This morning my daughter hurt my feelings. It was a pretty trivial thing but it was the way she said it. It caught me off guard and seemed disrespectful to me. So, I sent her to her room so that I did not say something to her that would be hurtful. She yells from the other room, "What did I do?" I said, "You hurt my feelings and I need a second." She says to me,"You said we are all in charge of our emotions and that we make choices." I hate it when she listens to what I say, lol. First, I was mad...just on the inside though. Then I thought about it and I thought, YES, she is listening. But then I thought, I need to let her know feelings are valuable and valid and how she feels when HER feelings are hurt are valuable and valid. She needs to know too though, how we let those feelings influence how we behave and how we react or interact with others is our choice.
All of that to say, when we are in the middle of our feelings, of something we are passionate about or that hits close to our heart and soul, we may say or do things that do not show us at our best. We are all a work in progress. I do not think there is really a fake person. I think we all are on this journey in life. Some of us prefer to stay where we are or are stuck looking back and that is the place we operate from. We let our experiences dictate how we choose to behave. Then others of us may react initially from a place of the past but want to put our forward face on. When we react from a forward face, we will continue to move forward. I think that sometimes we react somewhere in the middle. All of this is ok. I think we just need to realize we are all doing our best to make it through this journey. We should realize that building each other up and cheering each other on is much more beneficial to everyone that tearing each other down and pointing out faults.
One of my trigger points is people who claim Christianity but behave in such a polar manner. Condemning and judgemental and behaving in ways totally opposite to what the preach on a daily basis can be so frustrating to me. This tends to get under my skin pretty bad. Then defending their actions with the statement, I am just Christian, not perfect, that's why I need Jesus. I mean, seriously, it used to put me completely over the edge and sometimes I still teeter. Their answer is, conviction. My answer is, taking some responsibility. What I try to remember, is what I have just stated. We are ALL just trying to make it. We are all trying to better ourselves and make an impact in this world in a way that is significant to us. Those that are going around condemning things I feel they may not understand are operating from within themselves. People, no matter who they are, are either operating from love or fear. So, I can choose to react in the same manner; out of love or out of fear. When we all act out of love, the entire world wins.