I’ve never been a huge fan of
stoicism. I never finished reading Marcus Aurelius. Instead, I’m a highly
sensitive person. At times, it’s my best quality. I easily empathize with
people. Other times, it’s my Achilles heel. The words and actions of others can
tear me apart.
I’ve tried to change my
internal makeup and become less emotional. It doesn’t work that way. I can’t
just flip a switch in my head and turn the emotions off. I don’t think I’d want
to if I could.
When emotions rule our lives
and behaviors, it causes suffering. That doesn't mean emotions are bad things,
though. We need them. They make us human. Joy and pain are part of life. We
can’t have one and not the other. I don’t want to live in a world where I have
neither just to spare myself the pain part. That’s not living.
The critical point is
balancing how much we let other things control our emotions. Our emotions
determine how we react to different situations. Ultimately, that reaction
should come from within us rather than outside of us. This is what creates our
personal agency.
We’re all resilient beings.
Our success in controlling our emotions is our ability to harness our
resiliency.
What our resiliency depends
on is owning our shit. We make mistakes. We falter. We struggle. We make
decisions that are good and bad. This is common to everyone. We need to let go
of whatever anyone else does or thinks and focus solely on what is happening
within us.
For me, it involves remaining
unaffected by things that are beyond my control. That includes other people,
their emotions, and their reactions to mine.
This is where intention comes
into play. The more I live a life of good intention, the easier it is for me to
stand with my emotions and my decisions and accept them.
Focus here. Everything else
over there is merely a distraction from me honoring my sense of self. I know
right from wrong and true from false. I practice this and let it guide me. I
control the narrative of my life.
Remaining unaffected means
understanding that others may have bad intentions and letting that be their
problem, not ours. It may be an act of agression against us, but we don’t have
to own that. They do.
Recently, I had someone say a
few awful things about me. They were judgmental and harsh. I felt a flood of
feelings I never wanted. Anger. Frustration. Betrayal. Confusion. Shame. More
than anything, I felt misunderstood.
This is not my problem, but
for several hours I let it turn me into an emotional mess. What it took for me
to stop being affected by this was to understand that they are not me. I can’t
control what they say or do. The more I know myself and understand who I am,
why I do what I do, and how I feel about certain situations, the more I can
remain unaffected.
Standing on our own sometimes
means that we have to stand alone. Not everyone has to occupy that space with
us. The people that do are beautiful. The people that don’t shouldn’t matter.
The more I can own what I
have done that has brought negativity into my life, the more I can disconnect
with the actions of others. Let that be their problem It’s not mine. They do
not get to write my narrative.
At the end of the day, I ask
myself a few questions. Did I do the best I could today? Did I stay true to my
beliefs? Did I act with a pure heart?
If I can answer yes to those
questions in complete honesty, I sleep well. If any of those answers are no, I
think about if amends need to be made and how to restore even the smallest part
of myself. This keeps the ground I stand on firm. No matter how hard the wind
blows, I can’t let myself go to the wind. My place is here.
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