“My neighbor says I’m weird…”
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Paul writes: “I found reading Focusing Tip #217 quite apropos to what I’ve been experiencing today. But there seems to be more to my experience that needs attention. Let me explain:
“My neighbor has taken it upon himself to tell me recently that I’m ‘weird’ to be carrying my kids’ backpacks to school. He usually doesn’t even say hello or make eye contact with myself or my wife. When I tried to apply your Focusing Tip #217 to myself I found your response unsatisfying. What about that part of myself that is saying: ‘Maybe there is something wrong with me? Maybe I just don’t know how to do things right? Maybe it’s me that is the reason my neighbor is so critical of me?’
“I don’t know what to do with that part, Ann.
Fighting it makes it stronger and more insistent. I don’t want to agree with it either and let it continue to be me. But I don’t want to ignore it either and focus only on my positive reasons for my actions. I would like to know how I might say hello to it in a way that allows me to be present to it and gives me the space to enter into relationship with that something.”
Dear Paul,
Thank you so much for writing. I too sensed there was something missing from my response to Kay last week. It’s exactly what you said: That even when our life choices are based in a principled way on our own values, the disapproval of other people can arouse parts of us that doubt whether we’re doing the right thing.
So your neighbor says what he says. Which could be fine… that’s his world, not yours. But then something in you starts to question whether he could be right… maybe you really are weird…
And yes, fighting it makes it stronger, while agreeing with it makes it continue to be ‘you’. Let’s find a third way.
The third way is to say Hello to “something in you” that is doubting your choices, wondering whether you’re really doing what’s right.
And I suspect this will already be such a big shift (try it and confirm if I’m right) that you’ll be calmer and feel like yourself again. Like: “Oh it’s not ME that doubts myself–it’s something in me!”
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The pattern of this issue is like a decision. It’s a decision you made a while ago–to do things differently from your neighbors, for a principled reason. Now a part of you raises the question: Was I right?
In my experience, this kind of part is always worried about something, and you–Self-in-Presence–can turn toward the doubting place in you and get to know what it is worried about.
Be sure to let the felt sense of it come freshly in your body, so you aren’t just getting answers from your head. I’d recommend taking time to sense it, this part of you that doubts and worries. Take time to feel your contact with it, perhaps by saying an inner “hello” to it.
Then when it feels ready, settle down to get to know the feeling quality that is underneath its doubts. I suspect you’ll touch on some memories of painful times in the past, what it meant to feel excluded or different when you were younger. I suspect that’s some of what this part of you doesn’t want you to go through again. Or it could be something else.
But in any case, as you let it know you hear it, and feel it, a deep breath of relief can come. It doesn’t have to carry that burden alone any more.
And the whole issue could start to feel settled and lighter again…
