The Miseducation of Toxic People & The Miseducation of You
Protecting yourself and loving people at the same time can be hard. For those who truly walk the spiritual journey, the task can be even harder.
In everyday human interaction with our mates, our families and our communities, properly loving self while “properly” loving others––SIMULTANEOUSLY––can feel like a tug-of-war for resources; the resources of love, the resources of self-preservation, the resources of well-being. In each interaction we are faced with the subconscious question: Who’s going to get to feel good in this interaction? Shall I shape this moment for the greater communal good (i.e. others)? Or, shall I shape this moment for the immediate good and health of my own personal being?
Commandeering these moments of human interaction while trying to properly love all parties, self included, can feel like a complex game of inner chess––like walking a tightrope between the chasms of “I love you.” and “F**k you, I’m saving myself.”
For those who have a real love for people, this can be very difficult.
One of the hardest things in the world for me is to cut-off people who bring toxicity into my life. This is simply because, beneath all of my upset, I have profound compassion for them. I didn’t ask to have it. It’s just there. But sometimes, I fail; when my compassion for them supersedes my compassion for self. And thus, the dilemma.
Who the hell am I to cut-off someone for their unconscious toxicity? I bring unconscious toxicity to my life everyday (and you do the same to you–– unconsciously). If cutting-off toxic people is now my ironclad relational policy, am I to cut myself off too?? (How about you? Are you to cut yourself off?) I’m not so arrogant or egoic that I cannot face this question.
WHAT’S YOUR TRUE SPIRITUAL COMMITMENT?
Everyday my life is a practice of searching for all of the toxic ways of being that I bring to my life, unbeknownst to myself, while searching for ways to uproot those unconscious ways––that I may have a life more emotionally, more psychologically and more physically stable––and just more clean. But in this process, it is imperative that I remain deeply compassionate with myself as I unearth hidden cracks and flaws in my being. For I am not perfect. I never was and I never see the day where I will be. Every horizon of perfection reveals yet another horizon of perfection to be attained. Enlightenment is not a destination, it is a way.
So, as far as toxic persons? I do not seek people in my life circle who are perfect, but simply those who have a commitment to the process of perfecting themselves––daily. I seek those who are aware, and conscious, and courageous enough to know that they are fallible. I seek fellowship with those who therefore have a commitment––a mature and responsible commitment––to cleaning themselves and cleaning their ways, as I clean my own, seeking the diviner way of being.
And to TRULY be in the above process is an “ADMISSION” ‘that we are all toxic’ and falling short of a clean mental/spiritual bill of health––which is the reason we are all ACTIVELY spiritually bathing ourselves. We are DETOXING from the way the world has made us. That is what the practice of spirituality is, and nothing else.
SO WHO ARE THE TRULY TOXIC PEOPLE?
Perhaps it is only those who refuse to take on the above commitment of life, that I should excommunicate from my closest circles of intimate relating. But, again, who am I to excommunicate anyone? I only seek a healthy environment in which to friend and be befriended. For I know, by the rules of metaphysics, I am slowly becoming a reflection of the populations in which I dwell. So, dwell wisely. Right?
For much of my life I have carried the load of "suffering peoples'" unforgiving traits––my parents, my own, my communities, my world. But for all of those broken places in them and in me, what’s really the right course of engagement? Is it always disengagement?
You cannot be a resource of healing if you are too vain to be around the ailing, the sick, the unconsciously suffering, (dare I say) “the toxic.”
The simplistic approach is to “CUT-OFF” a toxic person. But, I’m an undeclared healer. I heal hearts and minds. I just do. I didn’t sign up for it. It just always happens around me. And healers don’t just dwell amidst the healed. That is redundant and pointless to the Creator’s purpose. Is it not?
It would be like those rich and prosperous churchgoers who enter their golden houses of worship in fancy wardrobe, while stepping over the twenty homeless people lying, destitute, outside of their church doors. Like that act, it would be a blatant case of blindly missing the entire point of this thing. And they too, have cut-off “the toxic.”
It is said that the enlightened soul, Jesus, would dwell amidst the rejects, the unhealed and low-life’s of his society in order to bring them the high-life of his message of restoration. That seems quite logical and wise for one on a spiritual mission. (And that kind of way of being is more organic to my nature than the propensity to cut-off.) But are these broken people in which this spiritual master purportedly dwelled, the “toxic”?
HUMAN CESSPOOLS
We are NOT all works in progress. We’re just not. Some are resistant cesspools of stalled life, refusing to grow and progress, festering in their personal toxicities. In this situation, a person truly becomes toxic––BUT TOXIC––only from their commitment to remaining resistant to the invitation of growth. The phrase “toxic person” does not refer to a person with toxic traits. It refers to a person who is committed to leaving their toxic traits untransformed and diseased, while fearfully clutching the security blanket of their ego. Know the difference between the two kinds of people, as I compel myself to know the same. WE MUST BE CLEAR.
Today, in a commitment to my own growth, I seek to bring the same compassion to self that I have brought to so many others over my lifetime. Self-compassion while doling out compassion to others has been my greatest life lesson and continues to be. I’m a work in progress. In this “growth goal”, I seek to constantly renew my daily commitment to transforming my less than perfect places, as I be a resource for those seeking to do the same for themselves. In this “growth goal”, I seek to protect my own emotional and psychological health while helping others with a commitment to do the same for themselves.
The question is…
How do I do this without becoming the very self-righteous assholes that I loathe? (The assholes who horde resources unto their gluttonous selves while mankind starves around them? Resources come in many categories: Monetary Capital, Emotional Capital, Mental Capital, Spiritual Capital. Which are you rich with? Which are you holding back?)
THE TOXICITY OF UNCONSCIOUS ARROGANCE
You cannot be a resource of healing if you are too vain to be around the ailing, the sick, the unconsciously suffering, (dare I say) “the toxic.” In my estimation, firmly upholding that kind of spiritual vanity would make me as toxic as the person I have self-righteously deemed “toxic.”
So today, I remain in prayerful meditation for wisdom on how to better love self and how to better love others –– even those who seem grossly underserving of that love. For I am fully aware the last breath I took was not earned or righteously deserved, it was given. It was philanthropy. It was compassion from The Most High. And in comparison to The Perfect One, I am “the toxic one.” So… Who am I to not pass that same, benevolent compassion along that has been passed to me??
To be continued.
#Growing
P.S.
Final Word: Love, and love hard. But don’t disrespect thy well-being. THERE, my friend, is the balance.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
