KNOW yourself so you can “NO!” them.

“You are a whore!” 

I guess this was her way of operating in her flying monkey role; she was on the attack and wanted to hurt me, in any way possible.

Though my interaction with this woman was very minimal, to say the least, she felt it necessary to do so, at the instruct of someone else.  The first time she attempted to define me, I laughed because I knew this was part of her continued efforts to denigrate and frustrate me.  But it wasn’t a real laugh.  It was the kinda laugh you do when you are beside yourself with shock and anger.  At the time, I didn’t understand how any of this worked, because I hadn’t begun my learning journey about things of this nature.    I just figured that this is what many women do, unfortunately, when we want to hurt another woman; many use the vilest words to attack the target, especially against the thing that they assume she holds dear.  Needless to say, by dictionary definition and by societal standards nor the standards I set for myself, a whore I am not.

Be that as it may, one of the things I have learned from being the target of a long-term smear campaign is that you must be resolute in who you are and stand firm in that.  A smear campaign, by design, will break you if you do not truly KNOW who you are and how to operate in that knowledge of who you ARE.  The beautiful thing about coming to that level of self-awareness is that once you are there, you are UNSHAKEABLE and UNBREAKABLE.  But, it takes work, which involves uncomfortable honesty and which can only occur from deep introspection, self-evaluation, and acceptance.  Once this occurs, you will have come to terms with every aspect of who you are, which involves the good, the not-so-good, and the bad.  This is typically done when a person wants to improve themselves and ultimately be better to themselves and the people in their lives; it is also done by those who are serious about validating who they already know that they truly are, despite what people try to make them out to be.  Be mindful that both reasons can exist simultaneously.

For those of us who are truly interested in being “better” to ourselves and to others, the process of getting to a space of self-awareness is a complexly interesting and scary one, because, in the end, we don’t always like what we see (arguably, no one is all good, and no one is all bad).  Furthermore, most of us are also not sure what to do with what we discover.  Now, that is where the real work begins, regardless of where our discovery falls on either end of the spectrum (good or bad).  Let’s think about this before we throw it out the window.  For example, the good that we may have discovered may force us to walk away from situations that we deem to be our comfort zone, the same way the bad may dictate that we “fix” ourselves so that we can sustain that which is important to us.  None of it is easy.  To say that we are all flawed is like saying we are all human beings – we know this; they are one and the same.  The problem is that some of our “flaws” are more detrimental to ourselves and to others than the discovery of a “simple” issue.

The point is, regardless of what happens after self-discovery, it is important for us to KNOW who we are, that when the agenda-fulfilling among us attempt to incorrectly define us in order to hurt us, we are not fazed because we either KNOW exactly who we are (good or bad), or we are on our way to self-betterment.  Let’s face it, liars KNOW that they are liars, and a thief KNOWS that he/she is a thief.  While they likely will not readily admit it, they KNOW, even while not understanding the “why”.  On a more complex note, there are other traits within us that require digging (meticulously scrutinizing) for us to truly KNOW what defines us.

The benefit of the knowing process is that though some of us may be exactly what they say we are, we would have already gotten to a state of self-acceptance, so it cannot be weaponized.  It is my belief that for us to address a thing, we must first accept it to be that thing. For example, even if you are, in fact, a “whore” or any other unpleasant definitions that they attempt to let stick, no one can use it against you, because you would have begun the process/work of delving into that specific thing (good or bad) in a way to understand and establish several things, such as:

• why am I the way I am?
• Is being this way beneficial to my growth?
• Is being this way harmful to the people in my space?
• Am I harming myself by being this way?
• What steps do I need to take to depart from my ways?
• What steps do I need to take to enhance my ways?
• What do I need to do to commit to my personal growth?

In the end, when we KNOW who we are, no one can define us or use what they don’t know or know about us as a weapon against us.  Even if they do, we will be able to reject all notions, which doesn’t always require “noise.”