May | 2012 | Share Your Love Story

When They Bring Baggage To Your Door

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What do you do when someone brings baggage to your doorstep? Don’t invite them in!

This recent status got a lot of reaction from everyone and I was inspired to expand on it.

So what do you do when someone brings their baggage to your doorstep? When they fling their crap your way, or as some followers of psychology would say, “they project”.

Psychological projection or projection bias is a psychological defense mechanism where a person subconsciously denies his or her own attributes, thoughts, and emotions, which are then ascribed to the outside world, usually to other people. Thus, projection involves imagining or projecting the belief that others originate those feelings.^[1]

An example of this behavior might be blaming another for self failure. The mind may avoid the discomfort of consciously admitting personal faults by keeping those feelings unconscious, and by redirecting libidinal satisfaction by attaching, or “projecting,” those same faults onto another person or object.

I got the above definition from Wikipedia.

So yes, I get it that when this happens they are most likely projecting. And some who are open to hear me might be able to stop and take a look at themselves if I firmly say, “You’re projecting!” If their words don’t affect me much, they might be the ones walking away frustrated. But….

But in the heat of the moment of an interaction with someone who is at my doorstep unpacking their bags, my logical knowledge that they are most likely projecting could go out of the window if the words coming out of their mouth seem to kick me hard in the belly.

And I am left there standing with a swelling urge to knock them across the head. This is what can happen when someone dumps their baggage on me.

In this moment, it doesn’t really matter if they are projecting because I’ve been triggered. My emotions have been activated. I feel angry, or even sad. I want to lash back.

This trigger moment is what I find so important when it comes to talking about baggage,flinging crap, or projecting, because What do I do when someone flings crap at me? What do I do when I feel my own suitcase opening up?

First and foremost I need to bring it back to me and not THEM.

I try like hell to become aware of my own emotions and beliefs that are coming up in the moment.Rather than focus on THEM, I have an internal dialogue in my head recognizing and admitting whats going on as they are talking. It goes something like this:

THEM: ”Patty blah blah blah, you know you always blah blah blah, and you never blah blah blah and why don’t you blah blah blah and if you just wouldn’t blah blah blah there would not be a problem!”

ME: “Oh, this is where I feel guilty, or this is where I feel like I’m a bad person, or I’m not good enough,or I’m not appreciated…damn I’m so mad this stuff is coming out of their mouth, oh yeah this is where I need to prove myself right., this is where I probably would have blurted out f**k off”

When I do this, and it happens in a few nano seconds in my head I am more able NOT to take the action I will regret. I am more able NOT to invite them in and engage further.

At times I have felt completely crazy as I have gone through this dialogue and simultaneously let anger or any other emotion pulse through my body WITHOUT engaging in a word with them. But it has become such a good way for me to become more aware of myself and manage my choices.

Engaging with someones baggage is a choice! Picking up crap and flinging it back is a choice!

It’s kind of funny that the number one thing people write in their profiles on dating sites are: WANTED NO BAGGAGE.

I’ve got news, we all have some baggage.

Maybe a more accurate description should be: WANTED: PERSON WHO KNOWS HOW TO MANAGE THIER OWN BAGGAGE.

Maybe if we were all better baggage managers, having baggage would not be such an issue?

I’m not perfect, and I can’t promise that my insecurities won’t be triggered from time to time, but a huge part of my personal growth journey has been me always and eventually taking it back to me. Once you have that kind of awareness about yourself, you can’t go back to blaming ( although sometimes I might really want to) I will take it to me.

The Pain and Pleasure of Starting Over: accept.breathe.choose

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Starting over with anything in life is painful, and pleasurable, scary, yet exciting!

This was a new adventure for me; an ending and a new beginning as I boldly stated in December of 2008, ” Now we can write this book!”

At the time it was a mutual dream to write the book that we both always wanted to read. We emerged in a world of self exploration, and writing…lots of writing.

I jumped head first into a shit pool of my fears and insecurities. It was good for me because I discovered so much about myself.

My biggest RE-discovery has been my own STRENGTH. Somewhere THAT girl had been lost to me. I realized she had been hidden behind a thick wall that I had built; a wall intended for my own protection. A wall I boldly tore down when I decided to jump back into that pool. Over and over.

When I emerged this most recent time from the shit pool I was alone. Naked. Vulnerable.

My writing partner couldn’t write anymore or didn’t want to. Whatever the reason, our mutual dream to write that book that we always wanted to read ended in that moment. So did our business. All of our money, time, and effort, evaporated. I was afraid.

I felt anything but strong in the moment as it happened, but strong is exactly what I was! I was strong because I was so vulnerable. I see this now….it’s taken me a while to get here and see the correlation between strength and vulnerability.

Doing something on my own, like writing a book and starting a business felt extremely vulnerable to me. It felt much more comforting to do it with someone. He often shared the same sentiment. We later talked about the “death of our dream” and I came to realize those were his feelings; to not continue with the book or business. Although he had let go of that dream, my dream to create a book and a business was very much still alive.

I realize it wasn’t MY dream that had died at all, it was my FEAR that died, because my dream still felt as natural as breathing for me. Only I knew this dream was not something I still felt I needed to do with anyone. More importantly I knew I could do it alone, and I wanted to.

Life lesson #168 Discover my strength in my most vulnerable moment

For nearly a year I questioned the validity of all we had explored and written about. We once wrote , “three simple words that could change your world: accept.breathe.choose, it’s as easy as ABC”

But there was nothing f***ing easy about any of what was happening!

In a perfect world three simple words ( and actions…accepting what is,breathing,choosing something new) could be all anybody needs to make changes in their life. At their core, I still believe these 3 words to be valid. But life is often complicated, not easy, and I see the complexity within the application of these three words.

I certainly put them to the test when my business imploded. I knew that I had to dive into the complication. How else could I fully know the ease?

Life lesson #210 What is simple can be complicated, and vice versa.

I found myself reaching beyond those three words, and deep into my pockets for every personal growth tool I possessed. I reached for clarity and understanding, I searched my logic, I recalled every insight I had received from past teachers and books. I soothed my mind and my body with music, exercise, and being in nature. I talked to myself and I talked to others. I allowed my feelings. I dove into my writing. I dove deeper into myself. All of this so that I could shift.

I stood at the edge of the cliff and dove, free fall into the shit pool!

And I swam. It was more like a wave pool.

Once again I rode those waves into my own ACCEPTANCE.

Everything came rolling back to me and my acceptance or non acceptance. Breathing. Choosing. I’ve expanded the meaning of these three simple words like an accordion, and I’ve explored how complicated it can be to apply them, and compressed them back to their simplicity.

Life lesson #365 Life is about what you can and can’t accept, and what you can do about it.

Life lesson #366 Shouting “It shouldn’t be this way!” makes life lesson #365 much harder.

Life lesson #367 Time is never really ever wasted.

I’ve started over in many things, and as hard as it might have been at the time, I am so grateful for where I am right now! Whether it has been a relationship, my career, or even my bank account I have no regrets. I have gained more than I have ever lost. I have new awareness and a new open-ness.

Starting over can feel like the end of the world, but truly as I have discovered it is just the beginning.

Do You Really Need A Near Death Experience To Let Go Of The Bulls**t?

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Why must it take a near death experience or a health scare to make some people let go of the bulls**t? I’ve seen people experience that magical moment happen when a new appreciation is born and suddenly the little things that seemed so big, no longer matter.

It’s as if an internal on and off switch has been flipped.

I’ve been wondering, do I really need to get to that place to appreciate my life and what I have, and let go of the stuff that just brings me down?

My answer is loud, “NO, of course not!” Nor do I want to experience a health scare or some other type of devastation to trigger me to let go. But I am curious about the very physiological thing that goes on inside the body when that internal switch gets activated.

It’s that moment when I notice my body feels different. It’s that moment when I notice that I am no longer worried, disappointed, sad, angry, or bothered by something or someone.

It’s that moment of pure relief when I can say AND feel that “I’m OK with this!”

And I can see how these moments come in waves and varying degrees. I’m a little less worried, a little less sad, a little less disappointed. There is a definite physical-ness to this.

At my worst moments I have felt like an elephant sits on my chest, and my heart actually aches. In better moments I can actually breathe.

In that best moment, the moment that the internal switch gets activated, I feel nothing…and yet I feel something very different in my body.

The nothing/something I feel is because I’ve changed, and there’s an awareness. The very thing I could once NEVER imagine myself feeling better about, I suddenly do feel better about. Suddenly I am able to look back in retrospect about the person or the situation and be OK.

I imagine that this is the physiological and emotional moment that happens to people when they have that reality slap in the face feeling brought on from a near death experience. The switch gets activated. They don’t care about their bulls**t.

I have never had a near death experience, but I have felt my internal switch of inner peace activated. I call it my moment of ACCEPTANCE; it is when my body finally switches from non-acceptance to accepting what is. And this has nothing to do with people or situations changing.

In fact I find it most relevant for me when the person or the situation doesn’t change. (It’s easy, after all, to feel better if something outside of you changes.) But when they don’t:

When they still play games.
When they still make the same remarks to me
When they still behave how they always have behaved.
When they don’t do a damn thing differently.

or when I haven’t gotten the breakthrough, or the book deal, or the ideal financial situation.

But I’ve changed!

This is a very distinct moment for me. I can best describe it as a feeling of neutrality. There are no pings in my belly, but a feeling of calmness. Like I’ve made it through the storm.

I’d been caught up in some bullshit personally and business wise in the last few years, and I have spent so much time looking inward, understanding, releasing. I’ve done a lot of brutal and gentle talking to my-SELF. I’ve certainly felt that heavy elephant sitting on my chest, but recently I’ve once again experienced that weight being lifted.

That internal switch has been activated, and I can feel it. Change. Ease. Happiness.

I became hyper aware of this shift in me. I wanted to wrap up this feeling like left overs from an incredible meal, and savor it at a later time when I am hungry. The best I could do was put it into this blog.

Acceptance; it’s letting go of the bulls**t

Don’t We All Want To Be Appreciated?

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“All I want is to be appreciated!” This is what a recent client told me as we chatted about her relationship. Our interaction sparked me to write this post, because I realized how common it is NOT to feel appreciated. I hear this issue come up often with people.

Heck, I’ve felt this way in some of my past relationships!

As I chatted with her, she told me that she lived with her fiancé and that she was upset because he was always finding faults with her and he often put her down in front of her friends or he said things in private that left her feeling insecure about herself.

She shared that she cleaned the house, did their laundry, cooked all the meals, and made sure her fiancé’s needs were taken care of before her own. These household chores, she felt, were something he expected.

She felt she was taking care of him and therefore showing him love. Yet, she told me he was unhappy and picked on her. ”We just don’t understand each other!” she stated.

Their interaction became a contest of who works harder, with him claiming that her life was easy, and his much harder. Her feeling like she could not do enough! I could feel the animosity between them.

“It’s because you didn’t buy cream for the coffee that my life is miserable!”

There is always so much more going on when you get to this point in a relationship.

As she talked, I realized that the conversation was mostly about him. She wanted him to change, act different, be more loving, kind, and appreciative.

But she was not so kind, loving, and appreciative towards herself. She never put her needs first.

I’ve been in her place. Similar, yet different circumstances, but over all the general theme of appreciation existed. My needs, I put on the back burner.

If I settle for less than I deserve, that is exactly what I will get.

I’ve realized that before appreciation, love, and kindness can be about anyone else, it begins with me giving these things to myself. I do this through the thoughts that I think, the beliefs that I have, and the choices that I make:

I am kind and gentle to myself when I care enough about how I feel. Sometimes I need to say no, set boundaries.

I show appreciation when I don’t beat up on myself for not getting it done.

I am kind to me when I give my body the sleep that it needs, and the hydration and nourishment it requires.

I am loving when I don’t dwell on self perceived flaws or past mistakes.

I give myself love, appreciation, and kindness when I do something that makes my heart sing.When I choose to be around people who make me smile. When I make laughter important in my life. When I make receiving as important as giving.

I am all of this when I know that I deserve these things, and I give them to myself.

So I don’t settle for crumbs when I want the whole loaf of bread…..