Dealing with disrespect

Lady Gaga’s “Shallow” won best original song at this year’s Oscars. Lady Gaga had once said, “I had a boyfriend who told me I’d never succeed, never be nominated for a grammy, never have a hit & hoped I’d fail. I said to him someday, when we’re not together, you won’t be able to order a cup of coffee at the f**king deli without hearing or seeing me.”

You can't force a person to show you respect, but you can refuse to be disrespected! You don't ever have to feel guilty about removing toxic people from your life. 

Never make excuses for someone who disrespects you. Who they are or what they do isn't a pass to treat you like trash! It doesn't matter whether someone is a relative, romantic interest, employer, childhood friend or a new acquaintance - you don't have to make room for people who cause you pain or make you feel small. Angry, bitter, resentful, stressed out, physically maxed out, emotionally drained...all signs you are dealing with someone toxic but also where boundaries don't exist or have been overstepped. It's one thing if a person owns up to their behaviour and makes an effort to change. But if a person disregards your feelings, ignores your boundaries and "continue" to treat you in a harmful way, they need to go. Maintaining a relationship with someone who repeatedly hurts and disrespects you is more painful than letting them go. 

Think about how many people stay in relationships that stopped working long ago. Their reasons range from being afraid of losing the security of having a partner to simply not wanting to be alone - and everything else in between. In any case, fear motivates their decision to stay. 

Fear, a form of stress, is the mother of all negative emotions because we associate it with survival, perceived or real. We become puppets whose strings are pulled by this emotion; we suffer physically and emotionally as a result.  Understandably, we're easily overwhelmed by fear until we learn to disengage from its suction. 

Throughout history, people have consistently tried to gain power, personal or political, by instilling fear in others. Sad to say, it's a ploy that predictably works. The million-dollar question is, what prevents generations of intelligent people from seeing through this emotional manipulation? 

Like everyone, I have my share of fears to confront. It really pisses me off when darkness wins, even for an instant. Therefore, my credo now is: I will not give in to fear.

You too can make this shift. Just because you're afraid of something now doesn't mean you always have to be. Don't let someone get comfortable with disrespecting you. It's bad when they don't treat you right, but it's tragic that you continue to allow it.