Trust me, it feels better than having just bought a pair of Valentino rockstuds!
I belong to a generation of women who were brought up to not show their feelings. When we were kids, we should never tell or even show the boy we liked that we liked them, it was supposed to be a secret we shared only with our most trusted (girl)friends. And when we disliked someone, we should never, ever tell them that, never show them how we felt, ever! We were supposed to be “ladies”, always have the moral high ground and maintain composure at all times otherwise we were to be labelled trashy, rude, uneducated... bitches... and this hard pill to swallow was sugarcoated by our “educators” with the assurance that “the best punishment is indifference” and the advise “don’t give them the satisfaction to know they got to you”...
Well, I’m almost 45 years old today and I call bullshit to all that! Bullshit! If you like someone, tell them! You sure want to be told you are liked, no? Do unto others as you want for yourself (or something... don’t remember the expression exactly... never mind). And when you deslike someone, also let them in on the news! Let them have it! In all my years of taking the path of keeping my resentment and my pain inside me and “punishing by ignoring”, I never got tangible proof that the jerk I was ignoring actually felt punished by my ignoring them! And I now am absolutely certain that they just went on having a lovely life where there was no cloud in their sky, no resentment towards them, no consequences suffered from their hurting me. Pretty cool for them, right?
Well, not anymore. This stops here. From now on in my private life (needless to say that other rules apply in my professional life...) when I meet someone I like, I offer them my brightest smile and say “hi” and ask them how they are and show them my joy that I run into them! And when I meet someone I deslike, I let them in my exact feelings of disgust/repulsion/disapproval and walk away. Simple rule to follow. And since I’m a person really fortunate to deslike very, very, very few people in my private life, those uncomfortable moments of sharing negative feelings, will be so very rare. But I will not shy away from them. I’ve always been very generous with my good feelings towards people so I should just start to be generous with the bad ones that I have for a handful of them too... and if I’m labelled a bitch, well, so be it! A label is only worth as much as the person labelling 😉
I belong to a generation of women who were brought up to not show their feelings. When we were kids, we should never tell or even show the boy we liked that we liked them, it was supposed to be a secret we shared only with our most trusted (girl)friends. And when we disliked someone, we should never, ever tell them that, never show them how we felt, ever! We were supposed to be “ladies”, always have the moral high ground and maintain composure at all times otherwise we were to be labelled trashy, rude, uneducated... bitches... and this hard pill to swallow was sugarcoated by our “educators” with the assurance that “the best punishment is indifference” and the advise “don’t give them the satisfaction to know they got to you”...
Well, I’m almost 45 years old today and I call bullshit to all that! Bullshit! If you like someone, tell them! You sure want to be told you are liked, no? Do unto others as you want for yourself (or something... don’t remember the expression exactly... never mind). And when you deslike someone, also let them in on the news! Let them have it! In all my years of taking the path of keeping my resentment and my pain inside me and “punishing by ignoring”, I never got tangible proof that the jerk I was ignoring actually felt punished by my ignoring them! And I now am absolutely certain that they just went on having a lovely life where there was no cloud in their sky, no resentment towards them, no consequences suffered from their hurting me. Pretty cool for them, right?
Well, not anymore. This stops here. From now on in my private life (needless to say that other rules apply in my professional life...) when I meet someone I like, I offer them my brightest smile and say “hi” and ask them how they are and show them my joy that I run into them! And when I meet someone I deslike, I let them in my exact feelings of disgust/repulsion/disapproval and walk away. Simple rule to follow. And since I’m a person really fortunate to deslike very, very, very few people in my private life, those uncomfortable moments of sharing negative feelings, will be so very rare. But I will not shy away from them. I’ve always been very generous with my good feelings towards people so I should just start to be generous with the bad ones that I have for a handful of them too... and if I’m labelled a bitch, well, so be it! A label is only worth as much as the person labelling 😉
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