Fr. Thomas M. Pastorius August 13, 2017 Spiritual Ponderings Toxic Behaviors
Growing up, I was often bullied by others. No one should ever be bullied, I look back upon that time and see that I often did not help the situation by the ways I acted either. Sometimes, I made myself a target. For example there was a period in my life in which I tried to get others to like me by exaggerating my accomplishments. Sadly my efforts to impress my peers made me more of a target. When I finally stopped this behavior of telling tall tales in order to impress people; I found that fewer people would pick on me and I was actually beginning to make more friends. As we continue to explore the idea of toxic behaviors I remind you that quotes from the handout will be in bold and my commentary is in plain text.
Overly Sensitive Try to remember that it's not always about you. People that over analyze everything and view things as a direct assault are destined to be lonely. No one wants to deal with the dramatics. If you're an overly sensitive person, do not take everything personally.
I have become a firm believer that most problems in a relationship happen out of neglect and not out of malice. This fast pace world in which we all live in makes it hard to slow down and to ponder how our actions may end up impacting everyone we meet; we often forget to show gratitude to people who have helped us; and we often don’t take time to see if our words or actions have hurt someone. When someone hurts us, while not always the case, we can still assume most of the time that the person who hurt us really did not mean to. They were just too busy or caught up in their own world to see how their words or actions hurt us.
Another thing to remember is that the “issue is not always the issue.” Sometimes people use surface level actions in order to address deeper issues. For example, people who often go around pointing out other people’s faults often do so because they want to appear better by tearing others down or they want people looking at another person and not at them for fear that their weaknesses will be seen.
I can remember one time that I was presenting the Church’s teaching on immigration and a after Mass a person verbally attacked me. As I let him talk, I realized that he was not mad at me but he was rather upset because of a friend of his had been in a car accident caused by a man who had no insurance because he was an illegal immigrant.
Victimize Believing that you're the victim will only impose your bad attitude on others. Constant victimizing will cause you to feel powerless and weak, when in truth if you release yourself from the victim persona - you'll be more powerful than you ever imagined.
If there is one change that I have made in my life that has benefited me the most it is that I no longer see myself as a victim. It used to be when bad things happen to me, I would simply sit there and cry about life not being fair. Now when bad things come my way, I see them as opportunities to show how strong I am, to demonstrate my faith, and to help others by my example. There are cases in life when someone may be a legitimate victim of a crime but many people today wear the “victim” label over such little things as the store not having the item they wanted, Mass running overtime, a sibling getting more attention than them, etc.
I recently met a young teen age girl who had a disability that kept her in a wheelchair. She did not see herself as a victim of her disability but rather she took it upon herself to be a source of joy to the people around her. She was the loudest one when it came to cheering her campmates on the climbing wall. She then impressed her all when without the use of her legs climbed the rock wall a good six feet in the air. I know that when I began to feel down about myself, I will think about her and be inspired to carry on. With God all things are possible. With Jesus I am a victor and not a victim.