“The small things, they’re not small things.”
Jon Kabat Zinn
Have you ever been “whatevered”?
If you are a parent of a teen, or a teacher, you already know what I mean.
Don’t speak to me that way. “Whatever”
Please clean up your desk/room/socks. “Yeah, whatever”
I’ve told you many times… “Got it. Whatever”
One word packs a punch of dismissive, unimportant, useless, irritating energy.
On a larger scale, it carries humiliation and neglect that says loudly “What you say or feel does not matter. It’s not important, in fact it’s irrelevant.“
In other words, you are irrelevant.
Ok, we all get it when kids do that, but how often I have noticed people, including myself, whatevering ourselves… especially when there is something quite important on the table.
Often I hear clients say…
“This is silly”
“Other people have it way worse”
“This is such a stupid way to feel”
“That was so long ago, it doesn’t matter now”
In other words, we minimize how something made us truly feel.
Feelings don’t have to make rational sense, they often don’t on the surface.
Feelings don’t exist on a relative scale and either does pain or trauma.
This trauma is bigger than that one.
This feeling is more important than that one.
My pain of stubbing my toe that turned chronic is less than your back pain.
It doesn’t work that way.
When we minimize or “whatever” ourselves from pain, anger, hurt, or even joy and enthusiasm (it wasn’t THAT great), we cut off our life force of feeling that makes us human.
Not only that, those feelings go underground but don’t get released. In fact they can turn into physical pain, tension and illness.
We don’t have to go down the rabbit-hole of self pity, we only have to acknowledge with curiosity that “this feeling exists in my body right now.”
Self-care is not self-pity.
Whatevering strangles the reality of our existence.
If we ‘whatever’ anger, we strangle joy.
If we ‘whatever’ hurt, we strangle excitement and enthusiasm.
When we ‘whatever’ ourselves we encourage shame.
You are important.
Your feelings do matter, now or later.
And you are the one responsible for hearing them, not others.
I often work with people yearning to be seen, heard and to live authentically from their own heart.
I have come to realize this:
Emotions all exist within us and within everyone. When we can learn to play ALL the keys of the piano, we can live a truly authentic life.
Every emotion speaks to a part of us, not the whole of us, like puzzle pieces that make up a beautiful picture.
Feel small when someone speaks loudly? That small piece of you can be included.
Feel angry when interrupted? That piece was never heard.. let it be heard!
Feel left out, not included? That part is allowed to be here…
not to be whatevered.
Ok, now for some news I will not whatever myself for:
My book “Good Morning Dear Empath” is now available at Indigo books! It is a collection of morning thoughts/meditations for the highly sensitive person.
We just wrapped up my 5-week online course “Lifting Above Shame”. It was a wonderful journey with 10 beautiful souls into what life can be like when we are truly ourselves beyond fear.
Stay tuned for the next round coming up in April.
Take care and don’t dismiss your “whatevers”, they are your gateway to wholeness.
Madeleine
