Hey there!

I address Hot Topics with my Facebook group: Girlfriends’ Guide to Hashimoto’s and after I wrote this for them, I realized, it’s such a universal topic AND an empowering way to deal with that that I wanted to post it here for more folks to benefit from. It’s not just for women with Hashimoto’s — it’s for every woman on the journey to loving herself. And yeah, guys could use it, too. In fact, there’s a testicular reference below just for them.

And a few swear words, so please, pardon my French for the bigger point of the whole thing.

The title of this blog is from one of the chapter titles in my book, “You’re Not Crazy and You’re Not Alone: Losing the Victim, Finding Your Sense of Humor, and Learning to Love Yourself through Hashimoto’s.”

Enjoy and pass along, please! If we all lived the ‘punchline’ of this message, it would be a whole different world we’d be living in.

Enjoy the post —

You rock.

Love,
Stacey

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HOT TOPIC: The Gift of People Who Judge

Hey Girlfriends!

I will tell you — there’s nothing like a sibling who looks down at you, a spouse who ‘sigh’s’ or a friend who calls you ‘lazy’ — all because they just don’t get what you’re going through with Hashimoto’s.

I know what that’s like. In spades. And then, spades some more.

At first — and for a while, it’s crushing.

The time when you most needed a soft place to land in the arms of those closest to you, you end up, head-first on concrete.

Not so much fun.

And a lot of grist for the victim mill. 

It’s really easy to go into the, “See! I’m all alone. No one loves me. I knew I couldn’t count on anybody to be there for me.”

It reminds me of a song that I used to teach my students when I was a music teacher, “Nobody likes me. Everybody hates me. Guess I’ll go eat some worms….”

Ick.

You get treated badly and it’s really easy to blame the people who are being massive weenies to you.

In my book “You’re Not Crazy and You’re Not Alone: Losing the Victim, Finding Your Sense of Humor and Learning to Love Yourself Through Hashimoto’s” I wrote about how I eventually used their unkindness to my advantage.

Make no mistake: At first I was hurt, offended, defensive and then, hurt some more. I don’t know how those family members didn’t get brain damage from rolling their eyes at me when they were being asses.

And then, I hit a wall. I was so tired of being affected by them that I started looking at myself and seeing what I could do to learn something about myself through this.

There are two things I will share, of the many, that turned things around for me:

1. I saw that the sassy relatives who judged me and looked down on me were really the echoes of the judgment I had on myself. I was harsh on myself and, if life is my mirror, they were reflecting my inner conversation that was so harsh.

2. I saw that I was on the defensive, which is a total victim posture. When you’re living reactively to someone else’s actions or opinions of you, that’s a sign of personal irresponsibility and looking for someone to blame for the life you’re not living.

THAT, girlfriends, is a big ol’ hairy sentence and I HIGHLY recommend you read it again.

Being defensive is NOT a powerful position to be in but it was a PERFECT position to be in for blaming others for where I was at in life.

Does that make sense?

I watched my 10 year-old play basketball last night. Defense is required when someone else has the ball.

Why do I let someone else have my ball when my life is MY game to play and win?

So, I took my balls back. (Sorry, I had to go there. It was begging for it.)

Being reactive and being creative are TWO totally different things.  Same letters, yes. TOTALLY different when you switch them around. When I started CREATING the life I wanted, instead of REACTING to the criticisms they had of me, I took my power back. It wasn’t in their hands anymore so, I wasn’t subject to what they thought of me anymore. My life. My choices. My responsibility. None of their fucking business.

What foods I ate, what natural remedies I took, how I spent my time, my money, my everything was back in my hands. When I was no longer the victim in my life, I stopped finding people to victimize me. It was amazing.

So, that’s how I addressed those two points above:

1. I changed my inner conversation and started treating myself more kindly and speaking of myself more highly.

2. I started owning my responsibility for my happiness and health. The more I did that, the less anyone had anything to say about it.

And frankly, the less I cared even if they did say something.

That’s the hot topic I wanted to share with you girlfriends today. The gift in the judgment of others is that we get to take a good, hard, honest look at ourselves.

When people say snarky, nasty things to you that are affecting you, see if there’s anything in you, doing that to yourself.

And if you’re feeling defensive and alone, like no one’s got your back, start being your own best advocate. Take your power back by taking responsibility for how you talk to yourself and how you live your life.

Start singing a different song about your life, and the world will start changing it’s tune.

You already know what life is like with the way you’re doing it, if you want something different, today’s a great day to do something different.

You don’t get a different life by wishing for it, you get a different life by living it.

Sending you love and empowerment to create the life you really want —

xo,
Stacey

If you haven’t already picked up my book, here’s the link to Amazon.