You’ve probably heard the phrase, “He’ll get over it.”
It’s usually said after someone has been hurt by a statement. The person who said it will rationalize, “They’ll get over it.”
But will they?
For decades now, I’ve been doing my best to encourage people to go for their dreams. When someone says they have a desire to do something — whether enter a contest or work toward a degree or open a business or write a book — my general default setting is to urge them on.
After all, neither you or I can predict the future of anyone’s success or failure. It makes far more sense to me to be optimistic and urge them to go for it.
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So you can imagine my shock when I hear people put their own family and friends down, or dissuade their dreams. It seems like the most unloving thing to do.
Yet they do it.
Why?
I know some people rationalize their own behavior with statements like, “I was just being honest” or “He needs to face reality” or the infamous “She’ll get over it.”
But are any of those statements actually true?
My bet is this: the people saying the negative, limiting, degrading or harmful statements have convinced themselves they are doing it for the good of others, when in fact they are doing it to stroke their own egos.
Why would anybody do any of this?
It’s unconscious programming.
It’s ego.
"Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting." -Emmet Fox
No one that I know purposely wants to hurt anyone, but they still do it, not knowing they are and somehow convincing themselves otherwise.
I think it’s time to awaken.
When a flower wants to bloom, water it.
Language is so revealing. When someone says, “I like your ideas. I’ll see if I can find your books,” they are actually never going to read the books.
How do I know?
The wimpy phrase “I’ll see if” signals they aren’t committed.
When someone says, “I’ll try that,” they most likely will never try it.
Why?
Saying “I’ll try” doesn’t have any commitment.
When someone says, “I have to be honest with you,” they are often actually saying they are going to hurt you but they are hiding their dagger behind the word “honest.”
In reality, there is honesty that helps, and honesty that hurts.
Any statement can be phrased to be soft and loving, or hard and unloving. There’s always a choice.
And so it goes.
Here’s what I suggest:
Really be on alert to the language people use when speaking to you. When someone signals they are about to hurt you or your dreams, brace yourself, run away, defend yourself, or escape. These are the people who convinced themselves they are doing this “for your own good” and if they hurt you in the process, “you’ll get over it.”
“Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain but it takes character and self control to be understanding and forgiving.” -Dale Carnegie
Be on alert to your own language, too. Pay attention to your use of wimpy phrases that reveal lack of commitment or true desire. What you speak reflects what you think, and generally comes about.
A friend once told me, “If a person came into your home, dropped their pants, and took a dump on your floor, you’d have a fit. You wouldn’t allow it. Yet that’s exactly what people do when they say negative things: They crap in your head!”
In other words, we have to watch out for crappy language.
People raining on your parade are pooping in your head. Don’t allow it.
When you say something negative or unsporting to yourself, you are pooping in your own head. Don’t do it.
This post is a reminder to watch where you poop.
Ao Akua,
joe
PS — I’m not dismissing helpful advice that you seek out, and that comes from people successful in the field you are asking about. In other words, if you’re seeking wealth insights, ask a wealthy person. If you’re seeking dating advice, ask a dating expert with a track record for success. But people just randomly stating their negative opinions, coming from no experience in your desired dream, are probably a waste of time. Don’t let them poop in your head.
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13 Comments
Hi Joe
But all the people who are negative to your goals is because they are reflections yours!
They are critical because a part of you is.
Clean, clean, clean ….
Ho oponopono and ready.
It’s the best.
At the end there is nothing outside …
All are reflections of mine ….
A hug Joe!
You are exactly right. But until we awaken to the authentic reality of that insight, we have to deal with other people. One way is by minding the poop. 🙂
Thanks Sir I also subscribed to your miracle manual and i will soon read it!Sir I have a problem with me that whenever i found negative thing spoken by others.I feel that law of attraction would go against me!That problem and then i need some days to recover at positive view!Please Joe Vitale Sir Give me solution to solve this problem.
Dear Saurabh
Dont give too much power to other peoples words
Their words are just their opinion…..and opinions are the cheapest commodities on earth….everyone has them
Joe- Thank you so much for all of your posts. After reading this one, which helped me get through a few negative comments from others and myself, I have been going through some of your other posts today and really found the inspiration I needed to “just be happy” with what I have in order to open myself up to something even greater! thank you, thank you, thank you! Please forgive me, I am sorry, thank you, I love you!!
Thank you Joe for all you do, and I just wanted to share with you how surprising I found it that when I was critically injured people, especially family were queuing up to keep me down with their negativity. Even doctors told me to quit trying accept my condition, accept that I would never walk again or ever be part of normal society.
Today 35 years on virtually to the day people are still doing it, to me trying to stop me chasing my dream. However none of them can take away from me the fact that, despite them making my recovery harder than it ever needed to be, I was nonetheless driven like a mad man with my desire to succeed in helping others such that I walked away from my hospital bed entirely of my own doing after only 12 weeks.
Nevertheless like all TBI survivors I’m still in recovery while I continue to chase my dream of recovering 35 years of lost income, but I’m so excited that in August having kept focused on my positive outcome for all of 35 years finally I attain one of my far fetched impossible dreams when I take to the stage at London University to teach remote hypnosis with the “Valerie Austin Advanced Hypnotherapy Conference 2013,” but the real prize for me is when people like you, and I use our experiences to help someone benefit from taking their one small step to their own positive outcome.
In closing I appeal to everybody to set your dreams outrageously high for the “The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.” Michelangelo
Wow
Good for you
Thats amazing
Im proud of you for not falling into victimhood
Its easy to just accept our fate and wallow in self pity and give up
But you decided otherwise
And thats all it takes…..a decision…its a choice
Please Joe edit my grammar on my previous message
many Thanks
Keithanthony
Please reply me sir!Thanks Sir I also subscribed to your miracle manual and i will soon read it!Sir I have a problem with me that whenever i found negative thing spoken by others.I feel that law of attraction would go against me!That problem and then i need some days to recover at positive view!Please Joe Vitale Sir Give me solution to solve this problem.
LOL! Love this! “Cleaning up my thoughts” will never mean quite the same thing as before I read your blog. Thank you.
Great article
Perhaps another title for this post can be
“Mind where you poop”
=)
Thank you Joe, just what I needed. I have been guilty of pooping on peoples ideas in the past (projecting my insecurity/stroking my ego) and have had it happen to me too – definitely doesn’t make you feel good. Love the quote ‘when a flower is read to bloom, water it’. Wise words my friend 🙂
I have read three of joe’s books, but there is one thing that is worrying me. I used to be discipline in many things in my life, but now i am not. I need to be focused and have the discipline to study and work out the way i need. You see, i am studying for some really serious tests, because i want to have a public job or work for the government. I want to be a police officer. Does anybody have ideas that could help me out a little?
🙂