“Distance yourself from people who make you feel bad about yourself.”
When I pause and think about this quote I realize that no one else can actually make me feel bad about myself but me. Simply because there’s no one to blame, and it’s nobody’s fault.
How about I dig a tiny bit deeper, find out why I feel bad about ourself and stop feeding my hungry ghosts? This way, step by step, I start dropping the unnecessary victim mentality. The one that makes me wanna hide and shy away from people, always running away even before I give someone a chance.
Wouldn’t that be nice for a change?
I asked myself a question. From where do these hungry ghosts come from in the first place? Why are they so persistent?
Most of my behavioral patterns originate in my childhood. When I was a child my mind resembled a blank canvas. I came to this world with the most innocent empty mind. However, before I am hopefully, one day able to resume to that blankness again, nature takes it’s own course.
When we are born, each of us gets placed in a certain environment, which is defined by a particular culture, different belief systems, ways of thinking, attitudes, etc. A combination of all these influences form our personality (i.e., ego) – an expression of who we come to be in this world.
Growing up, we are surrounded by people, who can easily transfer and imprint their ways of thinking and attitudes that shape their personality. Part of that personality can include the following attitude:
“you make me feel bad about myself“.
Unfortunately, people we grow up with, aren’t always free from this particular attitude (and many other attitudes).
Every attitude begins its journey as a thought. Thoughts are very persistent – I see them as living entities that fill up the mind space. A child’s mind is like an empty sponge – ready to absorb what is around them. Thoughts are very innocent, like the air bubbles the image above. It’s all about what we make of them and how we interpret them.
As a child I didn’t have the required awareness to choose what thoughts to accept and nurture and what not. Grown-ups, and siblings; they could easily pass on the “you make me feel bad about myself” attitude, which was accompanied by an emotional charge. For example, my playful brothers kept on teasing me with silly remarks, just to annoy me, to make me react. And react I did. I could feel the attitude forming, but I didn’t quite understand what was happening. I did not know that if I continue responding to similar events with such strong emotional reactions, it will become a big deal over time.
Many events in day-to-day life have the potential to disturb my inner peace; once the pattern is formed, it doesn’t have to come through my brothers. It can happen when someone else uses a similar emotional charge and words. After being triggered and reacting repeatedly, this attitude gains power and can easily throw us off balance. It’s like as if the hungry ghost lives inside us, waiting for the opportunity to be fed whenever it recognizes the opportunity. This can easily lead towards the formation of an addiction to such situations. Consciously or subconsciously we start craving the game. Hence the hungry ghost analogy.
When I accept all the stories and pain I have experienced in the past, with love and compassion, and drop any resulting anger, hate, or resentments towards people I thought might have caused this pain, I start healing. When deeply inside I start feeling good about myself, everything else loses its grip and the ghosts vanish.
It is my responsibility to start recognizing my perceptions about myself and not to fall for the quotes such as: “Distance yourself from people who make you feel bad about yourself.” Ultimately, the only person who can make me feel bad about myself is me.
