Newscoma

Eleanor Roosevelt said “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your permission.”

I love that statement.

I do.

I know quite a few people that act like the world is out to get them and suck the oxygen out of the room when they enter it. I have felt that way before myself during down periods. Yes, we run into brick walls sometimes. We deal with unpleasant people who build themselves up by breaking others down.

Why is this on my mind this morning? I think it’s because, as I guess you can see by the changes on this blog, that I’m undergoing a transformation. And I’ve tried to surround myself with people who are comfortable in their own skin and who are not only empowered but empowering.

I get tired of people thinking they aren’t good enough, because THEY ARE.

This line of thought started this morning when I was talking to Homer about the incident last week. We were discussing, after a I did a bit of digging, that this has happened to other children and after a bit of raising hell, I think it will be dealt with appropriately.

Everything has a root system. I feel like everything is connected in some form or another. It’s my way.

But the difference of me being a woman who turns 43 years old in three weeks and a child is that I have learned through years of stops and starts that Roosevelt was right. Children don’t know these lessons unless they are taught them but it’s also a matter of just living.

My mother, the wise sage that she was, used to say “Never give someone not worthy free room and board in your head.”

Because our heads lie to us sometimes. So, what do we do?

Well, we learn that we are human. That we are capable of forgiving ourselves for mistakes we make. That no one else is responsible for our state of mind except ourselves.

Growing older is a wonderful thing, really. I’ve learned that if other people are talking about me, then they are giving someone else a break. I even make up rumors about myself sometimes to see how it goes viral in my town just to amuse myself.

You see, the bottom line is that I hope that I can teach my niece that she is not responsible for other people’s asshattery. That she is above that and those people are inconsequential. I tell her that they are fun vampires, sucking the fun out of a room. She has one life. Live it. Do something every day that scares you. She smiles shyly, but I know she is listening.

She is going to be just fine.

Eleanor was right. We have to take ownership of our own psyche.

This is your early morning dose of middle-aged Zen.