I described this (now edited) April 29th Insight Timer live event as follows:
Let’s explore what can be done to transform, transmute and turn ghosting and being canceled into nourishment to support the well-being and awakening of all
Cancel Culture definitions:
a social environment in which publicly boycotting or withdrawing support for people, organizations, etc. regarded as promoting socially unacceptable beliefs is widespread practice
Cancel culture or call-out culture is a contemporary phrase used to refer to a form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out of social or professional circles – whether it be online, on social media, or in person. Those subject to this ostracism are said to have been “cancelled”. The expression “cancel culture” has mostly negative connotations and is used in debates on free speech and censorship.
Ghosting (behavior) definitions:
Stopping all communication with a person
Ghosting, also known as simmering or icing, is a colloquial term which describes the practice of ending all communication and contact with another person without any apparent warning or justification and subsequently ignoring any attempts to reach out or communication made by said person. The term originated in the early 2000s, typically referring to dating and romantic relationships. In the following decade, media reported a rise in ghosting, which has been attributed to the increasing use of social media and online dating apps. The term has also expanded to refer to similar practices among friends, family members, employers and businesses.
the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication
Example: “I thought ghosting was a horrible dating habit reserved for casual flings”
After a disclaimer and the above definitions the approach is three-fold:
- what this feels like
- psychology involved
- perceptions, responses and action
But before this I mention:
- not Johnny Depp trial related
- frequency/how often
- duration
- some real life examples:
- canceling stand off of who can cancel who before getting canceled [event example]
- ignored at workplace
- indifference from folks at neighborhood park
- of me ghosting temporarily (partly as experiment) then explaining later, resulting in frustration toward me and my temporary (inverted) satisfaction
Feelings:
- abandonment
- neglect
- desperation
- neediness
- light despair
- empathing this?
- rejection
Psychology:
- misunderstanding (IG behavior example: follow many, rarely on for reciprocating likes, follows, messages, post and scroll for couple minutes)
- triggers
- expectations
- separation
- is/was this a good fit?
- thought and emotions beforehand?
- golden question: how can this be an opportunity?
- can you invite more; invite absurd, imagined, feared extremes?
- exception of victim/victimizer (abuse/abuser) cycles
- put oneself in the other’s shoes
- soliture, disentanglement, seclusion, disengagement, renunciation vs. isolation, loneliness, not belonging
- (lack of) appreciation involved with frustration
- social and professional status, worthiness, ego
- power (plays), respecting power of shadow as expression of consciousness
Perceptions, responses and action:
- being tested
- compost, mulch, fertilizer
- Four nutriments:
- Physical food (kabalinkahara)
- Sense impression (phassahara)
- Volitional thoughts (mano sancetanahara)
- Consciousness (vinnanahara)
- anicca — inconstancy, changeability
- separation (from 5 daily reflections)
- the eight vicissitudes or worldly winds
- real, authentic inclusivity
- prompt, clear, concise communication
- podcast guests example — chat instead of dismissing, not responding
- balancing kindness with boundaries
- aware of people pleasing
- being superficiality agreeable in social situations — when someone says let’s meet/talk again soon (my podcast example)
- integrity in word, honesty, kindness, boundaries, and forgiveness and resolve when falling short
- a way into this: what are you leading with, what do you want to lead with, and find out what would be most effective to lead with. (Mine is truth at expense of awkwardness. Example of joking about malfunctioning light)
- expressing views upfront (example of me working on not holding back until end)
- welcoming; ease of coming/going
- authentic recognition, acknowledgement, honor, respect
Takeaways: Cancel Culture can be a clearing; can teach us how much we value keeping our word; how uncertain life is; and how many things falling away can serve us well
Some comments from the live event:
- ‘I’m curious to know why it is happening in our society…’
- ‘I tend to ghost family and friends if they’re too offensive or negative for me to deal with them’
- ‘Its a throw away society, people treat people like things that can be thrown away but we’re human with feelings’
- [Integrating Presence July 22, 2023 note: the comment above came from a “Farnaz” and can’t remember if I said I would address it later or what but I made a note to look into it and I can’t figure it out exactly so if I need to say sorry: I’m sorry Farnaz. I relistened to this. I checked some audio on Wisdom app. I even tried looking Farnaz up on Insight Timer so if you’re reading this please get in touch if you’d like. I may have brought this comment up later on an Open Wisdom Wednesday, not sure either.
- ‘Sometimes we don’t realize what we do to other people, I’m trying to be more mindful of my part’
Audio: Ghosted, Ignored, Canceled? More Grist To Nourish All
Or listen via Insight Timer (app or website)
The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:
wholeness and welcome this is josh dippled integrating presents in this event i’ve entitled ghosted ignored
cancelled more grist to nourish all and that’s grist like grist for the mill in the description
let’s explore what can be done to transform transmute and turn ghosting and being cancelled into nourishment and
support for the well-being and awakening of all so to give a quick brief disclaimer here you know this is
obviously my perception my take on this and i invite people to correct me
seriously where what’s more beneficial here than this opinion the
goal is to try to get to kind of the best perception best views kind of best response to this
phenomenon we witness in our society here fairly recently right for anybody not knowing what this is i would guess
pretty much everybody has knows what ghosting and canceling is in cancel culture but i’ll just go ahead and read
a definition i found online for cancel culture here a social environment in which publicly boycotting or withdrawing
support for people organizations etc regarded as promoting socially
unacceptable beliefs as widespread practice cancel culture or
call out culture is a contemporary phrase used to refer to a form of ostracism in which someone is thrust out
of social professional circles whether be it online or on social media or in person though subject to this ostracism
are said to have been cancelled this expression cancel culture is mostly negative connotations and is used in
debates on free speech and censorship and then ghosting behavior stopping all communication with
the person ghosting also known as simmering or icing is a colloquial term which describes the practice of ending
all communication and contact with another person without any apparent warning or justification and
subsequently ignoring any attempts to reach out or communication made by said person the term originated in the early
2000s typically referring to dating and romantic relationships in the following decade media reported a rise in ghosting
which has been attributed to the increasing use of social media and online dating apps the terms also expanded to refer to similar practices
among friends family members employers and businesses and another
definition the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication
example i thought ghosting was a horrible dating habit reserved for casual flings
ignored is the other thing and that’s pretty much universal right that doesn’t need really any much explanation of
being ignored so i noticed when i was on youtube the other day i didn’t watch any of it but i saw
johnny depp was on there i think some anti-defamation trial and i don’t know the particulars of this um so i’m not
really referring to this thing you know the obviously there’s some um some good that can be come in
watching that thing so you can discern you know what what the media is doing what they’re trying to how they’re
trying to take one instance and then use it for different agendas and whatnot
it can be really emotionally charged i didn’t watch any i really don’t even know what it’s about so i’m not really
discussing that it just happens to be a timely thing then again if this is such in popular culture it’s going to be kind
of hard to set that on the shelf to consider maybe a different way of looking at this too so just keep that in
mind and i think the first thing we ought to maybe look at here is how what’s the frequency of these
phenomena and how often so by frequency i mean how often does it happen does it
happen just it’s a one-time thing and then it never happens again or is it happening regularly is it happening
irregularly and then the duration for how long does it last is it just a really open and shut thing
or does it drag on for a long time pretty much everything involved with it from
actual events to processing in our minds thoughts and emotions leading up to it
during and after how long that lasts i’ll break this down kind of in three different categories i’m gonna first go
into like the emotional part of this what does this feel like either to be on either end of this
ignoring being ignored canceling being cancelled ghosting or being ghosted then
look at some of the psychology involved from my perspective of course then i’ll go into perceptions responses
and actions i’ll share some examples for me too canceling in society there’s
also this kind of thing now where there’s like a standoff before who can cancel
who before they get cancelled one example without going into details once i was trying to go to an event but
the intent i had in mind is kind of not necessarily to cancel people there
but to just go and see the distortions and things i didn’t agree with just for me coming from that place to
begin with i don’t feel as kind of the most wholesome thing especially when i was just doing an all or nothing type
thing like that right without having more of an open mind now granted i’ve been to similar events before
you know there was maybe a likelihood that it would be similar but that’s not necessarily all the case so just going
into if with something with a fresh open mind not going into something with so much righteousness so but it turned out
that the event had been cancelled and i didn’t find out until i got to the place and there was nobody there right and
then i sent a message and didn’t get a response from it so i got cancelled or um and ignored maybe i don’t know the
next example is at a workplace probably wasn’t in the best place to be
doing what i was doing that point in life without going into too much detail i just felt i was being ignored there
and it ties into being appreciated or not being appreciated mostly the perception which happens my own mind and
so i was kind of acting out to try to get attention to be recognized or
saying i was too good for what i was doing right maybe a little bit narcissistic
and definitely ego trip of oh i’m way above what i’m doing here i
kind of thing and being pissed off and try to hide it so that’s one example of me being ignored and then not acting
wholesomely out of it the indifference of being ignored too of maybe just going around a park and you know trying to be
friendly and making eye contact and just being received with indifference and just have to realize that that’s not
really being ignored so much that’s just people being indifferent they’re not necessarily friendly they’re not necessarily hostile they’re just happen
to be indifferent that doesn’t necessarily mean being ignored either now i want to give one example of where
i actually ghosted someone as an experiment for how this would work i don’t need to put any
details at all here other than what happened was i did it with that intent
of kind of being more of an experiment with the intent of not being a full ghosting so i just left a small amount
of space and then got back in touch and explained myself although i didn’t
put too much emphasis on an experiment it happened to be more of a relational but i did explain myself later for why i
tried out ghosting in that attempt here it resulted with the other person being frustrated
me having a temporary satisfaction and this is an inverted satisfaction of oh i
ghosted the other person so now i’ve got the upper hand right in the relationship it just that almost happened
almost immediately but then i realized well that’s temporary and not a wholesome real satisfaction
okay so now on to the feelings of there’s feelings of abandonment this core wound of being abandoned with uh
ghosting right even some with cancel culture and ignoring neglect feelings of
neglect being neglected desperation even being cut off but then really being
desperate to either find out what happened wanting to be back with the person or be
around them things like this neediness that we have to get some needs met from people or if we’ve been on the
other end of that too perceiving others is too needy for us can be light despair
involved rejection of course that’s a really common one that just kind of goes into
all this these feelings of rejection it’s not really as important as if these
things are really there if we feel them they may as well be right so if any of these kind of
feelings come up around these then it’s just as real as if you know it doesn’t really matter if they’re not
justified or anything like that the thing is they’re there and that’s what we’re feeling can also something for
those of us who are energetically sensitive and empaths there’s a consideration that oh this might not be
me actually feeling this i mean it’s kind of hard sometimes to know where we start and where we end
what if we’re empathing these types of feelings from the other party as well might just be picking up on that and not
realizing that we’re just picking up others feelings on this too so some of the psychology
involved in this could just be a misunderstanding not just a simple thing it doesn’t make
anything right about the behavior but there just could be a misunderstanding lack of communication or not being able
to communicate one way or the other and so it just might be easier to act in these ways i’ll give you an example my
instagram behavior if somebody doesn’t know i operate like this on instagram they might
have certain ideas i follow a bunch of people on instagram and i’m rarely on it when i do go on and
i do it really briefly to do it like a traditional type post i don’t do any of
the kind of new features yet and i go on there to do that and then i reciprocate for likes so if someone’s like my post
i’ll usually go and check out their stuff recently and hit some likes on that for anybody’s followed usually
depending on what it is i’ll follow them back there’s messages on there and then i only scroll for like a minute or two
because there’s just hundreds and hundreds of things for whatever reasons good or bad i just choose not to engage
much there so that’s so once somebody knows that’s how i use that then it
might give them a little bit better idea what i’m doing or not doing on there the
psychology around these things ghosting being ignored cancelled looking at the
triggers on this so some people will just get triggered out and that’s how they’ll respond now some of these have
guessing here like cultural steam for lack of a better thing so once something becomes kind of popular you see it in
media you see friends doing it you hear about people doing it it seems easy and
trendy or for whatever reasons that trigger gets hit and then
it gets responded with this and the more the habit pattern builds up the more likely it seems to continue such a thing
we might also want to look at our expectations or the expectations involved in this so if someone has an
unmet expectation then they might respond in these ways they might ignore someone because
they’re not worth their time so they’re not expecting much of the person so they don’t want to spend much time on them
canceling here’s my expectations if you don’t live up to my expectations i’m going to cancel you
ghosted for whatever reasons i now choose to ghost you because you
don’t meet the expectations i had and so this is a response or tactic i’m going to do
now because that separation is another thing so when these things happen they cause
separation right dividing conquer tactics separating people from friends
acquaintances family members even sometimes separation’s needed sometimes it’s almost weaponized in a sense if you
were to push it or not push it but just say or even push it and say there’s a incentive for these types of behavior in
order to separate people from their support systems however on the other hand sometimes we need to be separated
from people to create boundaries for our own health that can consider them from afar too can also ask was this a good
fit to begin with or is this a good fit by that i mean well maybe there was a
reason why this ghosting canceling ignoring happened maybe it’s just time
for the relationship to come to a close or a different stage and that’s just kind of how to play it out
what about the thoughts and emotions leading up to being ignored ghosted or canceled i think it’s
very worthwhile to reflect on that and especially when
maybe this might be anticipated to really tune in to be mindful of our thoughts and emotions
around the time where we might anticipate this to happen and that’s not to say that we should be hyper vigilant
and anticipated all the time and so have to be so self-monitoring ourselves uh thoughts
and emotions that it’s challenging to interact and just be in the world in relationship so it’s a balance there
also what about this golden question of how can this be an opportunity golden question is what if the worst things
that ever happened to me are the greatest gift i’ve ever been given so this is more after it would happen and
that’s just something to reflect on and consider and maybe something will come up with that there’s an exception to
this next one i’ll go into it right after it’s kind of like reverse psychology and saying well can i invite
even more of this invite the most absurd imagined feared
extremes of this and this is in order to see how ridiculous it is to be
completely down on this type of thing to make such a big deal out of it which kind of seems
maybe like i’m doing here what’s the worst that could happen if i was ignored right make these absurd assumptions to
the end like okay well no one will ever talk to me again i’ll just only say hi
and bye to people the rest of my life no one will ever be able to even have an acquaintance ship with me
again see how absurd that is to kind of stretch this out to the extreme cancel
okay well i’ll i’ll just cancel everyone all the time i won’t be able to even go in starbucks because i’m just going to
cancel the welcome mat even before i get in there absurd things like that or you
know i can’t do anything without being canceled everybody cancels me woe is me kind of thing ghosted well i’m just
going to go into superficial relationships just so i can ghost them be that kind of
person who just gets one up on everybody no so these are total extremes right as
painful as they might be kind of going to the weird extreme of these can show how silly they
can be sometimes in a way not to say that the hurt and misfortune is justifiable
and so that’s the exception here this is not to fall into victim victimizer which there’s a bunch of that in our society
right are the abuse abuser cycle if you want to call that okay i get abused so i’m going to turn around and abuse
others because that’s what’s been done to me express the pain and then i will in turn get abused again by the person
that i’ve abused or come back to me in the other way so this is a vicious cycle in our society and
there’s programs around this it seems to perpetuate this for pain and misery in
the world as if we didn’t have enough or see it enough in the world at least so another thing is worth mentioning is
putting ourselves in other people’s shoes really sitting considering without ruminating it’s like oh well maybe this
has been done to them and now they’re doing it to me acting out the pain that’s been done to
them on someone else and then the next thing here is the resultant of this to look at there’s
two different perceptions of looking at something really similar on one hand is the more wholesome well this might lead
to some needed solitude some needed disentanglement some needed seclusion
some needed disengagement and some needed renunciation versus the
oh i’m being isolated now i’m lonely i’m not belonging anymore that type of thing
see how there’s a perceptual shift there between one way of viewing things is more
wholesome than the other way of viewing it but they happen to be fairly similar it’s just kind of a shift in perception
so the appreciation involved here too in the frustration and social and
professional status so a lot of times this feeling of a lack of appreciation
can be related to frustration i found so sometimes when i feel frustrated i’m
trying to get appreciation from outside myself and so when i’m not getting that i feel frustrated and one
of the things that’s helped me is realizing that i have to appreciate myself and when i feel appreciated when
i can appreciate myself then the frustration tends to die down a little bit another psychological aspect of this
is looking at the social and professional status involved here kind of our worthiness and ego too
so some people are kind of pressured into i don’t know canceling because of their
social and professional status it becomes a trend maybe there’s
a quick dopamine boost from doing this you get people egging us on to engage in this culture
peer pressure i mean it just might be an easy way out ghosting too instead of having to spend a bunch of time
explaining oneself and going through the pain that it would take to do that and so it’s just easier to ghost someone
right how is worthiness involved how is our either an inferior ego or our
superior ego involved on either sides of these sometimes power plays are involved in
this type of thing too like i was just talking about how this plays out in the media these kind of powerful people
doing these canceling things and kind of repercussions that come from that sometimes people
reap certain seeming benefits from cancelling ghosting ignoring and
probably the last thing here on the psychology is respecting the power of shadow as an expression of consciousness
this perception comes from matt khan teaching on respecting the shadow the
idea behind this is the reason sometimes our shadow keeps rearing its ugly head and we don’t want
these dark things to act out and but they keep happening they keep surfacing because they want to be seen as an equal
expression of consciousness now that doesn’t make them acceptable or right to
act in certain harmful ways it’s just being aware that sometimes the shadow side of us
will surface wanting to be seen as an equal expression of consciousness
i found that when i can see it that way then it doesn’t really have to play out it just has to be seeing this power that
our shadow can have now onto perceptions responses and actions i’ve gone into a
little bit of this and i find like many things in life you know some of us are here to learn and learn
lessons about this some of us have already learned a lot of stuff in life already now we’re being
tested so when we’re being tested life will put things on our path to show
how are we going to view this how are we going to respond to this and even no response is a type of response
and so i like this idea of compost mulch and fertilizer taking all this
that we’ve been talking about and just finding a way to compost it mulch it and
then use it as fertilizer for things to grow in if any processing’s being done if we
need to do processing on this stuff that’s kind of like putting a bunch of waste products in a compost pile and
then eventually it turns into soil and with that soil it can now stop drawing negative energy
and now it can be used as a nourishment and ground soil for something beautiful to come
forth and this goes in with the teachings of the four nutriments this happens to be a
buddhist teaching so we’ve got the physical food right that’s the most obvious we nourish our body with
physical food but how many times do we just think of there’s so much emotionality and ideas around eating
food but if we look at our food as nourishment instead of oh i want to
gain weight i want to lose weight i want to eat healthier i got to do this got to do that what if we sat down and just
used a blessing or just being mindful of this is nourishment for the body
taking that kind of idea and applying it further to this next one sense impressions what are you taking in in
the media what are you listening to what are you watching i mean if it was food would you eat it for me personally my
idea of having a tv in the house is like having a raw sewage pipe open in my house i’m not saying you know all
television programming is is not worthwhile but i find the majority of it and having get too much into political
things here but paying for having to watch commercials and reruns although that i could be outdated since i haven’t
had a tv for a while a lot of things are online you can watch too really take that in violent video games is that
nourishing sex and violence on tv how nourishing is that listening to talking
heads like me for a long time really evaluate is this worth my time am i getting benefit out of this can i have
feedback how are my emotions how are my thoughts how is my state of being my
mood all this stuff from what sense impressions i’m being exposed to of course volitional thought pretty sure
everybody’s here familiar with negative self-talk it’s almost like a default you have to be super mindful to even stay in
a neutral state so the mind will just kind of typically default into negativity at least it seems like that
way for the most of us right so it takes active effort to counter that
unfortunately you know it’s just not like a quick fix and then no more negativity self-talk negative
perceptions negativity bias all this it takes active effort to first be aware of that be mindful of
that and then okay what’s the correct response to this how is that type of thing affecting me
and others around me next one is consciousness that’s the fourth nutriment and that’s just kind of a huge
topic don’t have time to go into today so also in the buddhist teachings there’s the three characteristics of
existence anichia dukanata and i’ll just dukkha is stress suffering unsatisfactoriness and anata is i won’t
go into that so much because it’s a very complex thing that i’m really challenging for me still to talk about
but anita is sometimes it’s translated i don’t think the most helpful as
impermanent right because we all know everything’s impermanence in her mind oh yeah i know nothing
lasts forever which can be very helpful but to actually see and know that in our lives
it goes beyond just impermanent i like inconstancy and changeability for this word
one surefire way to experience stress and suffering is to mistake things
that are changeable and constant for constant and unchangeable trying to set up all
these external conditions in our life just right so we get all the outside world just right arrange things just how
we like and then we’ll be happy right but the thing is that’s not a long-term
success for happiness because no matter how long and how hard we try
and put effort into keeping all the external conditions in our life exactly the way we want them
eventually in the long run they’re not going to stay that way they’re not going to be constantly like that and they’re subject
to change right and then when that happens we have this false notion that oh that shouldn’t be like that
but that’s just the way the world works things are subject to change things are
inconstant so just being in alignment with that truth knowing that it’s like oh yeah that’s just the way
reality is you know right now in this world we’re in there’s also
five daily reflections but the one most pertinent here i feel is separation we’re going to be
separated from everything we love and hold dear at least temporarily depending on what faith or whatever we we have and
that separation it’s been really challenging for me but that’s just the way things are i’ve heard these buddhist wedding vows that are just brutally
honest and say we will be separated either by estrangement or
death and i mean just like that honest truth all relationships everything will end
either in estrangement or death it’s not to get bummed out it’s just to realizing that that’s the truth and so the more in
alignment i can be with that truth when that does happen oh yeah that’s just the way things are right now
i mean this is the way reality is restructured that way doesn’t mean we have to get bummed out and anticipate
that the entire time just knowing that so we can be more in the moment and enjoy the time we have together right
real briefly i’ll just give this kind of one last buddhist thing it’s kind of a crash course in psychology it’s called
eight vicissitudes of life it’s a big fancy two dollar word but it also is commonly called as the worldly winds
so there’s gain and loss pleasure and pain fame and ill repute and praise and blame
those forces are pretty much what all these i love this term uninstructed
worldlings people that are only of the world they’re completely of the world and they
haven’t received instructions on how really to live properly in the world or live wholesomely skillfully wisely in
the world and so they’re completely at the mercy of these forces gain and loss will you know just elate
or devastate pleasure and pain seeking after pleasure trying to escape
from pain all the time and then praise and blame right completely uplifted by
praise torn apart by blame are doing you know to others too fame and ill repute look at the huge
celebrity culture oh gotta get fame gotta get more followers spending time
social media getting followers and stuff ill repute oh there’s a scandal devastated career gone got got to do
everything to save face and so these things just dominate people’s time and
activity if they’re not aware of this and not instructed otherwise of course this
inclusivity around these things how can we include more but doing it in a wholesome way that’s
not kind of like this forcing inclusivity on other people too are totally bad-mouthing old ways as
well censoring or imposing inclusivity but actually having real honest
inclusivity with folks not from a really moral righteous
better than now standpoint but hey i would like to belong other people want to belong this
is how we find ourselves in the world one of the most devastating kind of things is being
ostracized or not having any sense of belonging you see this here these stories how people were exiled back in
the olden days for whatever reasons and that was a lot of them feared that more than death is being kicked out of community
sent off wherever without any kind of connections or anything how can we invite more
real honest wholesome inclusivity as well being prompt clear and concise and
communication can help give meaning and understanding closure
and just i mean everybody knows kind of the benefits of good communication right i’ll give example here on
some podcast guests some people our potential ones have reached out to me honestly a few of them i’ve just i’ve
looked the profile and the things they’ve done and i’m like okay i just don’t have a feeling that this is going
to be a good fit but instead of just coming to that conclusion based on a short profile and things like that i’m
inviting several people just to chat for like five ten minutes and just you know
see what they’re all about and see what i can learn from them and if there’s common ground or you know
some other option there’s there’ll be some mutual benefit either way whatever happens i feel i don’t know if i’ll be
always able to do this kind of a humble brag there but for now that’s what i’m doing instead of just not responding or
responding and saying i don’t think we’re a good fit right off the bat without even chatting with them now the
next one is is a balance thing too it’s balancing kindness with boundaries
how can we have kindness with boundaries how can we be aware of people pleasing
and being superficially agreeable in social situations people say oh yeah
let’s get together again let’s chat and meet again soon okay and then people oh yeah yeah just go along with that and it
just seems so inbuilt into our culture even if there’s a clear kind of either
knowing that that’s not going to happen or maybe it’s just me saying or me knowing oh hey you know i’d rather not
do that so let me give you an example somebody i was in talks with possibly do a podcast and kind of get pushing off
pushing off so finally we got to the point where just saying goes well you
know let’s talk soon and i said i mean it’s awkward but i said hey i’m anytime
you want to reach out to me i’ll make an effort basically that’s what i said i’ll make an effort to chat
with you but honestly i’m not going to probably initiate contact again it was awkward in the you
know just kind of like this i don’t know how to describe it but it’s just that kind of honesty and then also
balancing our integrity of our word and honesty like i was just talking about with kindness again i’ve said
boundaries and then forgiving ourselves right when we fall short of this
and making that resolve to to come back and be more honest
have better boundaries be more kind have more integrity being aware of people pleasing
realizing that if some of these things if we deviate from our normal behavior it might be awkward you know at first
where are these boundaries we should set how should we set them what are you leading with so when we go
to in these situations what are we leading with and then what do we want to lead with
and then what would actually be the best for us to lead giving example for me i tend to lead
more with truth and that comes at the expense of awkwardness just kind of being weird sometimes or different i’ll
give you an example this morning i was at a place and this i had my headphones on so i didn’t know exactly what
happened but there was a light by this gal and it kept going on and off and somebody came in to kind of address it
and i didn’t really hear what they said but i said kind of off the cuff not really putting much thought into it i
said oh it’s probably just ghost right and just thought it would be kind of this funny thing and then i’m like oh
well wait a second they didn’t take that as kind of a joke they you know then they they kind of was
kind of like whoa what’s going on you know but then i just said oh but not really i don’t know what’s going on
another thing possibly is expressing our views up front and not holding back until the end an example
recently i i did say you know kind of the minimal thing up front of like if such and such happens or doesn’t happen
well then this is gonna be my choice then right but then i didn’t really express kind of the reasoning behind
that you know what that was all about until the end when that outcome happened
and then i put the whole thing on the table more or less of kind of the
reasons behind that choice it’s like well yeah i guess that’s okay
and then on the other hand it was challenging because if i would put all that up front it would be almost like too much right away it’s too much
unnecessaryness right away maybe even towards the end maybe what i said wasn’t really necessary
either maybe i was doing out of kind of a self-justification or though sometimes
something’s really important to us and really needs to be expressed i could see it either way also what about welcoming things that
happen in our lives uh with the excuse of abuse right and and harm right that’s
there’s no that’s that’s the exception here but otherwise what about considering just kind of a more of an
ease of things coming and going so if someone ignores us okay let’s let that
come and go we’re cancelled how can we actually welcome being cancelled
but with with the idea in mind that okay how much is it going to do for me to get
really pissed off angry upset want to retaliate what if i just
welcomed especially how i feel how this is coming in just feel the feelings in the body and letting them come and go
what would that be like compared to what i’ve been doing i don’t know and then i
find just giving authentic recognition and acknowledgement honor and respect in our
daily lives can help kind of build this muscle for when these things happen too and especially giving this to ourselves
when was the last time we just recognized ourselves looked in the mirror and said oh that’s this being
people call josh or that comes with acknowledgement honor how can we honor ourselves
respect and respect ourselves as well so to wrap up here cancel culture kind of as some of the
takeaways i had this as a tweet a while back cancel culture can be a clearing
all this stuff can come up to be seen and cleared out of the way it can teach us how much we value keeping
our word if we do that right if we value keeping our word how uncertain life is it just shows that
really nothing is certain and how much do setting expectations really help us
right on the the good end if our highest our expectations are met well then how
long does that last before we’re just setting the next expectation the next expectation next expectation
they can’t really satisfy any way right in the long run not to say they shouldn’t have goals and celebrate good things in life not at
all the other end of expectations when we expect something to happen that it doesn’t it’s kind of set up for
disappointment and then another takeaway i’ve had from this is some things that fall away from our
lives can actually serve us well some things it’s the time for certain things
to happen and so with that take what’s useful and leave the rest may you all be blessed with a optimal
ideal state of consciousness and energy for the rest of your morning afternoon
evening and night
Integrating Presence 
2 thoughts on “Ghosted, Ignored, Canceled? More Grist To Nourish All”