Power To The Peaceful
“I treat people how people treat me”, ”Im matching energy these days, so you decide how we gonna act”, “You set the tone for our interaction, I’ll just follow suit”…I swear I see a meme almost everyday about matching energy, about giving people what they give you, about allowing other people to set the tone for our behavior.
I can’t lie, I’ve been REALLY tempted to follow suit. It’s so easy to fall into this pattern. It kinda feels like a win-win on the surface. You don’t have to be accountable for your actions/inactions, you can just blame them on the actions of someone else who “did it first”. It feeds our desire to not have to take personal responsibility for ourselves. It allows us to skip the hard task of rising above or remaining positive when you have every reason not to. It’s not easy to treat people with respect when you feel disrespected. Its not a natural habit to push past your pride and your ego when you feel justified.
It’s true that what you give will come back to you. You can’t get around this. I just don’t think it is my responsibility. Because inevitably I am then adding myself to the cycle of negativity, and what I thought someone else deserved is now my karma.
When I was in highschool my mother told me something I won’t ever forget. She said “When you decide to jump in the circus, you ALL end up looking like clowns.” So I work really, really hard to keep myself in a cycle of positivity. And when I can’t respond positively I choose to not respond at all. When I’m tempted to engage people on the same toxic level they are trying to engage me, when I see a petty meme I could post, when I want to jump in the circus with the clowns, I remind myself what I have to lose. And that positioning myself in the cycle of negative energy, to give someone back what they gave me, only harms me. I’m not perfect at this or anything for that matter but I’m learning how to simply bow out. By choosing not to go tit for tat, I choose to constantly align myself with peace. And I leave room for life to pay people back on its own. And it always does.
Don’t believe the hype, sis…The Power is always in the hands of the one who chooses to hold her peace.
How do you maintain your peace?
Lord knows I have dealt with this battle on and off for years. Most times, I am pretty good at rising above negativity but every once in a while, I would get tired of being the nice one (especially when I was going through a very nasty divorce). Then I would regret losing my cool later. It’s tough but, over time I’ve gotten better at becoming more aware of how to handle certain situations/ people.
I absolutely get it! Trust me. When I say I know it’s hard to do…especially when you feel justified…I mean it! Which is why I said I wasn’t perfect in this. One thing I know is that toxicity is like a spider web and once you engage, it’s hard to untangle yourself. So I strive to make it a habit of my life because it really makes a difference and keeps you free. Keep pushing, every day we get better and better and doing the hard stuff, gets easier ❤️