Oh, You really Hate My Black Weasley Guts? That's Cool, I'm Not Going to Suffer About It.

So, someone pointed out to me last week that what others think of you is none of your business. Isn't that a great thought? You hate me? That's none of my business. Awesome.

After that, I decided to listen to a Dharma talk about forgiveness. The Buddha said that if anyone is deserving of your forgiveness and compassion it is yourself. So in other words, if you are going to forgive someone forgive yourself fist. We are only human. We fuck up.

A lot of us hold on to the criticism laid upon them and then they internalize it and use it to criticize themselves. Hell, during meditation I criticize myself. I think we all do, apparently Noah Levine does and he's been doing this for a very long time. I have anxiety problems, so if I meditate after my medication has worn off for the day, good lord, forget about it. I have to remind myself to pay attention to my breath once every five seconds until I am screaming in my head, "Hey fucker, it's simple pay attention to the in and out of your fucking breath, come on, it isn't rocket science!"

Well in that Dharma talk I learned that I need to look at it more like," Dude, I get it, it's cool. I forgive you, lets try this shit again." But you can apply that to pretty much everything. You have to meet things that hurt you with compassion.That includes the words of others, but,like Linda said to me, it is also not our business what others think of us. It kind of makes you sit back and go, "Whoa, wait, all these years I gave a shit if people said mean stuff about me it was none of my business? But it was about ME, doesn't that inherently make it my business?" It isn't really about you. We are impermanent, we change from second to second. By the time gossip reaches you it has been out there a while, you aren't that person anymore. It's none of your business what other people think of you.

Forgiving yourself is hard. I can forgive myself in one minute for something and then five minutes later I'm thinking about that shit again. Blaming myself again. That's why they call it practice, you don't get it right away, you go at it with compassion and remind yourself you forgave yourself for that already. Offer yourself the forgiveness you can in that moment. If you need to do it again in another moment, do it.

So, I guess the moral of this blog is if the girl across the hall is telling people you are a a mindless piece of trash, it doesn't matter because it is none of your business. Forgive her, then when your mind thinks what a bitch she is five minutes later, forgive yourself for not being perfect, smile, and forgive her ass again.


Angry Girl Out.