Disparaging vibrations across spatial relationships

I noted a post on a friends Facebook page the other day. It relayed a story of an assault that had occurred many years ago, providing further detail than previously mentioned before online. Knowing this person well, I was aware of the story before it appeared in Facebook Land, and understood enough specific detail to feel the severity of the assault in my own heart. To my amazement, the post was vague yet reactive, drawing an outpouring of sympathy from online friends. While I do not invalidate the experience of this individual whatsoever, I was concerned that such a private experience, shared so reluctantly, with such open trust in the feedback and comments from over 500 ‘friends,’ made me feel very uncomfortable and nervous for that person.

As a sensitive soul, this friend has experienced online bullying in the past, with severe ramifications of their outpourings through huge misunderstandings and losses of friendships. Bearing witness to this post and subsequent comments, I recognised just how helpless I was at supporting this friend through their victim mentality. All the encouragement, listening, and supportive comments I offered could not override their need for admiration. Instead of quietly and humbly reaching out for further healing support during this particular moment in time, they were more invested in achieving hero status by placing themselves on a pedestal of overcoming yet another negative experience in their continuously difficult life.

I know many amazing individuals that by no fault of their own, have experienced terrible acts of violence and injustice during their lifetime. The difference between these friends, is how they take it in their stride, providing support to others during their time in need. They are able to draw upon the teachings of their own personal history to provide inspiration and encouragement, without needing to revert to victim status. As someone who also contains a history of rampant negative experiences, I am very cautious about how I recall details for learning purposes. One word can change the meaning of the lesson entirely, while one emotion that has not been explored, sends the storyteller into a PTSD episode. This takes practice, but most importantly discernment of audience, as the long-lasting effects tend to linger online.

In a relational example, I caught up for a chat with an acquaintance recently and was taken aback by an intimate story that was told 20 minutes into the catch-up. The story’s energy sent out a vibration requesting sympathy during a very light-hearted moment, causing my ears to prick up and stay cautious throughout the time spent together. Similarly, another intense version of this energy vibration occurred during a first date months ago, whereby the individual bombarded me with graphic details of their mothers’ suicide attempt during his childhood. Being empathetic, I listened to their story, offered support and a space to breathe, checked in with them, made them a cup of tea, and flagged it as an attempted boundary violation for eliciting random sympathy, once everything had settled down.

Perhaps language and a lack of listening to one’s own words, causes these situations requiring immediate and intensive emotional outpourings to occur suddenly. If for example, I had broken my foot, the vibration I put out with my words can have two very different meanings. The first one might be “During a festive Sunday afternoon, I got a little carried away and broke a foot. Looks like a good excuse to wear ugg boots all winter long.” Vibrational responses from listeners may allude to clumsiness, uncool fashionable statements, or offers from friends to change a disco date to a pot luck dinner. If my example had been “Slipped and broke my foot, feeling helpless. Can’t do anything for myself. I’m such a failure because nothing good ever happens to me” this response would instigate an outpouring of sympathy, encouragement of overcoming one’s low self-esteem, numerous offers to pop around and cook/clean, and general reminders of their awesomeness with or without a broken foot.

Spatial relationships as energy in motion suggests that everything can change in an instant. While writing this post, I may note that my fingertips are very cold, but then instantaneously recognise that the warmth of the keyboard and the movement of my fingers across the keys, is providing circulation to my extremities. My change of perspective recognises the coldness and the warmth while being impartial to both. I do not tear away from my computer and run down the street, shouting for anyone and everyone to warm my fingertips. Instead I choose to adjust the spatial relationship to work in my favour.

Moving forward, I do not know how best to interact with individuals that actively generate disparaging vibrations through their actions and words to gain additional sympathy. Perhaps it is simply having compassion for them, providing forgiveness for their perceived victim mentality, and standing in my own space of personal freedom above these lower vibrational energies to lead by example. These experiences have taught me to never judge a person during their struggles, but simply regain control of my own responses and prevent their words from gaining further momentum when they reach me. I believe pain can always be transformed into healing energy – you just need practice, and should I find a similar post appear in the future on my friends’ page, I will try my best to do this again once more.