Today I’d like to be honest with you about something I’ve been struggling with the last week or two.
Lately I’ve found that as good things happen in my life, I’ve started to sense a shadow of doubt and fear creep into my thoughts.
Rather than be completely happy, excited, and peaceful, I’ve noticed a lingering worry about how people might criticize my choices.
In real life I’m not very worried nor am I worried about anyone who has been following my journey for some time here on MML. But online where people can find you and make snap judgements, I’ve sensed a hesitation in my step as I blaze a new trail for myself.
I’ve become more concerned with escaping judgment than I have about doing what’s right for me.
You see I’m a very sensitive person and the idea of making people unhappy makes me extremely uncomfortable. So much so that it makes me forget why I’m here in the first place: to help others.
And while I share my life, decisions, and intentions here on MML I hope that my story encourages people to take from it what they will and design their own life with their own intentions.
So far from many emails and stories I’ve heard, this has been the case. And for that I am deeply grateful.
But lately my fear of people hating my decisions or shaming me has clouded my mind.
Avoiding the negative aspects of blogging has been more prevalent recently than increasing the positive aspects of helping people.
While it would be wonderful if no one ever criticized online, it’s not a current reality.
We can only adjust our perspective.
So this weekend I’ve spent a lot of time praying and thinking about how I can choose to see these fears differently.
And I’ve come to some realizations that will help me immensely if I truly embrace them.
My first realization while praying about my fears was that what people say is a reflection of themselves and where they are coming from – it is not a reflection of us. Sure, gentle criticism with the hope of truly loving and helping one another will always be useful. “But if it is not coming from a place of love, it is not real” (a quote from A Course in Miracles) and ultimately not very effective in creating positive change.
Which means we are all responsible for making sure that our words online and offline reflect love and appreciation, especially if we want to help someone.
This idea also popped up in a recent Daily Love post, as Mastin Kip says, “if you feel that other people are only looking for what’s wrong in you – can you send them Love and Compassion because you know that this is nothing but a projection of how they feel about themselves and has NOTHING to do with you? This is how we are being called to see the world – with the eyes of Love. We see the innocence; we see the pain of others and we do not take it personally because we know it is just a part of their projection. And, we know that we also project onto others, so we do our best to stop that and to send only Love. Sometimes, you have to send Love from a distance, but send Love anyway!”
Further, I think it’s important for myself and everyone in the blogosphere to remember we are all imperfect humans sharing our flaws and moments of divine brilliance as best as possible. We are not promising to be perfect as we come to our computers each day. We are not asking to be judged and found wanting. We are asking to feel love and connection with one another.
And while that fearful part of my brain screams “don’t publish this, you might just bring on more criticism, exactly what you are trying to avoid!” I know that by pressing publish I might also have the chance to help others out there like me. There may be sensitive people who need to find a positive way of looking at the ups and downs of sharing our lives online in order to share their gift.
I love you. Thank you for reading. I hope this helped.
