eader

Monday, July 6, 2009

Not Falling Into The Same Old Routine

Sometime I wonder how it is that blog post topics seem to just fall into my lap, like I am supposed to be writing about routine right NOW. It happened last month with the heroes posts and I connected with some pretty interesting people and promotions during the month of June 2009. But I digress...

Remember that definition of routine I posted a few days ago? Let me refresh your memory courtesy of Dictionary.com:


4. an unvarying and constantly repeated formula, as of speech or action; convenient or predictable response: Don't give me that brotherly-love routine!

Well, yesterday I received an email that reminded me of this definition of routine. It got me thinking about the mental and emotional routines people get themselves entrenched in when it comes to viewing the world. It's like they wear a very specific set of prescription lenses that only allows them to see one aspect of the whole.

It's like the story of the The Blind Men and The Elephant: they each felt a different part of the elephant and came away thinking it was a plough, a grainery, a pillar, a mortar, a pestle and a brush. They then start arguing amongst each other, denying each other's report and failing to put all the pieces together into a whole, accurate picture. The moral of the story is:

O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim
For preacher and monk the honored name!
For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.
Such folk see only one side of a thing.

Needless to say, it is all a very disheartening state of affairs. I heard myself shout in my head, "Don't give me your victim routine."

I've learned that when you are dealing with someone with a victim complex, like the person that sent me this email, your opinion doesn't matter. Apparently when you act like a victim, it means you never have to apologize. When you act like a victim, it makes you always right and free impose your values on others. So when other people dare to disagree, you get to say you are being persecuted. When someone refutes your point-of-view, it gives you the right to further assert your opinion onto others. It means that when you decide to stop being a victim and reclaim your personal power it entitles you to overpower other people.

I deleted the email without reading it. Being chronically ill, I've come to the realization that I can't have contact with this or any person who takes so much out of me and gives so little back to me. So dealing with someone else's victim complex is one routine I do not want to continue.







Reblog this post [with Zemanta]


Creative Commons License

Like this post? Then please...


Submit it to your favorite social sites.




Share it with PrintFriendly alternatives.

Print Friendly and PDF
Related Posts with Thumbnails

2 comments

Renee said...

hello Selena
I don't think I have posted here, but wanted to let you know I enjoy your blog. I like your thoughts on emotional routines, etc. and setting boundaries for yourself? I am doing that now too after so many years.

Selena said...

Hi Renee,

I enjoy your blog as well. Thanks for visiting and leave me a comment ... it inspires me to keeping blogging.

Changing emotional routines and setting boundaries is hard, but so necessary to conserve energy for things like healing and doing things I want and need to do.

Who knew chronic illness was such hard work!

Take care,

Selena

PS I need to get back into posting for our group. For some reason, I have been neglecting it, probably because I am trying to do others things like blogging. It's hard to find the energy to do more than a few things, but you already know that!