Today Gommy is going to talk about filters....not the kind you use on your car....the kind you should implement and engage from your brain to your mouth, before saying whatever is on your mind. Some people may think of this as being 'stifled' or allowing others to boss you around or even that you don't have a say in your own life. I prefer to think of it as a protective habit to use to insure that you don't hurt yourself or others with words that cannot be taken back.
For example; say a friend at work tells you something in confidence and it is something about another co-worker who you actually like better....quick....'filter' yourself. Or another word might be to 'process' all the information and don't act on it or give your opinion right away.....A good thing to say so you can 'buy' yourself some time is "Ahhhhh, really?" This is noncommittal and the gossiper actually thinks you are agreeing with them. Strange how that always works that way. People think they are right and of course you must be agreeing with them, even though you are only saying, 'ahhh, really?' Another example would be when your spouse or anyone is verbally attacking you; just don't answer right away (filtering again) and if you give them enough space between their yelling, they usually can see how irrational they sound. It is really amazing how when you don't escalate the disagreement by verbalizing your defense or opinion of the issue, it diffuses the other persons' tantrum. Try it, it works. Remember, it takes two to argue and if you don't answer, game over....
Now, Gommy had to learn this the hard way. It didn't just come naturally. I can't tell you how many emails I have flipped off and then immediately regretted it and wished I could retrieve it from the Ethernet....Or times I have said something I realized was hurtful and being stupidly stubborn, couldn't get myself to apologise and just left it sitting there going stinky in the air between someone I really cared about and myself. There have also been too many instances where I was dead wrong about an issue and at the time, no one could have told me I was wrong....Hindsight is always 20/20. Most people just don't ever own up to being wrong and the bad blood just gets worse and worse.
I recently had an incident that really befuddled me. I thought I was doing everything I could to help someone at the time and another person told tales on me to try to make me look like the baddie. I fell in the trap of becoming defensive (it's soooo easy to do) and when I finally just told myself, "Self, just let it go. You know what you did and what your intentions were.", everything turned out okay and I was vindicated. If I would have continued with the protesting, I would have looked like the Shakespear saying, "The Lady doth protest too much, methinks!" He meant that if you really didn't do anything wrong, quit defending yourself and if you did do it, you are proving your guilt by continuing to try to persuade everyone that you are innocent. And low and behold, just by letting it lie there without any futher attention to the issue, it just went away. And in the meantime, the other person apologised to me (sort of) for the 'misunderstanding'. I really did learn a good 'life lesson' with that one. Just keep doing what is right and all will be well.
