We can’t possibly have too many willing contributors to the cause of global and collective healing.

Personally, I’ve had to take inventory of my behavior over the years in order to heal, grow, and evolve so that I could do better. Even with a ton of work, there’s always much more to do. And I know why people get stuck where they are.

I understand that it’s never hard to go back there in a moment of weakness. I also realize that the culprits of our frustration come at us from a place of pain and fear, and that they’re suffering too.

Sometimes, however, we don’t know how much more we can take. We’re already dealing with the world’s latest and ongoing horrors.

We’re trying to achieve our goals, live our dreams, and at times face overwhelming disappointment.

Meanwhile, the relationships we have with people, through all of those circumstances, often determine whether we have the strength to continue or not.

Conflict resolution is important. To save myself a lot of time and energy, not to mention a whole lot of anguish and pain, I’ve had to learn the telltale signs that there is no hope for resolution.

And you can bet it’s a lost cause when you’re dealing with emotional manipulators who will exploit your vulnerabilities.

These people won’t tell you the truth no way, no how because they don’t trust you (and that’s because they know you can’t trust them) or because they have too much invested in the opposing perspective.

They don’t want to understand you or make allowances or hear explanations. They make assumptions rather than ever ask what the deal is, and they won’t disclose those assumptions.

That would make it too easy for you to correct their misinformation. They would rather not argue than admit they could be wrong and deny you the privilege of ever confronting them about anything.

You don’t have the right to see them as anything other than the generous martyrs they perceive themselves to be.

They’re doing you a favor by being in your life, and everything they do is out of the goodness of their hearts (because they are so nice and so much better than you). And they don’t even realize this is what they are saying in so many ways.

They might even align themselves with people who want you to fail and withhold support for your efforts. Why?

Because the naysayers, well, that’s usually the bigger group, are the group they want to belong to, and fit in, reaping the attention, admiration, and approval they so desperately need. In light of that, you are expendable.

Not that they would see it that way. It’s a heartbreaking thing to come to terms with if you have an ounce of empathy. It brings more guilt and shame that no one needs.

You can try asking outright if you’ve done something wrong, but they’ll say No and then continue to demonstrate that they have little regard for you.

The ones who are conscious of what they’re doing will use aggressive behavior if that’s what intimidates you — become a combative bully or enlist one to do their dirty work.

Whatever they learn about you, they will later use against you. Get ready for the smear campaign with people playing both sides. You don’t need the drama, mama. Run.

Now, while I may want to extend the same compassion for them that I extended to myself in making peace with the past, it’s hard sometimes. Nothing stings more than being part of someone’s self-serving charade.

They value their image and their pride more than they value you, and I believe we should be with people who do more than tolerate us but celebrate and cherish us as we do them.

There is no good reason for allowing anyone to shatter our self-esteem, undermine us at every turn, and shake whatever faith we’ve managed to muster in ourselves. It’s futile, it’s painful, and it destroys us. We don’t owe anyone that.

It’s an absurd self-sacrifice. It’s codependent, and they wouldn’t likely do it for us. Who can afford the constant message these people impart to us, that we are not worth it?

Many of us have spent decades fighting to get rid of that message, and we don’t want it back.

So we have to let it all go with love. Walk away with our dignity and self-respect, and protect ourselves from further harm.

Because to resolve anything, we need two people who care enough about each other to listen, both willing to own their part in whatever happened.

Bottom line is, we have to take care of ourselves. And those times when we feel like giving up are the times to be especially nurturing to ourselves.

We tend to think, in moments of distress, so many people have it worse, far worse, and we’re lucky. We have so many reasons to be grateful. Yes, that’s true. It’s relative.

Perhaps the guilt alone, thinking of what people around the world have to endure while we’re merely battling egos, makes us feel selfish in complaining.

We’re not though. It is tiring. It’s exhausting. It’s frustrating and at times, devastating. Those feelings don’t simply go away because we feel we’re not entitled to them.

I can say, what’s helped me most, through everything, is seeing life as a challenge. Whatever it had thrown at me, I wanted to rise to meet its challenge and thrive.

Sometimes I didn’t want that immediately, but given a little time, I’ve stepped up. That works incredibly well.

If I didn’t know when to shut down, when to preserve, protect, back the hell off and breathe in some self-love, I could assure you that I wouldn’t be here.

At the same time, I don’t blame people who feel they’ve had enough and want to give up entirely. I hate when people call them selfish. I’ve said for years, especially if you bring a child into this world; you just stick around.

You have no business bringing a child here, and then giving up. I clung to that in the worst possible times, and it was a no-brainer. I wasn’t going anywhere.

It remained the Number One reason I never quit my dreams or my life or gave up the hope that things can and do get better.

Still, if that doesn’t work for another person, my first thought is, I’m not in his or her shoes. I don’t know how hard they tried. I didn’t feel their pain, especially not the way they felt it. I don’t know their threshold.

I don’t know how frightening it was to be inside their heads. I do know it can be terrifying to think you are losing it and can’t hold on.

Sometimes it’s selfish to expect people to go on while they’re in so much pain, so that we can still have them in our lives.

And I wholeheartedly want everyone to go on. I want everyone to heal, to succeed, to live their dreams, and to find their happily ever after. No one asks to come here.

No one who sat giggling and gurgling on the rug, playing with their fun little toys, had any idea what the future held.

I do believe, though, there’s enough success to go around, but I’m not always sure about love. Many things get in the way of love: unrealistic expectations, rivalry, ego, etc.

I tend to think that if everyone gets enough love from the start, we wouldn’t have all these problems, especially with each other. Maybe fewer people would go wrong in life. I don’t know.

But I think, we’d be less inclined to give up on people, because they’d be less inclined to give up on us.

“It is those of us who have been broken that become experts at mending.” ~ Dr. Steve Maraboli

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Kyrian Lyndon is the author of Provenance of Bondage, the first book in her Deadly Veils series. She has also published two poetry collections, A Dark Rose Blooms, and Remnants of Severed Chains. Kyrian began writing short stories and fairy tales when she was just eight years old. In her adolescence, she moved on to poetry. At 16, while working as an editor for her high school newspaper, she wrote her first novel, and then completed two more novels at the ages of 19 and 25. Born and raised in Woodside, Queens, New York, Kyrian was the middle of three daughters born to immigrants — her father from Campochiaro, Italy; her mother from Havana, Cuba. She has worked primarily in executive-level administrative positions with major New York publishing companies. She resides on Long Island in New York.

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