When the kids played on sports teams there was always talk of the poison that would creep into the team.
This poison typically comes from the parents. The negative nellies. The ones who think they know better. The parents that talk smack about the coach, the other kids and aren’t team players.
This poison can happen in any group setting, I’ve seen it in workplaces and in schools. The poisonous words spoken affect everyone as they seep through the crowd.
It doesn’t take long before the poison eats away at trust and causes friction and fighting amongst the group, backlash towards the leader and ultimately prohibits any chance of camaraderie. Pretty soon the whole thing blows up and nobody wants to be there any longer.
I think this is the same thing that happens when we spiral down into negativity. We aren’t necessarily poisoning a whole group of people, but we are doing it to ourselves with our self talk and what we are exposing ourselves to.
We listen to ugly news broadcasts, gossip stations, hateful music and read about drama on social media further poisoning ourselves. We fight over politics, listen to the fear mongering and and complain about everything.
We get down on ourselves and we think we should have known better when things wrong. We call ourselves names like idiot or stupid. Shame seeps in and we think we are bad people for errors in judgement or choices we have made. We don’t trust ourselves anymore and we have internal battles going on.
Then we are surprised when the poison has seeped in and taken over and things start to go badly in our lives.
We can’t put junky data in and expect glorious data to come out the other side.
I’ve tried to become more conscious about this lately, and I’ve caught myself complaining more than I thought I was. I don’t think my complaining can be stopped without addressing the deeper issues. Just because I don’t say it out loud doesn’t mean I like to.
I am pretty sure it’s all coming from judgement.
Pema Chödrön speaks about how we have to allow things to exist without judgement. A smell doesn’t have to be good or bad, a noise, a person, a chair, a pair of shoes etc etc.
I think that begins with awareness.
I am going to start noticing when I’m judging something and try to let that go and accept things for what they are. I think there might be nothing to complain about then.
I expect this will start to clean up some of the junky data I have going in.
Is there an area you have that needs to be cleaned up?