The way people treat you is none of your business.

This past month, I hit a wall. I felt disoriented, confused and honestly quite betrayed. It was one of those moments where everything felt upside down. Like you had misread an entire situation, I felt like I showed up to a biology exam, only it got changed to trigonometry when I arrived. I kept asking myself the same questions over and over and over. And that’s when I caught on to it, I was pushing the situation inwards, turning it into a game of self-blame (yuck!), and making someone else’s choices a reflection of myself. I spent days replaying it in my head, searching for a reason, a "why" As if that was gonna make it any better. Surprise!!! It didn’t The Habit of Inward Blame: While I was processing everything, I noticed a pattern, every question I asked always related back to me: Why did this happen to me? What could I have done differently to stop this? I was making the whole thing my problem, like I was just absolutely dying to believe that I caused it, so I could make sense of it. Because if it was my fault, at least I had some sort of control over it right? But I didn’t cause it. I was just near who did. I would never do somebody dirty, not even on purpose, and that’s me. Others don’t have that principle, they will do it, that’s them! The pain might have made it personal, but pain does not equal punishment. Let’s break that down! There is a distinction between experiencing pain and being punished. Punishment inherently involves inflicting pain; the reverse isn’t always the case. Pain can happen through multiple causes. Like when you stub your toe, or when you get a papercut, or in this case when you’re challenged to grow. So, not all pain is intentionally inflicted because of what you did wrong. Pain is a natural part of life, it’s not proof that you made a mistake, it is a reaction. Through that, I realized that I was attributing negative events to my own actions or lack thereof. It’s literally distorted thinking, and it’s such a nasty habit that always made me interpret things in a negative bias. I’ve never been the type to let something completely overcome me. When I’m hurt, I’m always actively looking for ways to get rid of it, I don’t care, I’ll do it hurt and sad. It is better than letting something that is out of my control to take over my life. So, a better question to ask is: Why am I taking responsibility for someone else’s damage? The illusion of Closure: I used to obsess over the “why” I would go over the situation a thousand times in my head. Like I was looking for a missing piece that isn’t there and trying to find a reason why things went wrong, or my fav part is when I’d sign up for something and then act shocked when it goes bad, like that wasn’t a given chance in the first place. I liked it, it gave me a sense of false control, it drove me nuts. And don’t even get me started on the myth of justification: Well, maybe if I had done X, then they wouldn’t have done Y. Like if I’d just been more clear, more soft, more easy-going, then maybe I wouldn’t have gotten hurt. That’s not growth, that’s me trying to rewrite the story in a way that makes an external, uncontrollable situation feel justified, just so it’ll sit comfortable in my head. Not everything needs to be justified. The way people treat me is none of my business. Some things just need to be acknowledged and left behind. Truth is people kinda don't treat you how they feel about you, they treat you how they feel about themselves. What we tend to forget to do is to experience others as separate individuals, with their own thoughts, motivations, and intentions. Eventually I found out the hard way that closure doesn’t exist, at least not the kind I thought I needed. The need to know “why” was turning me rotten. The truth is 9 times out of ten, the "why" doesn't involve me at all. Does it affect me? sure but people who hurt people always avoid accountability, they lack the ability to sit in their own decisions and understand the consequences of those actions, yeah it's shallow, but other people have their own agendas. Emotional immaturity is not a mystery I need to solve. I mean would I take something a 5-year-old said personally? No. I’ve got my own shit to think about, I’m not gonna try to decode why somebody else is acting weird. I'm gonna believe that it has nothing to do with me personally and move on. What is happening is what it is and what it is is what is happening, there is no excuse, no benefit of the doubt. Emotional labor is not my job: I don’t want to be the therapist, I don’t want to be the solver or the fixer. I always catch myself trying to understand why they did it, what they’re going through, and doing the work for them. That’s not healing, that’s labor. If someone hurts me and I’m still unpacking it and trying to assign meaning to it, I’m literally doing their emotional work for them. It’s almost like the action of hurting is more important than the impact of it and moving forward. That’s not empowerment, that’s unpaid overtime!!! I don’t have to carry someone else’s inability to act right. That’s not my mental weight to hold. People do the best they can, with the tools they have, if someone is acting a little odd, their actions might come from within them and it's likely not about me it’s a reflection of their capacity. The best response is stoicism.

The Energy Economy: Energy is currency. That’s it. Your attention and your thoughts all costs something. And lately I’ve realized I’ve been spending mine in places that don’t deserve it. I went on a run with 2 of my friends and we got pizza after, and Emma said something that honestly shifted my mindset, she said “at some point, you have to stop thinking about something that doesn’t serve you in any purpose, like this is not serving me therefore I will stop giving it energy, and sometimes you have to force yourself not to and that’s fine” I was like wait did I forget that I can just stop thinking about something? It’s honestly like buying shitty coffee, would you go back to buy another one knowing its bad? No! same concept. Stop over-paying for bad service! At some point you just must stop engaging. Would you rather extrapolate it, or just observe it and refuse to give more energy to it? Because I can keep trying to get to the root of it again and again and again but at the end of the day the real victory is not letting a bad experience take any more from you. That’s your energy, why are you giving it away? Energy is a pendulum and you’re feeding it, and in turn it is taking from you. Where energy goes, energy flows, your energy is literally being sucked, like ew. Just stop, put your wallet away!! erase it and it’ll go away. I promise.

Detachment is not bitterness, it’s not pretending I don’t care, I do care, a lot, and I am hurt, that’s why I’m here. It’s kinda cliché and a no brainer, but the principle is not how something makes you feel, it’s what you do with it. It is okay to not pretend like you don’t care or like you didn’t get hurt. It’s just accepting what happened for exactly what it was and letting go of the need to turn it into something deeper or personal. Some people will say the craziest shit to your face and never acknowledge it, some people won’t change. Not my problem! There is peace in letting go, and power in not giving it more attention. I asked my dad, “do you dislike anybody at work?” he said, “I don’t dislike anybody in my life, why would I?” The law of detachment is simple, I can care, but I don’t have to carry. I’m not interested in figuring out people who disrespected me, or dissecting a situation I didn’t cause. I’m not interested in proving that I was good. I am good, I go into things with such a pure heart. Some people don’t. that’s the difference. I’m not chasing revenge; I want to let go of my ego. The point is to stop internalizing negative things that happen to you and redirecting the energy to something you actually care about. At the end of the day, what helped me resent less is the belief that I do what I think is right, and the same applies to the other person, that’s life.

Signed, sealed, delivered,

B