Blocked With Love
I had my first encounter with trolling yesterday as I crossed the ever-treacherous bridge of daring to write or speak in a time when people are grappling to find their own answers or essence. I say first troll, but this wasn’t the first time this individual has come to (what I see now) mark territory. Why didn’t I just block her from the start? Well, because initially I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt and try and turn it into a healthy discussion. If I looked at the story that appeared to be her back story, she wasn’t a bad person. She appeared to have simply made a (rather damning) assumption about what I had written. I sat with her words for a bit to check myself and then explained, very kindly, why her view of me was incorrect and I believe we ended the conversation peacefully and, hopefully, both a little more enlightened.
Today, however, she returned, making another assumption about my beliefs which could not have been more off the mark. The crux of her view was that I’m part of belief system that grades and moralises emotions and shames others.
I sat with it and thought I’d reflect and see where I could have possibly shamed others.
Have I shamed mothers for breastfeeding? No (I have, however, had people reveal their shame of breastfeeding to me)
Have I shamed mothers for formula feeding? No
Have I ever shamed anyone for their birth choices, physiologic or surgical? No
Have I shamed anyone for being a meat-eating/vegan/rawfood/breatharian? No
Have I ever shamed anyone for their religious choices? No (You’re welcome to believe whatever brings you to a place of peace and love)
Have I ever shamed someone for their race, gender or identity? No. I have no inclination to.
Have I ever shamed anyone’s medical choices? No. I may have my own views, but I see no value in bullying anyone else over theirs.
Do I shame people’s emotions? No. My children and friends all know that all feelings are welcome with me, including tantrums. While I don’t particularly love tantrums, I’m prepared to sit with them and try and understand them.
Do I shame my children if they struggle with a subject, task or test? No. Failure is only ever failure if we shame it and leave someone feeling as though that is who they are.
Is giving an energy frequency a number shaming anyone? I don’t believe so. That’s like saying is 1 better than 10? Well, I believe it depends on what you do with it? If you choose to assign shame to a number that is your doing, not mine. Birth is a great example of this, where mothers feel shame for being 1cm dialled rather than 10. It is the system that assigns shame, not the number itself.
In birth is a contraction better than the expansion? No, birth cannot exist without both.
Yes, there are many things I might disagree with, but none of that translates into a desire to sit down with an individual or a group and shame them, OR jump onto their media page and preach my views. Many bandwagons have crossed my path on this journey, but I’m well aware that bandwagons are fickle and often rickety. Do I attach myself to any? No.
I began to write a response to clarify this to her, and then I thought: “No”. I noticed that she had never liked anything I’d ever posted, or clearly read anything I’d written. If she had her argument would have fizzled out. So why was she following me? To follow someone purely to throw stones or use their words to fuel discord is an interesting way of choosing to live. One I choose not to engage in. So, I made the decision to block her. I actually felt bad doing it, because I don’t hate her, she isn’t a programmed bot or AI troll (I think), but I realised that sometimes it doesn’t matter who you are, what you do, or what you say, there will be people committed to misunderstanding you. And it says nothing about you.
If the past two years have done anything it’s brought up people’s fears, shadow, inner turmoil and, what some might call, demons. Are any of those inherently bad? No, I believe they’re symptoms (also not something I believe should be considered a negative). And symptoms don’t go away unless we are prepared to look at why they’re there.
My belief is that:
To demonise anything is to create a monster or master, under which you will never be at peace.
It is actually fascinating to look into the history of the word demon. The word was originally daemon which, prior to the third century, represented one’s guidinq spirit, one’s calling, or the ‘genius’ of each person. As Jay Griffiths writes in the breathtaking book A Country Called Childhood: Children and the Exuberant World, the term was morally neutral. “It was perverted by the anti-pagan early church from the third century to represent something of evil, and the word was written ‘demon’.
As far as I can see, the only time the ‘daemon’ becomes deviant, is when it is neglected or rejected.
So, as I sit here and remove the noose from my neck, I’m grateful for the trolling and sermon I received. Another opportunity to assess my alignment. In these turbulent times, some people are going to need to find a sounding board or punching bag to try and reconnect with power they lost somewhere. I will take a few punches, but at some point I may have to say “enough”.
With love x
A block is not the same as a punch. I made the challenging choice to do it a few times over the past two years and hate was never the motivation behind it. It came from a place of simply knowing that my energy should no longer be leaking into places that held the energy of use and abuse.