Shift to neutral
How do you talk about a guy who recently spurned you with your girlfriends? Not so great I would guess. It's common, we all do it and egg each other on each time. "He was a dick!", you'll tell a friend to ease the sting of a recent heart break. "He is emotionally stunted and fuck him!", you'll console your friend who just got ghosted. Right? I've done it a thousand times. It seems harmless right? It isn't.
Language is incredibly powerful. Not only is it a reflection of where we are at emotionally it's also casting a spell over our lives. When we verbally attack others, put them down and talk bad about them behind their backs we are keeping ourselves small. We are staying in victim mode. I was with a new friend recently and she brought up a guy who she had dated and it hadn't worked out. She started to go off on a tangent about why he wasn't that great and what she would say to him. It veered in the "fuck you" tone. It struck me how often we do this and how it continually projects the blame outside ourselves and thereby keeping us stuck in our patterns. I am not trying to imply we are to shoulder the burden of everything being our fault but, we do need to start to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions. If a guy is a dick to you...why are you hanging out, dating, sleeping, putting an energy into that person? We have the power to walk away from anything not exactly right for us or not serving us. We have to use this power. After my friend finished her story, I then suggested a neutral view of the situation and a more neutral message for her ex. I could feel her energy immediately shift from disempowered and heavy to empowered and light when we took the blame and aggression out of the equation.
The last time I got my heart broken was last summer. I had learned all these lessons on dating I share now but, wasn't quite ready to walk the walk. I was still very distracted by shiny carrots-- good on paper dudes but, loaded with red flags. This dude was a VERY SHINY carrot. He was my total type; red head, British, hilarious, fit and sober! I was in from the word go (I ALWAYS rushed the time line) and thought we were well on our way to happily ever after. Then a month later he flips the script and bails. OHHHH....how I shamed him to anyone who would listen. He was a dick. He was emotionally stunted. He was immature. He was the worst. Did talking all that shit do anything for me? Nope. It kept me really small, a victim and continuing to engage with the guy. I didn't look at, until much later, the way I had co-created the situation with him. It takes two to tango, as they say. I saw all the red flags and jumped in anyway. I had enough knowledge to read those red flags as all leading to the ending we got to and could have walked away before the drama but, I didn't. Yes, it would have been nice if he had communicated more openly and respectfully. It also would have been even nice if I had felt empowered enough in myself to walk away when my intuition was screaming at me too.
All of the aggressive and abusive language not only brings our energy down, it's a symptom of a larger problem. It's a HUGE red flag waving in our faces about ourselves-- hello! look over here! You feel really shitty about yourself! Why aren't you handling this! Hello!-- and a lot of us refuse to look. It's much easier and a lot more comfortable to blame it on the other person. When it's them, we don't have to look at us. In my above example, I couldn't look at the situation and be like, eh, bummer It didn't work out...probably for the best! I was seething and devastated. I couldn't be neutral, even after allowing myself to feel the disappointment of a relationship not working out. I was attached to the turn of events because something inside me was still not feeling loved/whole/integrated.
A good test to figure out where you're at emotionally is to see how you talk about partners that haven't worked out. Or anyone you're disagreeing with at the moment. Are you talking about it in a neutral tone? Or are you lambasting them to all your friends? I'm not advocating covering up your feelings or faking the ability to be neutral. Instead, I suggest really examining your language to better understand yourself because your words are also showing you where additional healing is needed. I'm advocating looking at yourself, your words and investigating WHY you're putting the blame on another person. Owning our part of every situation, allows us to feel more deeply the feelings that arise from interactions with others (without shame) and the deeper we feel, the quicker we can get to the other side of whatever emotion is coming up. When you start to do that, you begin the work. When you begin the work, life starts to change. The more responsibility we take over ourselves and our circumstances, the more we can begin to wield the incredible power we were given from the Universe and create the lives we want.
If you're feeling stuck, I look forward to connecting over a session.