt People

Hurt people hurt people.  This is a concept that takes years to understand and a ton of mindset training to really accept.

When people say something negative to you…about you…put down who you are, what you are doing, or just try to pull you under…it is human nature to feel pain.  It causes sadness, it causes stress.  One of the most important needs of humans is love and belonging  (and if you’ve listened to Brene Brown’s audio, “The Power of Vulnerability”, you will know all about this).

I think back to highschool when the kids on the bus would call me “Casper”.  When someone stood up in class and pointed to me and said I was one of the “dorks”.   This was a time when I was always thinking people were whispering about me, talking about my flat chest, my shyness, and my uncool clothes.

In fact, I was close friends with very few people in my Highschool…most of my best buds were gymnasts on my team that were younger or went to different schools.  These were the friends that knew me…that saw the hours I put in at the gym…that knew how hard and dedicated I was…that saw me cry…they saw my struggles and triumphs.   This is where my vulnerability showed.  This is where I was loved and accepted…no matter how dorky I was.

I am 36 now, and I have just in the last few years gotten to a point where I’m not so concerned what others think about me.  I know there are people that love me and accept me for who I am.  I realize not everyone is going to like me…some people might even talk bad about me; and though it takes my breath away for a second, I am able to do a self check and remind myself…it’s not me…it’s their own insecurities…it’s something going on in their mind and their heart causing them a need to put down someone else.

Now here’s the thing.  Even though I realize this, I still get so fired up when it happens to my loved ones.  When one of my teammates was getting negative comments on her positive posts, I was furious.  It’s not doing them any good, it’s not doing my friend any good.  What is the point?

When a young girl that is very dear to me, who has stepped way out of her “safe place”, her “comfort zone”, starts having other girls put her down on social media because of their own insecurities and inability to accept others, I am ready to become unglued.

While what I want to do is send messages to these people letting them know they need some personal development…they need to look at themselves and learn to be happy with themselves instead of looking to hurt other people to make themselves feel better…I take a deep breath instead.

I take a deep breath.  Because you know what?  None of them will ever know how hard you worked.  Nobody will ever know the strength it took to be vulnerable…to take a leap off the safe edge of the cliff.  And this is a learning time.   This is a time you learn that you don’t have to feed into the negativity. You don’t have to fight back and give people what they want.  You get to hold your head up high, press on with doing what you believe in and are passionate about, and realize that the ones who matter are the one’s cheering you on and supporting you.

Then you pray for the critical, cynical people.  You pray they can find true inner happiness in themselves so that they can learn to be supportive, loving, and happy for other people.  Because seriously…how sad to have so much negativity towards life and other people…to waste so much energy about how unfair things are or how you can pull someone else down.  Life’s not a competition of who is better than who…who deserves more than who…life is about being a team and lifting people up no matter what.