Happy Boxing Day Everyone!  Wishing you health, happiness and prosperity for the year ahead and hope you had a great day doing whatever you do for Christmas Day.

So, as I sit contemplating on the day after the big show, knowing that there’s enough left overs to cover meals until New Years Day, I had a great text chat with a dear friend who had it handed to her on a platter by her ex-husband with concrete blocks this year, with what seemed like the intent, that she sunk right to the bottom.

Credit to her, though she’s cried a Juggernaut of tears and got thrust into the self-development arena faster than she’d ever thought possible. She’s doing the work, talking about it, going through the growth she needs to and I am without a doubt, sure that she is on this path of evolution because its brought some pretty cool people to the front of her lobe.

I’m one of them. #garfsnort

Anyway, getting to the point time. One of my final texts to her after she said she wishes that she would stop being so pathetic was “Oh, don’t forget to be kind to yourself throughout this process….”

You know what, I need to take my own fricken advice!!

Like I have said a number of times before, I like who I am, I like the personal growth I’ve achieved in the last 41 years. You know what though…. it never stops. If you think you’ve got a handle of everything, just for a second, take a listen to your internal dialogue and make sure it matches your external dialogue.

BACKGROUND INFO TO MY RECENT SELF LOATHING EPISODE
Once upon a time I had a brief 3 or 4 month relationship with a man – because back in the olden days, I had a major flaw in my personality that I put everyone else’s happiness in front of mine, because for some insane reason I didn’t want people not to like me… 

Chuh… yeah I know – pfft right?!

Anyway, there were so many things that were on my secret deal breaker list with this man. Being the olden days though, my deal breaker list never made it to the light of day AND I was still carrying my story from the breakdown of my first marriage like it was a medal that I’d earned in battle against the Knights of the Round Table.

Gratefully, in hindsight, the actions and beliefs of this person did force me to find my voice and say no thanks; even though I said it politely and was able to use my leaving everything to go and live in another country, that no was still ignored.  

While I was pulling out of my street and looked in my rear view mirror there he was in his car following me. This would not seem unusual except that he lived over an hour away at the time and had no reason to be on my side of town. 

I was so angry, I pulled over and got out of my car and yelled, what are you doing here? He gave me a massive hug and told me how great it was to see me and that he was doing some training in the next suburb and had to come home my way. {Enter internal dialogue of “you must think I’m retarded”… quickly followed by shit…you aren’t the full quid because I unequivocally said we are done}.

I was leaving the next week and I reminded him of that as I said we are done for good and I got in my car and drove off. Lucky for me, I was at the end of the tether with my life and his action pushed me to the point of almost telling someone to get f^&*ed for the first time in my life.  

I’d had enough of everyone and he reminded me why.

Roll forward 15 years and I see him at the local supermarket (the supermarket I’ve referred to in a couple of my blogs with the really stinky people… I’ve got to find a new supermarket) with his family.

ENTER SELF-LOATHING DIALOGUE.

I was so panicked that he’d moved locally, I raced home and did what any irrational person in a self-loathing moment would do, googled him – for the first time in 15 years. There were a couple of news articles mentioning a town so far away it made no sense that he was in my town, then there was a LinkedIn profile. CLICK.

Well, that click just signed my ‘you attracted this into your life, therefore you must pay’ fate with this person.

It only took a short while before he must have seen that I’d looked at his profile and sure enough, there was the link request.

Please note, my gut instinct and the dead people information at the supermarket saying ‘he’s just passing through, look he is with his whole family, he’s just passing through’, I completely ignored.

WHEN WILL I LEARN TO TRUST THEM… she says with gritted teeth.
{self-loathing 101}

So I sat on it for a few days, and then the learning and trying to emulate another person in my life who has it all over HUMANITY when it comes to being accepting, tolerant and forgive even the most horrible of horrible, I clicked accept.

I thought, 15 years, my evolution was huge and things that he struggled with in stability back then clearly had been resolved due to the length of time he’d been with a company, so I thought I was doing the right thing.  

I’d stayed in touch with a person I’d had a relationship with and seen them in real life and it wasn’t weird. Even met his life partner to discover how wonderful she was and what a great couple they made…. I could do this, it was easy.

WRONG.

Please note, again I ignored the ‘dread’ sensations that are like tingles but going down your body, like a sinking feeling when I contemplated the clicking connect. I shoved them aside because I wrenched it back from my dead people, because I didn’t believe them. {self-loathing 102}

So, there’s a message the next day – very paternal and proud for me.  That was nice – still ignored the sensations in my body. So I replied, being normal friendly me.

Then a phone call like 15 years never existed. Gratefully a landline call which allowed me to get off the phone.  

Then another missed call the next day, then another missed call with a voice message that just made the blood drain out of my head. Then two days later another email message.

SELF-LOATHING KICKED IN BIG TIME:

Why didn’t I listen?
Why didn’t I follow my gut?
Why didn’t I ignore the request?
Why didn’t I say something that would have simply given him the impression that I was an ice-queen and don’t bother speaking to me? [that’s not me. the end, but I still asked the question]
Why didn’t I say how inappropriate it was for him to phone me without asking first?
Why didn’t I make an excuse as to why I didn’t have time to speak?
Why, why why???

I grabbed that virtual blade in my imagination and stuck it in my gut and cut a nice symmetrical square out and watched myself go and smack my head into a brick wall because I hated myself so much at that time.

So, enough drama. Why did I hate myself that this had turned up in my life, because somewhere in my being I felt that this was just another example of me being weak. I’ve had a couple of things turn up in my life this year, of my doing that had my self-loathing self screaming at me ‘you are nothing but a weak, useless idiot!’

What was my soul camp or dead people doing?  I’ll give you the honest answer:

Giving me the opportunity to get over it once and for all. I reached out with a post on facebook asking out aloud, what is my lesson here because I knew it was here to teach me something and something big. Bugger me if every single one of the people in my life didn’t give me the answer. My friend in NZ gave it to me in a private message. Even my husband, he simply said “just say no.”

SPEAK YOUR TRUTH.

My dead peeps showed me so many memories in this last year where I have had the strength to say no, and the self-loathing monster wouldn’t allow me to see them. 

I decided that I do not need to be anyone but myself, and I am grateful for this episode because I believe the self-loathing fairy has been shelved on this one for me. I believe the thoughts that I had about myself which, in my honest opinion, are as harmful as physically self-harming, are gone now and I handled it with an honest authentic response without one skerrick of attack or nastiness as to why I was only there for a reason 15 years ago and that’s it.

This one took me longer than I expected, so for me it was a biggy.

Please recognise self-loathing when it comes up and gives you a nose bleed.  Be kind to yourself. You are only human. Through your awareness of what you do want in your life and what you don’t want in your life, you can meet any fear you have head on and smash through it to come out the other side. 

The universe gives you nothing that you cannot handle. When something or someone shows up. Handle it…. because you can.

I did. 

Onto 2013 we go…with love your favourite Corporate Woo-Woo.