KEEPING YOUR PEACE AND YOUR POWER THROUGH PEOPLE’S SELF PROJECTIONS AND PETTINESS

Standing for someone’s greatness is a muscle. Have you ever noticed that the people that think you’re a liar or a manipulator when you’re being straight with people are the people who do the most lying and manipulating?

I’m sure we have all met someone who is miserable in a relationship because their lover keeps not trusting them or accusing them of something. I ALWAYS tell them to leave the relationship (not like they’ll listen or anything because they have to get it for themselves) and then i ALWAYS tell them that their lover actually has that shit going on.

I once judged a local Miss America Pageant. One of the girls there was a huge control freak. It was to the point of almost emotionally unbearable. No surprised she had a complaint about her mother that her mom wad a control freak. And no surprise that her lack of completion with her mother was literally running her life.

I once had an ex girlfriend who I later found out was mentally ill and suicidal. She was also a pathological liar. She would accuse me of not being able to trust me and that I was manipulating her. Of course this was hurtful as I had given my all to this girl and would freely share with her. In my mind I couldn’t understand how she could come to these conclusions. Being young and stupid I thought I could somehow “show her” I wasn’t like that. It’s one thing to know these things and another thing to learn what you know intellectually as experientially.

Years later I had a meeting in DC. It was with the head of a non profit who was interested in meeting with me to the non profit’s staff in some leadership training. During the meeting I was being attacked, being listened to as small, being told they already knew all of this, and when I would freely share in return I would get cut-throat responses. I finally asked what was going on? She responded that the world was a cruel place and that it’s competitive and cut-throat and that I wasn’t living in reality and that she already knew ALL of this stuff so she could just buy “the book” and train everyone herself. I thanked her for sharing her insights with me and graciously told her that there was nothing else I had to contribute and walked out of the meeting and let her have her point of view.

And that leads to the big joke of all of this.

When people start reacting to what you have to share, it has nothing to do with you. There’s that saying that what people say about you has nothing to do with you. Now it’s one thing if people call you not responsible because you never keep your promises and you ACTUALLY never keep your promises. That’s different.

Getting caught up in people’s self-projections, their victim shit, their own pettiness and smallness — that only continues to perpetuate their view. The more you try to resist it, the more grounded they become in their position and you also risk becoming the very thing you’re trying to show you are not. You essentially stoop down into their reality vs giving them the space to rise into yours. All you can do in those situations is get what they’re sharing and give them the space to have their point of view. Then keep being great in life and SOME of those people will come along for the ride and some of them won’t. Love them from afar and ONLY engage in their greatness REGARDLESS of how much that pisses them off. It may not always be peaceful but YOU will have your peace and your power.