Being Right

The more spiritual work I do the less I find I need to be 'right', agreed with and approved of. Of course I want to do the 'right' thing and I hope I'm on the 'right' path, but the need for others around me to support my choices and agree with me diminishes as my inner knowing grows. Gently.

When I started walking a new spiritual path I was ridiculed and humiliated pretty loudly! It was unbelievably painful not to be supported or accepted for who I was and what I believed in. And it was so hard not to yell out or lash back at people for being so ignorant and disrespectful of my divine right to choose the path I felt was best for me, whether or not they agreed with it or understood it.

What helps me bite my tongue though is the knowledge that it would probably be rich coming from me... I used to have an incessant need to be right (still do - I just understand it better now). For the most part, I am a generous person, open minded, compassionate, kind and accepting and I can generally agree to disagree respectfully. Just don't tell me flat out that I'm wrong. That would get my back right up!!

I know where a lot of it comes from. The way most of us we were brought up was with shaming and guilt trips. (There's a reason they say you have things drummed into you ;) I watch kids being kids - they act out when they are tired, testing boundaries etc etc etc. It's totally normal, but more often than not it's all lumped in to one 'bad' box and labelled naughty. Our parents did it, our teachers did it, their parents did it, their teachers did it - ad nauseum. There was positive and negative reinforcement and the intention was to guide and mold us. It was supposedly "being cruel to be kind". Being naughty or wrong was met with disapproval, criticism, anger or punishment. It meant pain, embarrassment, shame and/or rejection! Ouch! (All the nasty stuff) :( Never mind the wrath of God: if you sinned and got that stuff wrong then you were going to hell. So to be wrong was to be avoided at all costs! Being right meant you were 'safe'.

However, in practice life doesn't seem to work that way. No matter how hard you try things still go wrong out of 'nowhere'. Having to be constantly right (or know it all) is like the full cup that has no room for more, so I've found that the practice of making room to potentially find myself in the wrong is crucial to my spiritual development. The process of building new belief systems includes facing the fact that lots of the old beliefs were 'wrong' (maybe 'outdated' is a little easier to handle sometimes). The hardest part of this journey is to allow the 'old me' to have been wrong... harder still is to allow the 'new me' to do things that may end up being wrong - and possibly even fail - is traumatisingly scary. And devastating when that failure occurs. It's not like I've never failed before, and I know without a doubt that I can pick up the pieces, it's just hard to live life without all my cushions.

So to all those who were only trying to help, share or advise and I was prickly back to them I apologise for when I acted unkindly out of pain and fear... To those I may unconsciously do that to again - I promise to do my best!!! Thank you for your patience and support. I am where I am because of your compassion and support despite my best efforts to block your goodness from melting my guarded heart.

To anyone who is the recipient of another person's prickliness: my gran gave my mother the best advice ever when I was a teenager... "Just LOVE her!!!". So many people walk around feeling not good enough after being given the 'cruel-to-be-kind' treatment (myself included). It hurts to be constantly criticised, teased (kids are mean and a part of me is still recovering from boarding school), or shamed into submission.

I will always remember how I quit smoking. It didn't matter who said what about how unhealthy it was (I think I had a bit of a self destructive streak anyway, so that wasn't convincing enough) The nasty pictures on the boxes certainly didn't stop me from buying cigarettes in Canada. It was only when I was ready to do it for myself that I did it, and the people that I turned to were not the ones that were most vocally critical of my bad habit, but rather those who loved me for me anyway and believed I could do it, didn't push, but let me know they were there for me whenever I was ready! I truly hope I can be the same for others!!!

Oddly enough those around me's resistance to my 'weird' path diminishes as my self confidence and self honouring grows. Funny thing that...