A repost from Gratitude and Trust by Tracy Jackson and Paul Williams.. DOUBLE, DOUBLE OTHER PEOPLES’ TROUBLES ….can enter your life and make it bubble…… Who amongst us has not experienced this? Here we are tra-la-la bumbling along dealing with our shit, facing our issues, trying to sort through the daily pimples on the skin of our lives and pop them before they fester. We’re working with our loved ones, workmates, roommates, randomly frazzled friends and sometimes strained relations in as mature and self-aware manner as we can. We’re attempting and more often than not succeeding in cleaning the closets of our lives on a daily basis to keep the turmoil, aggravation and hassles to in order. We are on a mission and our mission is a positive attitude, seeing the flowers in the trees, being as grateful and present as possible, and making every attempt to keep as calm a personal world as is possible. But every now and then comes that knock, knock, knocking on the doors of or inner sanctums, enter Chaotic Cathy, Troubled Tom, Dramatic Debbie, Frenzied Frances – you know them all, problems r them. They thrive on disaster. Unsettledness and impending doom is the oxygen on which they survive. And they hate the fact you are trying to keep your environment as psychically pollution free as possible. Maybe they don’t hate it. I might be giving them credit for a malevolence they don’t embrace. But there is no question the peaceable kingdom in which you are living makes them more nervous then they already are. Your calm highlights their chaos. Your attempts at honesty and transparency threaten their reality avoidance and shadow dwelling. So they come in and like the witches in MacBeth whip up a batch of problem stew and throw it around your house. The variety of ways in which they accomplish this is as varied as their dilemmas. The only thing you can count on is they will do as much damage in as short a time as they can. There is the “he said she said” that gets people fighting. There is the “I don’t know if I should tell you.. no… I won’t…forget I said anything.” Well, as soon as anyone says, “Forget I said anything” all you can think of is everything that anything can be until you get it out of them. Which takes zero effort as they never had any attention of not telling you. It doesn’t really matter if what they are telling you is the whole truth, the half truth or has nothing to do with the truth, they will make sure it upsets you or someone in your immediate circle in some way. Because there is a type of person who is only happy if everyone’s world is as topsy- turvy and unsettled as theirs. And then, I love this part of it, often times they blame you. They start listing all the reasons why you are messed up. They start listing the changes you need to make. They turn from Broomhilda into Dr. Phil as soon as you start getting agitated. And the thing is you were fine until they entered the picture. What to do with these folks? It’s hard when you are related. Sometimes if the disease is too acute you have no choice but to walk away. There is the attitude of “there they go again” and you politely excuse yourself from the room, situation, or environment. When you see it coming you can shut them off right away, disarm them and say, “You know, we’re working on being peaceful and positive around here, unless you have something nice to say, please don’t share.” Of course there are those who lasso you into their chaos and somehow make you complicit, responsible, and/or guilty, which results in you trying to help. Usually with the only outcome being you’re one more pawn piece on their unruly chess board. In those cases sometimes the only solution is to remove yourself from the game. “I like you. I care about you. But there is really nothing I can do and I don’t want to be involved.” It may sound tough, but there are times in the name of self-preservation and sanity it’s your only choice. There is something to the like attracts like. Drunks like to hang out with drunks, and then when one gets sober, the other either tries to lead them astray or gets angry or if you’re lucky disappears. Unhappy single women get very upset if other unhappy single women suddenly find love. They often try to unravel or undermine it. People who used to feed off each others chaos become unglued when the other person makes the choice to get healthy and calmer. We hate to lose friends. We hate to turn people away. We prefer to be open, loving and kind. But there are people out there for whom the rocky road is the only one they want to travel and they will do whatever they can to drag you along with them, especially if you have in the past been a willing participant in their journey. It’s then you have to make the tough choice your sanity or their insanity? Jun 6, 2013 | Tracey Jackson
Posted on: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 22:06:30 +0000
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