Can We Talk About Projection, Hate & Healing
Can We Talk About Projection, Hate & Healing
Messages laced with hate and negativity don’t often find my desk, but it did last week, and I want to share the message in the hopes that we can learn something from it.
Also, I want to share some strategies and ideas that we can use to navigate the world so we can return to a state of peace. I am not sharing this message to bully the person into making fun of them. I intend to dive into the context of the words only. This person’s privacy is 100% concealed, and that is the first thing I found ironic about it. The internet has given people free-reign to say whatever the hell they want, without consequence.
I run a text community where I send out Monday through Friday texts. Usually, it’s just my Thought Of The Day. Negative comments that come from the internet, in most cases, should be discarded and ignored. One of the main things we should pay attention to is if someone is making a threat. In that case, I think the best course of action is to alert the local authorities and people in your circle who need to know, from a protection standpoint.
When I first received this hateful message, I wasn’t sure how I was going to respond. I contemplated returning a message, but after further review, I felt like there was a better way to use this moment.
I do not have the exact number, but I would estimate that I receive over 1,000 messages per week. The last thing I want to do is spend time responding to low-vibrational messages. There is just too much love and happiness to give energy to negativity.
I deduced that there was no reason for me to respond. From the looks of this message, this person doesn’t give a damn about trying to understand anyone. When people bring that type of energy to me over the internet, I instantly use the delete and block buttons. People do not behave like that towards me in real life –– can you relate?
And then, I was going to delete the message because I thought they served no purpose to my mission. But after further review, I realized, messages like this need to be dissected. As a community, we can gain a great deal of value from this message, from the language and, most importantly, how we choose to interact with it.
“Man, do you live on the same planet as us?”
People say things like this to manipulate you. If it becomes a pattern of manipulation by using phrases like this, then it becomes Gaslighting. Gaslighting is a manipulative way for someone to make you feel or seem crazy, it’s a way to discredit whatever you say or do. Master manipulators use Gaslighting as a technique to disarm and control you. Here’s an article that I have bookmarked, save it and read it later: A Great Read.
That question also leaves no room for me to express my traumas or battles. This person has no idea what my mental state is, and here they are sitting in their living room trying to guilt-trip me, and for what?
Projecting - If you look at the middle of this text, you’ll see them say, “All of what is happening in Lebanon and that didn’t trigger your thought of the day.” For context, the most common type of content I put in my text community is a Thought Of The Day.
I’m often on Twitter, usually in the morning, so that I can see the sports highlights from the day before. When the explosion happened in Lebanon, I saw it on Twitter within an hour of it happening. I was floored, literally, with my mouth wide open. I couldn’t believe what I saw. I know people who live in Lebanon, and I instantly thought of them. I reached out to see if there was any communication, and there was none. Later in the day, they got back to me. Everything is okay with my friends. Even still, at this moment, I can’t believe that it happened. For that day, I had no thoughts and nothing to say to my text group because I was still processing everything.
This person’s expectation of me is that I address it as it’s happening as if I run a news channel. If we observe them, we can see that they are projecting on me what they want me to do, and thus, they are not allowing me my free-will to live here. I am not a news reporter, and I do not report world news, and so this expectation from them seems strange. Can we see that projection?
Let me take you one level deeper and explain to you part of my mindset around content strategy. I do not cover Current Events, and there are many reasons I have chosen to opt-out. The most important reason is that I do not keep up with current events because it is not suitable for my mental health. I refuse to go down that rabbit hole of content that does more harm than it does good.
— I don’t share when I go to fancy dinner
— I don’t share when I am having drinks ( although I would If it felt genuine. My work has helped people stop drinking, so I’d rather keep it to myself because I don’t want the image to trigger someone. Now again, I would if it made sense to me if it felt right. I have a birthday coming up; If I sipping a beer on IG live or something, I won’t beat myself up for it!)
—I don’t share much about my kids because I want them to have privacy.
— I don’t live in the news cycle
— I don’t want my work to live in or be based on the news cycle
— I want my work to be timeless
–– I want my work to lift people up
— I don’t want my topics coming from other people’s business
— I don’t want my work to reflect trends
— I don’t want my work to be trendy; I want it to be forever
— This is my livelihood and my business, so I have to choose what I talk about, comment on and decide to keep private.
— I deal with the intellectual and sensitive crowds of people.
— I want my work to tell stories that people remember
— I want my work to help people grow at their own pace
— I want my work to help people understand how other people think and feel
— I want my work to help people understand how they think and feel
— I want my work to push people to their limits (within their boundaries)
— I want to teach people healthy boundaries.
–– I want my work to help people develop healthy connections
Posting about every traumatic event is outside my boundary and desires, and I’m not going to do it, plain and simple.
Power Over You - In the line where they said, “I am unfollowing.” That is this person thinking they have power over me. That is them thinking they know what I value. And I want you to remember this; it is up to you, at all times, to understand what you value and to not give people the ability to take that away from you.
I’ll be honest, and I’ll tell you that what I value at this present moment is peace of mind. That may change next week, but today, peace of mind is the most important thing. This person unfollowing me doesn’t impact my peace of mind positively or negatively.
Pace — In life, nobody is allowed to rush your healing process, remember that. You are entitled to grieve, to heal and to hurt as long as you need to. Don’t let anyone pressure you into talking if you’re not ready and don’t force yourself to isolate if you need community. Healing has to occur on your timetable and pace; take your time—you deserve to be free.
Thank you for reading this essay. This was a new way of creating for me, but I wanted to address what this person said to me. I wanted to bring you into my creative process a little more, and hopefully, you derived some value that you can take with you. I hope you accept that you are allowed to be patient with your healing process. I hope you see that you are allowed to choose what you share, what conversations you have, and how involved you get with different aspects of life.
Choose wisely and Free Your Energy!
I have a brand new course that goes over how to set healthy boundaries and healing, from my personal perspective. The course is called Deep Healing and here is the link to get registered.