That moment when you hear people talking about you (Part 3) - Day 540

Continuing with the previous blog where I discussed my relationship to overhearing someone talking about me and what revealed during the process of investigating this points inside of myself. As well as the solutions and practical support I've been practicing in real time moments. For context, please read: That moment when you hear people talking about you (Part 1) - Day 538 and That moment when you hear people talking about you (Part 2) - Day 539

In this blog post I will talk about the importance of stopping the reactions towards another person talking about you and how to take the 'negative' experience and transform it to a life lesson from which you can empower yourself from.

Let's go to the basics for a moment. To the root cause of why we are so afraid of one another; why it is so easy to break someone's trust; Why we fear being vulnerable with each other; why we react to judgement so much.

Here, I ask you all to move yourself for just a moment, to a point of self-honesty when answering the following questions:

Is it because of us knowing how deep the rabbit hole goes? Meaning, seeing the extent of our own mind and how nasty we can be when no one is hearing/watching our thoughts? And because we know how Negative and judgemental we can be in our mind, we assume that other people's mind is exactly the same. Isn't that so?

So yes, sometimes our nasty thoughts are coming into the open in a form of gossiping about someone with another. And Yes, it is not valid.. These thoughts need to be removed by each one of us taking personal responsibility for our own mind. But we are not yet there as it is a process that needs to be walked by each one of us individually.

What took me so long to realize was that when someone gossip about you, it is another in their mind that is speaking.. It is not the deep real being that is so suppressed underneath the layers of their mind. Meaning, it is not personal towards you, it is just the mind being exposed to the extent of its automated programming that they need to step out from with awareness. But the question is - how to create that awareness? Can they be aware if you are reacting to them instead of supporting them to be aware of that one singular point they have exposed themselves to?

As long as we react to the words spoken in that moment, we are not just compromising our relationship with others, we also compromise the other's personal growth, and the chance that they have to change in that real time moment when we stand up and show them what they have accepted and allowed, in giving their mind absolute control over their physical reality.

It is time we move ourselves from reaction to solutions.. To walk out of the reaction and to stand up as the solution. I know it is easy said than done but we have to start practicing this skill. Like with any skill, mistakes are going to be made and we are going to stumble until we find our feet within it all but eventually we would; I am ready to start. Are you?

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Art: Gossiping by Itzchak Tarkay

That moment when you hear people talking about you (Part 1) - Day 538

"Be Impeccable With Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love."

Don Miguel Ruiz

How many of you experienced a moment when you overheard people talking about you? How did it make you feel? What did you do about it? How did this moment changed your relationship with these people once you knew the truth of what they think about you? Where you able to overcome that moment and trust these people again? Here is my story:

I remember that day when my innocence flew out of the window. It was when I overheard my best friend talking shit about me with her father and it broke my heart. It wasn't even serious stuff, she didn't say anything nasty about me meaning, it wasn't what she said, it was the way that she said and what was the undercurrent of how she said it if that make sense.

I did not know from where it all came from and with being so overwhelmed, I went home and haven't spoken with her for months. Not until our parents intervene and "forced" the relationship back and I just agreed because I wanted to please everyone. Though, inside myself, I knew, I cannot trust this person and I've been secretly waiting for the day our path would split apart without having to hurt her, the family and other friends that were involved.

For years later, I went away from anyone who I perceived to betray my trust. If they used something that I said against me; if they went behind my back and caused frictions between me and other people; if they kept on going to other people to talk about me instead of coming to me; If any of that happened, I had no interest in continue developing my relationship with them.

Later, when I started my personal development process , I realized that these 'gossiping' moments are coming from the mind of people and it doesn't define who they really are underneath the layers of the mind. Same way, it doesn't define me. Yet, the experience of being betrayed kept on coming up inside of me which showed I haven't reached a point of self-forgiveness and self-honesty.

I continued working with these points and as I was walking through the layers of my mind, I found a protection mechanism I've programmed myself back in childhood: to protect myself from people that may hurt me or break my trust. Obviously, this again showed I haven't reached a point of self-forgiveness nor self-honesty. And so, self-introspection continued.

Will continue in my next blog.  

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Art: Anna Baklane | Saatchi Art

Do you have the right to judge another - Day 531

Not too long ago, I wrote a blog post about 'Gossiping' A piece of gossip - Day 528 where I redefined 'Gossiping' as speaking or thinking about someone while not daring speaking the same words in front of that person. Since then, I've been looking deeper at the design of gossiping and I found a few interesting things that I would like to share here today.

Have you ever noticed how much gossiping is actually going on in your mind? How much judgement and blame it projected towards people in your direct and indirect environment? It can be the smallest judgement as "look at what they wear, I will never wear this" to: "I can't believe they behaved this way. I will never do it" to: "What's wrong with her/him, they completely ignored me today, this is rude" and so one and so forth.

Now, is it not that one of our greatest concerns is being judged by others. There is constant part of us thinking what other people may be thinking about us. Why is that? Why would we be afraid and concern about what other people says about us in their mind? Is it not because of us knowing that we are doing the exact same thing, judging the person standing/speaking in front of us, in our mind, allowing the inner gossip to continue at the same time we are concerned about being judged by another. lol

So on its purest form, we are concern or afraid being judged by others, because we know what we accept and allow as judgement, to exists inside of ourselves and because we know how nasty that judgement can be, we are concern about the potential nastiness coming through in another's mind, this time, towards us. Isn't it?
 

How about an experiment - stop participate in judgement and see if you afraid of being judged. How to support yourself to stop participating in judgement towards others?

In a discussion that I had with a friend the other day, hearing them judging their employees, I asked them to stop for a moment so that we can discern the situation on a deeper level. I then asked them a question: Can you self-honestly and unconditionally place yourself in their shoes, within their mind, within the consideration of who they are, where they came from, their cultural design, their education, their life experiences and so on.. Can you then, as them, participate in judgement? Or can you now suggest solutions?

This is such a powerful tool because for the first time, you actually understand that you have no right to judge another, before you are able to unconditionally and absolutely place yourself in their shoes and provide/suggest solutions to the problems that you became aware of. Unless you can do that, unless you can step out of your own judgemental mind and place yourself in another's shoes, you have no right to judge.

I have placed a few red flags for myself lately, and that is standing as a great support in my process of stopping any and all gossiping both internally and externally. The flags are:

1. Can you say the same thing directly to the person?

2. Can you turn the point back to yourself and see that you are doing the exact same thing you judge another in doing?

3. Can you place yourself in their shoes, absolutely and unconditionally?

4. Can you stand as your and theirs support structure?

You will find that by asking these questions, you will already be one step closer to your stability. Because you have taken the responsibility to question yourself, and what you accepted and allowed yourself to participate with in your mind. Moving to the solution would be your next step.. Solution as in - how to best support myself and another in the discussed situation? That would be something that may come more naturally once you stand in their other's shoes, without any judgement.

Let's continue exploring these points and see what comes up.. You are more than welcome to leave your comments

A piece of gossip - Day 528

Most people define gossip as a conversation that is based on judgment of someone who is not presence.

There are many reasons as to why people gossip but primarily it is because of:

1. Projecting superiority - some people feel that by saying negative things about others, they feel or seen as superior by those who the gossiping is discussed with.
2. Jealousy - people may gossip about those they compare themselves with out of jealousy towards them. This gives them a temporary feeling of being 'more than'.
3. Getting attention - some people get to be the center of attention temporarily while exposing a piece of information about others.
4. Spite, anger - people may deliberately gossip about other people when they feel hurt or betrayed by another.

5. Boredom - In situations where people are lacking knowledge or personal experience that could support a discussion with another, they move to gossip to draw some attention.

But interestingly enough, what most of us do not consider is that gossiping in primarily done… wait for it… in our HEADS!

In our minds, in our little space where no one can listen, we allow ourselves to gossip, and gossip and gossip and.. How many times do we actually stop the train of gossip and ask ourselves - "but where are these thoughts are coming from? Why am I carrying this negative talk about others in my heads?"

So regardless if we gossip externally or internally, we most likely to participate in gossip on a daily basis. One thing is certain - as long as we carry judgement towards ourselves or others, we can be sure we are accepting and allowing gossiping to be a part of our reality. We can be sure that we are not standing as a point of direction and support towards ourselves or others.

There are many resources that explain the design of gossip so I am not going into it. Instead, this blog will focus on

how to support yourself to identify gossip and how to become aware in real time moment to stop participating with gossip.

Identifying gossip:

My rule of thumb is answering the questions: "Will I say the same things that I am saying now or thinking now, if the person I am speaking/thinking about was presence?"

If I can't stand by my words or thoughts and share my thoughts/words with the person the internal/external conversation is about then, ladies and gentlemen, we are dealing with the design of gossip and not with a principle of self-honesty and the support of one another.

From here, you must take the point into self-introspection: it is obvious that you are reacting to the other person in one way or another - identify the type of reaction you are carrying and direct yourself towards a solution. For more support with that, please visit DIP Lite - Life Skills & Self-Mastery Online Courses.

Changing a pattern in real time moment support

For more context, please also read: Day 567: Authority and Consequence – Part 1.

Becoming aware in real time moment that you are participating in a specific design is a bit tricky because usually by the time you become aware of this, it's almost "too late" in the sense of you are already in it.. Within the context of gossiping, by the time you are aware of your participation with gossip, you are already in the heart of gossip discussion.

What I find supporting me with becoming aware of gossiping is by working with my own mind - slowing down and observing the thoughts that contain the nature of gossip. This allows me to see the type of reaction that I carry, the nature of the emotion and from there I can stop my participation with the gossip type thoughts and direct myself towards the solution, starting with self-forgiveness.

Within that, I am able to support myself to stop my participation in real time moment when I find myself participating in a gossip based conversation as well as supporting others when they are participating in gossip. Obviously - this take practice, patience and the ability to forgive yourself, learn from your mistakes and commit to change this destructive pattern but the more you practice a skill, the better you become.

Essentially, I use the rule of thumb here as well, when I become aware that there is a potential for a conversation to go into the direction of gossip, I stop and ask myself "Will I say the same things that I am saying now or thinking now, if the person I am speaking/thinking about was presence?". Then I know whether I stand in relation to the one who is being gossiped.

So to answer the questions How to become aware in real time moment that you are participating with gossiping? I would say it is a matter of getting to know your mind and introspecting the design of gossip so that you are able to identify when and why you have or still are participating with gossip. Then, walk through a process of self-forgiveness - forgive yourself for accepting and allowing the design of gossip to be a part of who you are, take responsibility and authority for this design so that you are able to make the decision to stop your participation. Now that you made it your goal to change in real time moment - you already placing awareness as a red flag inside of you to alert you when gossiping is happening. So you practice this point until you change and no longer directed by gossiping but rather by principles that would support yourself and everyone else, to the best of your ability.For more support, please invest time in DIP Lite - Life Skills & Self-Mastery Online Courses.

Facing Gossip – Day 7

http://eqafe.com/i/mharel-life-review-facing-gossip

I forgive myself that I’ve NOT accepted and allowed myself to see that through accepting and allow the thoughts about other beings in my mind, I accept and allow a pattern of gossiping and in that, indicating that my thoughts as the nature of me are in fact Evil.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to define myself as righteous because I’m not participating in gossiping without realizing that if I allow myself to participate in thoughts towards another human being, I am indeed participating with gossiping. And within that, I forgive myself that I’ve NOT accepted and allowed myself to see the nature of my thoughts as gossiping because I’ve define gossiping only when and as I’m in the presence of other human beings.

I forgive myself that I’ve not accepted and allowed myself to realize that when and as I hear people gossiping about something or someone and I’ve not directed the point through assisting and supporting the beings with stopping the evil nature of the discussion, I have, in that moment, accepted and allowed abuse because I’ve not taken the responsibility to end the existence of the pattern of gossiping in this world because I feared that if I would, I will be the next target of gossiping as well as being outcast from the group/beings because I’ve not accepted the gossiping habit that is the base of friendship as it is exists today.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to participate in the pattern of gossiping in my mind because I’ve NOT realized that having thoughts about someone else in my mind IS in fact gossiping, but because we are doing it in secret, we believe that it’s valid.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to believe that I’m thinking/gossiping about someone else in my mind while the truth of the matter is that I’m only gossiping about myself with myself and it is never about anyone else but me.  

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed the evil nature of human beings in this world through thinking in my secret mind thoughts about another being without realizing that exactly as I am participating in it, everyone else are doing the same but none of us are really taking the responsibility to stop the evil nature as our thoughts that we have become because we think and believe that if we are doing it secretly, it is valid because we apparently, do not harm anyone however, through accepting and allowed the evil nature of the thoughts, we are accepting and allowing the evil nature of this world without taking the responsibility and direct ourselves according to principle of oneness and equality.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed the blame towards those who participate in gossip without turning the point back to myself to see that I’m doing exactly the same through accepting and allowing thoughts about another human being without giving it directing – other to stop my participation when as the topic of the backchat discussion is based on self interest or, direct the point physically when the nature of the discussion is a point that required direction because that is what is best for all and in that – I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed the accumulation of thoughts about a point that require direction and yet, I didn’t direct it because I feared conflicts without realizing that not directing a point that require direction is basically the acceptance and allowance of compromising myself, others and this world because I’ve not taking the responsibility to stand up and walk in every breath according to what is best for all.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to be confused when a point require direction and instead of cross referencing it with another being, I haven’t done so because I thought that discussing it will be considered as gossiping however, I haven’t realized that if I accept and allow myself to keep thinking about it without giving it direction, I’m gossiping within myself and compromising not only me but also everyone else.

I forgive myself that I’ve NOT accepted and allowed myself to see the evil nature of ourselves as the participation with thoughts about other human beings and I haven’t considered that if that is being allowed within ourselves, that is also allowed within this world system and thus, we are causing the harm of the integrity of others by spreading false rumors.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed the design of friendship that is defined by gossiping about people in this world without considering the harm to the integrity of others when spreading rumours that have no substantial context to it.   

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to believe that I can fit in to groups of people if I have something in common with them like gossiping about other people and I’ve NOT realized that this type of friendship is not valid in anyway because instead of directing ourselves and our world to stop the habitual nature of gossiping as the evil nature of ourselves, we have accepted the pattern as valid and OK because we feared that if we won’t, we will not be accepted by society.

I forgive myself that I’ve NOT accepted and allowed myself to see that through complaining about beings with other beings, I’m actually participating with the gossiping pattern because I’ve not accepted and allowed myself to find a solution and/or direct the point but I rather stayed in the complaining mode so that I could define myself better than the other person as well as self righteous.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to participate in gossiping either within myself or with others because I’ve tried to validate me through compromising and diminishing other being in my life so that I could define and experience myself as more than them.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to find it interesting to gossip about other human beings in this world in the nature of celebrities because through finding false in those who have money, fame and power, I believed that my life isn’t useless and lame as I perceived it to be.

I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself through gossiping about celebrities and finding fault in them, I’ve justified why my own life are fine and ok because apparently, their lives are more fucked up even with their fame, money and power but what I’ve missed was that as long as NOT all lives are fulfilled in the utmost potential, none of us are really fine and ok and thus, I forgive myself that I’ve accepted and allowed myself to waste my time in gossiping about people in this world instead of utilizing the time to actually do something meaningful in this world and finding a solution that will insure a dignified life for all.

I forgive myself that I’ve NOT accepted and allowed myself to see that the nature of gossiping is actually due to jealousy because self perceive oneself as lacking and thus, through participating in gossiping, one is avoiding what is here as what as self accepted and allowed self to be and become in separation of self, and missing a moment of opportunity to bring the point back to self, face, correct and change.

I commit myself to stop my own participation of thoughts towards another human being in the nature of gossiping and instead, investigating within myself what the nature of the discussion that I’m participating with within my mind is revealing to myself and how through that, I can assist and support myself to become in fact a being that is worthwhile.

I commit myself to stop the nature of gossiping within my mind.

I commit myself to – when and as I see myself accessing thoughts about another human being in the nature of gossiping, I stop, I breathe and I bring myself back here to and as my human physical body. I realize that if I accept the evil nature of gossiping within myself, I accept and allow the evil nature of this world and for the world to change, I have to change within the principle of oneness and equality.

I commit myself to – when and as I see myself participating with gossiping, either within myself or with others, to ask myself whether I would speak the same words if the person that I’m speaking about was here. If the answer is No, I immediately stop, breathe and direct myself and/or the people that I’m with to turn the point back to self and see what self has accepted and allowed self to participate with, in separation of oneself and one’s world.