Thou art the offender

It is a small mind that takes offense and an even smaller mind that ends communication based on such offense. I was recently speaking with my mother about how my father likes to talk politics. She was much surprised as after 15 years of marriage and an ugly divorce she knew my father not to care or even think about politics let alone speak on the subject. I assured her that his intentions were simply to argue. You see my father is threatened by my strength and opinion which apparently cause him offense. He thus holds anger in his heart toward me and when an opportunity presents itself to argue (not converse) he speeds into an attack and no matter how respectful I remain he can't gain satisfaction until his anger extricates an equal reaction on my part. I have only given him that satisfaction a couple of times until I realized that my offense at his words were giving him power over me which is exactly what he felt he had lost and needed to retrieve at my expense. Yes even my own father felt an uncontrollable desire to "put me in my place" and make sure I knew I was not as smart as I thought myself to be. That he thinks I view myself that way has made me consider the idea of how do we give our power away. It is through offense. I remember as a child the girl dynamic. The one where if there happened to be more than two girls in a group you were guaranteed an exclusion at one point or another. I was on the receiving end of these fiascos more than once and could never seem to force myself back into good graces until the said alpha girl decided that she was bored with the game of torture and moved on to another target. As an adult I consider this behavior quite often and after having my children I employed an experiment. It is an exclusive behavior to girls and as luck would have it I had a boy and tended a neice of the same age. Whenever said girl was offended because she didn't get her way or was feeling threatened she would withdraw her attention from my unsuspecting boy and deploy the ignore factor. My boy would go wild trying to figure out what he had done wrong, why she was angry, and what was the next course of action to fix the situation. He was nearly mad with trying when I stepped in. I had had a thought. What would happen if you allowed the person to be angry and maintained calm? Tell the person that you are sorry they are upset and when they want to talk you will be available. That is what we told my neice. I explained to her that when she was done throwing a fit we would be over at the swings and she could join us when she decided to be nice again. It worked like a charm. She was shocked that her female tactics had failed and stood for several minutes wondering what to do. She eventually abandoned her ridiculous attempt at power over another and joined us for fun on the swings. My boy was reluctant at first as his insides were in a panic and his initial reaction was to succumb, but that would have given his power away. In reality we only have power over ourselves. No one can have power over us unless we give it to them. We can choose to be offended but in doing so we allow others power over us. They are now shaping our thoughts and actions which usually are not positive in times of offense. By walking away and allowing for an understanding that we are still willing to continue the relationship even if it requires a waiting period (or cool down) we maintain our own power and the relationship as well. I realize that this is a lot easier said than done but is quite effective if we can stop ourselves at the onset of offense, take a deep breath, realize that our person can only be effected by another if we allow it, and maintain calm. In the times when I have employed these tactics they have worked like a charm. In times when I have not, the poison I allow in takes a lot of time to remedy. Once you let it in it is almost impossible to get out and requires much effort and wasted energy. In this political mess that we are all subjected we must not let ourselves get embroiled. It is shocking that educated folks will sling and sling the mud of viciousness, but we can't let these ideas end our relationships and allow the poison to seep insidiously into our lives. We must keep calm and realize ideas are just that, ideas. We are only influenced for the good or bad depending on what we let in. What kind of world would it be if ideas were allowed to be individual without recourse? How would the world be different is instead of forcing ourselves on others we allowed others their opinions and maintained our own. If the mood catches you right and what is said changes your mind great! Otherwise enjoy the differences and celebrate that people come in all kinds of packages. It makes for a better place.