In today’s society, which is riddled with muddled messaging, knowing how to hold oneself is becoming increasingly challenging. Sayings such as ‘tall poppy syndrome’ or ‘crabs in a bucket’ describe when others pull someone else down based on their success, our of fear, or jealousy, or feeling inadequate. It happens so often I feel we are becoming numb to it.
On the other side of the coin but so closely linked is a fear of standing out, of being ‘too happy’ in the face of negativity, and not wishing to make others who might be unhappy, uncomfortable. It’s a weird phenomena really, but I don’t know anyone completely inoculated against doing it.
It might be empathetically playing down your relationship to a friend because they are having rough time in their relationship. Or whining about work because everyone else is. Or something as small as complaining that you too struggle to fit in meditation even though you have discipline and prioritise it over everything. We don’t wish to stand out sometimes, and being truthful can seem too hard.
I always like to remind myself, and students that if there is a universal consciousness, a divine energy flowing through everything, then we are connected to it at all times. So if we are communicating an untruth to the universe, even if for convenience sake, then it is being listened to, and likely heeded. So we must not set ourselves alight just to keep others warm. Sometimes we simply just need to stay neutral, if we cannot be truthful in that moment.
Sent with love,
Jac x