Hi Karina,

First, most of the time I don’t think people who post photos are intentionally trying to make others feel bad. When you saw those photos online, you felt bad. Was it intentional on your former friend’s part? Maybe, maybe not, but either way it ruined your day. I think this happens a lot.

I began moving forward once I realized that it wasn’t the situation that was affecting my happiness, it was I.  I was causing my own misery, drowning in my own negative thoughts. So one day I decided to stop in spite of the unfairness of the situation. So I read some books and learned how the mind works and how we sometimes need to detach from our thoughts. We can’t stop our thoughts but we can view them from a distance, not engage them or be dragged down by them. It wasn’t easy at first but it’s become a habit for me now.

What happened to you could happen to anyone. You tried to make it right but it turns out you can’t fix it so all you can do now is take care of yourself, heal, and get stronger. Don’t let these women affect who you are, and if you aren’t quite sure who you are then make a list of the qualities and values that are important to you and stick to that list no matter what happens. Sometimes we slip, make mistakes (nobody’s perfect), but then we forgive ourselves and get back on track. Take your power back from these women. They can’t affect you anymore.

No, you aren’t making too much of this experience. If you let it, this experience will teach you new ways to cope when things don’t go as planned.

B

Dear Karina:

“It’s really only been in the last few years that (your mother) stopped giving negative, critical opinions and I’ve stopped needing her approval… to think about those times and wallow in the emotional abuse would not be a good mindset for me… we’ve finally reached a place of peace… I’m now on month three, and am in the ‘anger’ phase. Mostly at the woman who I was friends with for five years… Will I ever be able to move forward completely from this experience?”-

My answer: maybe not completely. If you didn’t see any of these people your thread is about, time would do its thing, but being in contact and having more experiences with the same people makes it difficult to have an emotional distance from the events that trouble you, to see those events as things that happened in the past and are done with.

My suggestion was never that you wallow in the past, but that you gain a deeper emotional understanding of what happened in the context of your relationship with your mother so that you don’t keep reliving it, or re-experiencing it in the context of your relationships with other women. You may be at peace- in some way- regarding your mother, but your intense anger at her is projected unto others.

anita

Dear Karina

I hope you continue to practice gratitude and mindfulness, taking back your mind, as you put it.

anita

PS – I wish Peter would chime in because every time he does I look at mindfulness from a different angle and see something I hadn’t seen before, obtain a deeper understanding. On another thread he suggested author David Richo – thank you, Peter! I will also take a look at Present Over Perfect.

Hi Karina,

Thanks for the update, and you are very welcome. What happened to you is classic female relational aggression. These women were successful in turning you into an “undesirable” within their pathetic little social circle, and it’s too bad (but not unexpected) that they rebuffed all your attempts to make things right. Hopefully you understand that this situation had very little to do with what you said about that one women’s separation, as that was only an excuse to push you out, and any good sociology book with a chapter on group dynamics can provide answers as to why they wanted to push you out in the first place. Rest assured, though, that in my experience, the nicest, most sincere people are those who aren’t part of an exclusive clique, those who don’t practice “group think”.

Nevertheless, it still hurts like hell to be rejected, but this painful experience has propelled you into mindfulness, and you’ve only scratched the surface, and that’s what I call grace. I’m proud of you!

To answer your question, I would probably start with the TB blog and click on the subject “Mindfulness and Peace”.

B

Hi Karina,

When faced with a situation like this one I choose the response that will leave me feeling good about myself in both the short- and long-term. You don’t want to meet with this lady which makes a lot of sense to me, but ignoring her message will only create more animosity toward you. My goal would be to protect myself (not meet with her) but also to decrease some of the bad blood that’s between these women and me so that I can breathe easier when seeing them around town. So I’d probably respond with something like this:

”Thanks so much for your message. I appreciate it very much. Unfortunately at this time I’ll need to take a rain check. I hope you’re doing well.”

Done! This way you’re decreasing  some of the anger between you and these women, and you’re also keeping the door open in case you learn something new that results in your suddenly seeing the whole situation differently.

Always take the high road.

Just my two cents. 🙂

B

Dear Karina:

“do I owe her a response? Do I owe her anything?”- no.

“What’s the gracious move here?”- ignore her, do not respond to her at all, not now and not in the future.

Like I suggested to you before, this womanm(I’ll call her “w”) means to you more than the rude person that she has been to you: she activated your experience as a child with another rude woman, your own mother (I’ll call her “W”).

This is what you wrote before about W: “As a child my Mom.. was quick to point out all my flaws, often dubbed me selfish or bad and really made me feel like a horrible person… she was emotionally abusive… it never occurred to me that I don’t really see myself as a truly good person… I have always needed my mother’s approval.. I’ve stopped needing her approval”.

If you respond to w with a gracious response- I think your motivation would be to avoid more of her anger, more of her critical comments about you to others, that is, your motivation would be to pacify the angry woman (W, originally).

If w was nice I wouldn’t suggest ignoring you, but she has been rude to you, so it is fair that you don’t respond to her and it is an opportunity for you to practice courage and ignore her. I imagine it will be scary for you, fearing maybe of what will she do next. And you may fear that ignoring her means that you are selfish and a bad person (like W told you…).

– what do you think about what I wrote here so far?

anita