FB Memories are often a good memory jogger for me. The photo below was 6 weeks into my first “100happydays” experiment of looking for those joyous little moments in life. Though I’m not almost a year into my second “100happydays” experiment–I didn’t want to quit because of the great value in it for me–I abandoned it the first time because it flagged good moments to people who pounced on that experiment as yet another thing to dog me about, as if I’d had a gun to their heads and forced them to participate in or even view the experiment. They came looking for it–I didn’t flaunt a daily happy moment to them during an otherwise personally difficult time. They sought it out and bullied me for it. There are still snarky comments online about a couple of truly meaningful moments in my life that I commemorated as my “daily happy.”
At this point, when this picture was taken and posted, I was having trouble because I’d run into some things I couldn’t figure out and things actually got worse from here, a lot worse. And I thought at the moment of this picture that I was at my wit’s end. Little did I know how much worse it could be. As of yesterday, I now know fully what was going on at that time, thanks to a couple of people who’ve filled me in on details I never knew. I wish I’d known earlier but time and situations had to line up so they were comfortable with finally giving me the “rest of the story.”
You see, it’s not necessarily that the Truth will set you free (as I’ve always been taught and practiced) in the way we think. I’ve always thought of the Truth as in MY truth and how I present myself to the world. I’ve never really until now thought of the Truth as in the Truth about other people, their intentions, etc. That the Truth about THEM will set ME free. Free from a lot of self-doubt, free from trying to please people for whom it will never be enough, free from trying to be what they want when what they want is something that I will never inauthentically change myself into to be for them. And free in knowing exactly who and what they are, and that their problems with me are largely–and always have been–THEIR problems with me based on how they see the world and not on anything I’ve done to them. And in that, there is freedom. It may not necessarily change the situation, but it changes how I respond to it.
Key Takeaway: My truths are different from other people’s truths about me and I shouldn’t confuse the two.
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