Hurt Feelings and Cosmic Lollipops

My feelings are hurt. Or maybe I’m mad. Either way, it doesn’t feel good.

Not too long ago, a dear friend’s integrity was questioned because she wouldn’t allow someone to twist an organization for personal advantage. So she was blamed for “misrepresenting” the organization. Shortly before that, another friend saw a business relationship blow up because she stood firm to the agreements that had been reached. So she was blamed for “misrepresenting” her level of dedication. Recently, a vendor quit because I stopped accepting his excuses and wouldn’t give yet another extension. So I was blamed for “misrepresenting” the project.

Is it just me or is there a pattern here?

Oh yes there is definitely a pattern and we have all bemoaned the deterioration of responsibly and the proliferation of blame, but right now what interests me more is the person who has been targeted simply for standing true…because when it happened to me, my feelings got hurt and I got mad. In other words, I took it personally.

It never feels good to be falsely accused even when it is the result of a genuine misunderstanding, but when it is malicious or spiteful or someone is lashing out for not getting their own way or to avoid accepting their own responsibility, it eats at the core of your heart and soul. It just feels wrong.

There seems to have been a sharp rise in the philosophy that the best way to deal with not getting your own way or with being held accountable is to blame the other person. But for those of us consciously trying to live a collaborative, co-creative, loving lifestyle, there is often a different tendency - and frankly it is just as bad - to go overboard with giving the benefit of the doubt and making allowances, perhaps out of a misguided belief that we are simply being kind and respectful. Unfortunately, when we finally do draw the line, that other person gets twice as mad and vengeful because we’ve let the situation go on too long. To make matters worse, we conscientious types often beat ourselves up and take ownership of both the original problem and the other person’s reaction, which essentially lets them off the hook - exactly the response they were hoping for! Or we worry ourselves silly over who might believe such nastiness. Unfortunately, all that agonizing and/or self-blame only strengthens the false accusations and the downward spiral continues. Harrumph!

Call me crazy, but what I really wanted to do with this vendor was to broadcast every reason I was NOT WRONG to everyone else in the loop. It wasn’t about being right. Really. I don’t buy into the viewpoint that someone has to be wrong so someone else can be right. It’s just that I didn’t do anything wrong and didn’t like being falsely accused just so someone else could dodge responsibility for their own part in co-creating the misunderstanding. It hurt and I wanted to feel better.

When falsely accused, the natural reaction is to want to set the record straight, to show definitively why we are NOT WRONG. When my friends were questioned, they took it to heart, too, but what we each failed to realize was this - even though we were dedicated to figuring out where things had gone awry and discovering how we had participated in co-creating the situation, the other person was really only interested in proving that they were right. Period. It was never a level playing field, and by agonizing over our part, we played right into their hands. Surely there is a better way than this mangled train wreck of an outcome!

In each of these scenarios, trust and boundaries were having a major collision. Did we feel our intuition nibbling at the edges of our consciousness as the situation built, yet brushed it away? Did we continue trusting someone who was giving signals, subtle or strong, that things were going south, rather than trusting our own inner voice? By trusting indiscriminately (Remember: some people are not coming from a place of love) and by not maintaining healthy boundaries of our own, we are inviting this outcome over and over. (Darn it, there’s that pesky “look in the mirror first” thing again.)

When a blowup does happen, what do you do? Turn the other cheek? (In order to gain a new perspective, not begging to be hit again, right?) Climb up on the NOT WRONG soapbox? (You’re not saying you are right, mind you, just declaring you are NOT WRONG!) Or do we shrug our shoulders with a "Whatever," then get over it and move on. Learning to step back and say “hmmmmmmm” as if we were a purely objective observer is crucial, and that slight delay lets us put things into better perspective. One of my favorite things to say when someone does something mean or goofy is “That’s their little karma to work out.” The more I say it, the more I believe it, and the more I can step back and not take it all quite so personally. And then my feelings don’t get hurt do much. I’m getting better at it. Honest!

Dr. David Gruder, author of The New IQ, his definitive book on the importance of nurturing our Integrity Quotient, says, “What captures my attention far more than whether we speak up, turn the other cheek, or select other possible responses, are these questions: how do we inwardly free ourselves from feeling attacked and how do we discover our highest guidance about which way(s) to best respond to our particular false accusation situation. Just as crucial is our ability to transform un-asked-for, undesired, and even unacceptable life experiences into blessings. This is the life skill that immunizes us from being permanently damaged, psychologically or spiritually, by our undesired life experiences.”

There is a great divide happening in humankind these days. One the one side are the folks who are striving to live more consciously, to be kinder and choose more happiness, to live in a state of love. On the other side are the folks still trapped in “It’s all about me.” Their fate is to live in a perpetual state of fear, knowingly or unknowingly, lashing out like small threatened animals and blaming others for their circumstances, often trapped in criticism and anger. One of the very real results of this divide will be a rise in exactly these types of confrontations. We need to be prepared and that comes from consciously developing discerning trust and healthy boundaries. And we need to allow ourselves to feel good about taking this stand.

So it’s time for some grownup cosmic lollipops.

As children, when our feelings got hurt or the doctor gave us a shot or we skinned our knees, Mom gave us a lollipop to make us feel better. As adults, feeling better is in our own hands, and what genuinely soothes us and helps us feel less vulnerable is to build our own ability to step back and not get so caught up personally. Because it really isn’t about us anyway. It’s about their fear-induced need to be right, to make someone else wrong, to cover their tracks, to blame someone else for their circumstances. For us, that means learning to be objective as well as compassionate.

Strength-building comes from honing our ability to observe rather than react, to grow our discernment muscles, and to monitor our boundaries. And cosmic lollipops? As children, lollipops are made of sugar and flavoring and have no nutritional value. Plus the soothing effect only lasts as long as the candy, leaving us craving more sweets. How convenient that grownup cosmic lollipops, the things that make us feel better, are chock full of good-for-us ingredients that not only make us better human beings, but also build our strength while creating a craving for more good stuff. Yum!

When you’ve messed up, admit it. But for those times when you’ve been falsely accused, look at it as a gift, the perfect opportunity for some emotional weight lifting and lollipop licking. My favorite flavor is dark cherry. What’s yours?