Caught With Crabby People

 

 

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured. – Mark Twain, American writer

How lucky can we be to be trapped for two hours with a crabby person?  You know the one:  grouchy and making snide remarks about everything and everyone.  It is a constant barrage of negative talk.  It becomes uncomfortable and all you want to do is escape but you are in a meeting, or out to lunch, or sitting at a table playing bingo.  Other than getting up, scraping your chair out of the way and stomping off, being grouchy yourself, there is little you can do but swear you will never go anywhere with her again.  But you do.  God knows why, but you do.  Sometimes it is downright mean. You think she will be in a better mood next time... and she is not as adamantly negative but the snide remarks are still there.

Professionals say that negative people are mean mouthed about others because they feel especially bad about themselves and putting other people and things down makes them feel better about themselves.   I see it as a type of jealousy, fore the same reasons.  A constantly crabby person will never say anything nice to even you and sometimes her meanness comes through.  Personal self-esteem can be such that it becomes aggressive behaviors. Their crabbiness says way more about them than we care to know.   They are insecure and it is not up to us to try to change them or their views.  I tend to draw away from such people for a time because I might make a negative retort to them that I can not take back.

I realized that ‘crabby’ people are really passives aggressive.  They do not openly share their negative comments with the person they are being negative about.  They share it with someone else in order not to deal with face-to-face conflict.  They gossip.  They tell hurtful jokes.  They whisper venomously to someone else rather than the person they are speaking about.   The problem is that they involve you and it almost feels as though they are taking their anger out on you rather than who they are upset with.  If it goes on very long, it begins to eat at you because you feel attacked.  Our ego gets involved and we feel defensive.

I find it better to distance myself emotionally and let the anger bounce off me rather than fall into defense.  I do not engage in the negative talk and let the crabby person have their say and I do not respond.  As long as I d not respond, her vitriol goes now here and she runs out of things to say about someone else.  Most of all, I remember that hurt people hurt people.

A crabby person needs empathy. Any other response can escalate the vitriol.   Just saying nothing sometimes seems to make the crabby person even crabbier.  If you feel a need to respond, say something that will distract them.  Saying something humorous can lead to laughter and no one can be bitter and laugh a something funny.

After spending a couple of hours with a crabby person, you can feel drained.  It is as if we are powerless to do anything about it.  It is as if you cannot hear anything else but their snide remarks about everything.  You are their audience.  They consciously want you to agree with them and would love you to be as miserable as they are.  After those hours, I swore to never go anywhere with her again and get caught in her melodrama of misery.  I would not allow her to drain me emotionally like that again.  But, I will.

We are as opposite as any two people can be.  I am a hugger, a pleaser, a notoriously smiling person.  I see the glass as a vase to stick flowers in, not half empty or half full. I smile and speak (compliment) passersby.  I avoid confrontation like the plague.    

When it is just us, she will not give a compliment for anything.  I have lost 54 pounds and it really shows.  I am down three sizes.  She will not compliment me for that, does not like my art, and will not even ask about our cruise, but she loves me.  She misses me when I go to Alberta.  She will not talk about my finger.  I recognize her sense of low self-esteem.  It is her lack of self-esteem when she speaks cruelly of others.  So, I make a conscious effort to compliment her.  I am authentically interested in her daily life.  I truly care about her.  I seldom say anything when she is on a negative roll.  I have only confronted her once for saying something negative to me.  After I she crossed my personal boundary as what I feel right, I was quiet for a time and then I said, “My reason for sharing about how hard it is with strangers in our yard for a month, and their ongoing drama and chaos they caused, daily, I said I had told her because I was hoping for some compassion.  I never phoned her nor spoke to her for weeks.  When I relented, she cried and said she had missed me.  That is as close to an apology as one can get from her.  I make a point of being interested in her life.  I try not to judge her, but understand the WHY she can be so embittered. 

All of us have, at one time or other, met a bitter person.  When it is someone you have cause to spend a lot of time with, the only thing you can do is communicate how it makes you feel.  It makes us worry that it will make things worse, and takes courage to confront such a person.  A relationship with a cranky person means you have to accept that her crankiness is part of who she is and either end the relationship or try to understand and give her what she really needs.  I know my friend is who she is, and why she might be so bitter.  I know that being friends with her means I accept her lock, stock, and barrel (mouth).  There is a reason we are friends.  It might not be apparent, but inside that angry soul is a compassionate person who is hurting , blunt, and has incredibly low self-esteem.  I have to accept that too.

I hope today’s blog gives you rise to examine your relationships.  Do you have a relationship with a bitter person...  or, are we the bitter ones?

©Carol Desjarlais 10.29, 2023

 

Hunter’s Moon, Lunar Eclipse, and Myths

 

 

Myth:  a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events;  a widely held but false belief or idea. (google search)

When something new happens in the environment, say, and we have never seen or heard of it before.  We may make up a story explaining what we think it is, with our limited knowledge.  Imagine the first lunar eclipse when the moon suddenly begins to darken.  How would they have explained it?  Without scientific knowledge, we would say what we think it is, or our wise man of the tribe might say what he thinks it is, and the story gets retold and retold.  That is myth.

The very name “Hunter’s Moon, for this October Full Moon has its own story, or myth.  When the men would prepare to go hunting, and the women would prepare to be left alone with the children to prepare to take care of the men and their prizes from their hunt, there was a story that became part of their tradition. And the Fall/October Moon would come to be called Hunter’s Moon.  It was a good time to hunt for their meat because the animals would be fattened up for the long hard winter. 

For us, this signals a time to focus on Self work through reflection.  Now is the time that the tribes would sit around the fire and tell the stories of their history, of their culture, on what preparations needed to be done for winter.

This is the time for colds and flus.  We have worked hard and our immune systems are compromised by lack of sleep.  Find ways to help build up your immune system for the cold.

This is the time that the moon is also strong and will be going through a lunar eclipse.  The veil between the next life and this one is thinned (according to myth and the myth came from the knowledge that winter was dangerous to life and limb. The Northern lights are dancing and there are stories about them.  The Northern lights were thought to be the fringes of the ancestors dancing in the sky.  The people then drew to communicate with their ancestors however they did so, and according to stories that taught them how.  For us, we, too, can develop ways to feel closer to those who have passed on.  We may already have a traditional way to do so as myths are from every color of man on earth.  They sky is electric on these crisp cold nights.  To those who had no other explanation for the energy felt on such nights, they needed an explanation.  And so the myth of Hunter’s Moon came to be.

Myths were used as guidelines for living when new and strange things happen.  Sometimes the myths were all about entertaining the people.  Some myths tell of creation.  Some myths speak of life after death.  Moral and ethical codes were taught through myths.  Some myths speak to how men and gods were alike and different.  Storytelling was, in part, ways to explain the world and the spirit world.

What family myths do you have?  One of my myths would be about who my natural mother was, and I knew her for 60 years as a Fairy Godmother.  Some family myths might be about the storm of 1966.  Some might be stories/myths about how our ancestors traveled on buckboard to Canada.  You will find myths in your family.  If you cannot think of any, ask your mother or grandmother.

©Carol Desjarlais 10.28.23

 

The Trauma Walk - Part Two

 

 

“Healing from trauma can also mean strength and joy. The goal of healing is not a papering-over of changes in an effort to preserve or present things as normal. It is to acknowledge and wear your new life – warts, wisdom, and all – with courage.” – Catherine Woodiwiss

It is disrespect to honor your feelings...all of them.  We have both good and not good feelings but all feelings are a gift from Creator.  Each incident in our life gives us opportunity to work on self.  Some of us have more work, deeper work, to do.  We need to own our feelings, to own our experiences, as it is them that makes us who we are, how we react, what we value, what we need next to do to thrive.  We need support and care while we do so.  Some of us might need professional help to flick the switch to being resilient in spite of.  We may feel unworthy. We may feel that our trauma does not compare to others, so we push the feelings of our reality into the background and try to limp on.  It is not weakness that we need a kickstart.  It is brave and courageous and worthy work.  Our whole being may be in flight, freeze, or fight mode.  What do we do with those feelings that are heightened?

We can not fling the door open to our soul and let our feelings run rampant.   We need safe place(s) to do the work needed.  We need safe people to guide and care for us.  We need comforting.  Even though your evil inner witch will try to pack those feelings back and stuff them back in the dark place in our soul, we have to keep digging and bring feelings around incident(s) bit by bit, acknowledge them, feel them, love them better.  We need to crack open the bulging pod , scar tissue, around woundings.  We need to carefully reach in and take the mewling woundedness out and nurture an care for it until it finds its voice.  The voice of my woundedness is found where I wrote my book, it is in every art piece I do, it shows up in these blogs of mine.  Find a way to use the voice of your wounding(s).  Let it be art, reading, handwork, carpentry, cleaning, decorating, etc.,.  Do something that expresses without going into detail.  We should never feel alone in all this.  I doubt there is a living soul, couscous in the world, that does not have scars of woundings at some level. 

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to feel safe and comfortable, calm and clearly healthy?  We can have that comfort in our own skin.  We can be wounded warriors, peace warriors, medicine women, who raise up the child within with love and kindness, with ways that make her strong and healthy and healed.  We can release resentments.  We can walk away from people who are unwilling to honor us, to respect us, and who attempt to drag us back to who they want us to be.  We can find new tribes that create a safe place for us to be while we heal.  We can be aware so that we know when an old feeling or sensation is coming on and deal with it immediately so that it does not draw us back to being a victim.  We are not victims.  We are brave beautiful beings who have healed places in ourselves that others cannot understand.  It can be a long lonely walk without cheerleaders.  I hope that the sister friends in this group will be cheerleaders for each other.  I love you.  You matter.  I will walk this way with you for a time while we are teacher-learner, learner/teacher.  May we be a blessing to each other.

©Carol Desjarlais 27.10.23