Post It Question – #Trust30 — — Laura ChildsLaura Childs

“That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. Where is the master who could have taught Shakespeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? . . . Shakespeare will never be made by the study of Shakespeare. Do THAT which is ASSIGNED you, and you cannot HOPE too much or DARE too much.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Day 4 morphs into Day 6 – Here Is The Challenge

Identify one of your biggest challenges at the moment (ie I don’t feel passionate about my work) and turn it into a question (ie How can I do work I’m passionate about?) Write it on a post-it and put it up on your bathroom mirror or the back of your front door. After 48-hours, journal what answers came up for you and be sure to evaluate them.

The question I finally chose “How can I resolve the revisitation of toxicity?”

On first response my question was “How can I recognize toxic people before letting them into my life?”

That will not do as the only answer involves an assessment of character before shaking hands with a person. My core belief is that people are inherently good. (But I’m seeing that although one may not be good for me, they might be good for someone else.) And to look deeper still: As careful as I may be, I know that my existance may be toxic to others.

It is not the person who is toxic, it is our ‘clash’ of moral fiber (and perhaps other elements).

So why this question? Because I am always doing the dance of skirting around vile, rude, interactions. I am offended by the stories I hear from local girls about the things their father has said to them. I am dismayed by the low class texts passed between teens. I see filth and cruelty and abhorrent behaviours that would not be in my existance if I could just stay on my small farm and never let these people into my world.

But they infiltrate anyway. They come via Facebook. They enter as my daughter’s friends. They are a story of woe shared by a friend. They are my blood. They are a news story.

Oh to simply nuke them from my existance! Learn to ignore them! Send them away from my door!

I know that these things cannot be done because I must “do that which is assigned me” — resolve the filth of my upbringing so that I may move forward. If I do not – it will continue to infect my world.

I have made my post-it my Facebook profile picture. I have a copy of my question on my desk. And I shall see you on Sunday with my answers and evaluation.

Not a final resolution but a self discovery and thoughts are posted in the comment.

Comments

laura says:

June 5, 2011 at 11:02 am

“How can I resolve the revisitation of toxicity?”

I have thought on this for 48 hours, bounding between feelings of hatred (I hate toxic people and their effect on me), and empowerment (I do manage to remove these people from my life once recognized).

I seem to attract these people and I’d like that to stop. No longer do I want to help young women who ask for help but don’t want to help themselves – or ask for forgiveness but don’t make a change.

No longer do I want embittered women spending hours telling me what I do wrong, or how I fall short, or what I should be doing.

No longer do I want to sit near, drive with, or listen to anger, rage, disappointment, supremist, self-righteous, hatred, or judgement on others.

I just want to live in peace, harmony, and joy. I recognize that there will be sorrow, there will be pain, there will be disappointment…but I find that humankind (myself included) falls to easily to living a life focusing on those things.

I do not want that for myself and I do not want people bringing that into my realm.

There is a theory that “like attracts like” and on a very basic level this may be true. I may be antagonistic and therefore attracted my antagonistic spouse. I don’t believe it’s true though – I believe that his best side was attracted to my best side (that loving, compassionate side) and that is where we connected. Life’s adventures is what changed our primary focus.

I don’t believe that “like attracts like” is true. I believe that some very nasty people have recognized my flame and tried to extinguish it with their cruelty and negativity. That would be a judgement call and I do not want to judge another but when I objectively evaluate the things that were done to me I have no alternative but to say they “are mean spirited”, feel compassion for them (they’re missing out on some of the true beauty of life), remove them from my realm, and move on with my life.

I once wondered what I was meant to learn by having a mother that never hugged me, a step mother who steadily belittled me, a mother-in-law who sized me up to be less than she’d hoped for — and in the end I see that not one of these women taught me anything more than to recognize their ‘type’ so that I could steer clear of them quicker.

“Do That Which Is Assigned Me”

I don’t think (in this case anyway) that “which is assigned to me” is anything more than to resolve the toxic childhood. It is not to save the children from abuse, it is not to teach others how to heal themselves. No, it is more personal than that. My assignment is to put the pain away – fully and completely – so that toxic people are no longer drawn to me and so that I can get to the business of doing what I was meant to do here on earth, no matter how insignificant that may be.