What will it take for you to begin to protect yourself? How much abuse can you take?
We all start off defending the hopeless: animals, children, the downtrodden. That’s like the beginner phase. What we’re working our way up to is… defending ourselves.
I just went to see my computer “doctor” the other day. He’s a great guy, 20 years in the business, but lately he’s been having some health complications that he can’t figure out. He doesn’t drink or smoke, he sleeps regularly, but his body is starting to rebel. He says it has to do with his pancreas.
Today, when I went by to pick up my computer, I couldn’t see him because he was in the back room with some clients. I waited in the front room with his wife.
And while I was there, I overheard some clients treating him really badly: “You don’t know what you’re doing,” “My cousin knows more than you,” etc. And what I heard, louder than all spoken words, was that my friend wasn’t defending himself.
Now, it might have been an important client for him, that’s not for me to say, but what I do want to emphasize here is how often we are abused, we are punished by clients, for being smarter than them, for being too kind, too available.
And this starts a quiet rebellion within us. “I’m just not going to put up with this any longer.”
And voilà, Self-Love is born.
We finally begin to protect ourselves, in order to save ourselves. We realize that the world is full of bullies, people who are just using their position, their power and their money to push down on others. We’ve all heard of the manager with no life who insistes that his team work weekends.
And while we can’t necessarily change them…. we can change ourselves.
I could see that my friend still had to learn this lesson. But he was close: it was starting to cost him his health.
How long it takes us to come to our own defense!
Joy Biscuits 