(dis) R…E…S…P…E…C…T 

There are two flavors of upset: you hurt my feelings and you dissed me ~ disrespected, dishonored, disapproved, discounted, disregarded, devalued, wasted my time, disloyal.

This Dose addresses being dissed.

Being dissed usually creates resentment and anger. It can also easily lead to a decrease of action and a “why bother” attitude. We decide that it isn’t worth our time, energy, or effort.

For example:

• I put in effort to do something nice and that person didn’t appreciate it. So, I’m not going to do that again.
• My client was disloyal to me (e.g. unsubscribed from my email list or quit using my services). Why bother getting new clients? It isn’t worth it. This will just happen again.
• That person disapproved of me. Obviously that’s because I’m not enough. And if I’m not enough – why bother trying? It won’t work out anyway.
• Etc.

Whew! That’s a bunch of heavy crap!!!!! I’m feeling totally tired just from writing it.

This is why letting go work is so important. That heaviness wears us down. Imagine going through life pulling a sledge behind you that is stacked full of resentments. Then imagine that there is a second sledge behind that one because the first one is full. Then imagine a third sledge . . . Pretty soon it can be just too hard to continue moving forwards.

Thoreau said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with their song still in them.” Accumulating resentment is a sure fire way to lead a life of quiet desperation. We get to the point where doing anything else is just too hard and not worth it.

I’ve done some looking at myself this past week and boy can I see a lot of accumulated resentment. (How many times in our lives have we been dissed?) I’ve also done a lot of letting go work this week. I’m ready to leave those sledges behind. I’m ready to live free, to live unoffendable.

What would life be like if we gave up our right to be dissed?

Much Love,