Whenever my family and I go somewhere, we get a lot of stares. We are not a “traditional-looking” family. My husband has tattoos, I have tattoos and a septum ring, Tegan has a mohawk and Lilly wears a wolf tail and wolf ears. Pair all of this with the fact that Jay and I swear like sailors and we all goof off pretty loudly at times, and we get gaped at, sometimes not in the best way, but the staring has always been very promenant when we are out and about, no matter where we are.
Lilly is obsessed with werewolves at the moment, so the fuzzy ears and tail are a perfect reflection of that. For some reason as to which I’m clueless to, her having those ears and tail offends a handful of people when we are out in public. Stares, points, laughter, rude comments made just out of earshot–you name it. It has started to give her a lot of anxiety, so she asked me what to do about people staring. I broke it down for her. “You are twelve years old, and you wear wolf ears and a tail, both of which you love. Why do you love them?”
She blinked at me because she was aware that I already had the answer, but she humored me and told me anyway. “Because I love werewolves. I’m kind of obsessed with them right now.” She gets a huge smile, and a twinkle in her eyes. “Right,” I said. “And do you want to explain to all of these people you like werewolves and why so they won’t look at you differently?” She blinks again. “Well, no. But they’re all staring.”
“Yes, baby, and they will continue to stare. Your ears and tail will get a lot of attention. But let them stare.” She was fine the rest of the time, and she hasn’t said anything much about it since. I should be fair to say that for every rude person she gets, she’s also got quite a few compliments. One mother approached me in the grocery store and asked how old Lilly was. I told her, and her whole face lit up. “My daughter is 11 and she wears a foxtail! I can’t wait to tell her when I get home; she will be so excited to know she’s not the only one.”
Tegan is the same way. She is 8 and she has a mohawk down past her shoulders. She gets a lot of stares, and all the attention tends to make her angry. Sometimes she has to take a breather when we’re at the store. She will be so wound up and that final stare will send her over the edge. Her little fists clench up, and her jaw sets, and I know she has to take a second before we can continue. I have to constantly remind her, too, to let them stare.
Do you get frustrated because you react to everything? Do you feel like you are losing your power? I’m going to let you in on how to successfully get your power back and to stop reacting to everything.
What Power?
First and foremost, I’ll explain the power I am talking about. The power I’m referring to is the power of self-control, the power of peace and tranquility. When someone does something and you react to it, it steals some of your power away. We all try to stay calm and collected. We don’t want to seem like maniacs flying off the handle at every little thing, so when we react, it pushes our self-control away. Instead of having a grasp on our usually calm temperament, now we’re yelling in the middle of a restaurant.
We also do not want to be robbed of our peace and tranquility. If anybody has ever pissed you off, they have robbed you of your peace, if even for a little while. Peace is difficult to come by, and it is even harder to hold onto with how fast-paced and distant our society is nowadays. You need to choose what or who has the power to disrupt it.
Emotions are perfectly normal, so let me clarify that this is not what I am talking about. My children being upset that people are staring at them is completely valid. You being angry because some lifted truck cut you off in traffic is completely understandable. The emotions, you cannot control. However, your reaction from those emotions, you do have control over. To say “you sure pissed me off,” is a lot easier than speaking the truth, the pill-that’s-hard-to-swallow: “I allowed you to piss me off.” To feel angry is one thing, but to dwell on it and allow it to control your day is something else entirely. You’re surrending power to all of these people who simply don’t deserve it.
Let Them Do What Exactly?
The idea of “let them” belief is: sometimes the best action is inaction. Not everything deserves your attention. This “let them” belief isn’t anything new. In fact, it has been circling social media for a while now, but it dates back so much further than that. I took a college philosophy class a year ago that enlightened me with philosophy of all cultures in various time periods. In ancient Chinese philosophy, they have a concept called wuwei which translates into “no action.” It is a concept that has took off recently, and everyone needs to know what it is so they, too, can get their power back.
As for the instances that do deserve your attention, it is up to you to decide what those are. Everyone is different in that aspect; you have to “choose your battles,” so to speak, because you can’t make a fight out of all of them.
This belief can be applied to everything, but I have listed a few to get you started.
- Let them stare
- Let them talk
- Let them do
- Let them have their moods
These four apply the most in my life, but once you get the hang of the mindset, you can utilize it any way you want.
The belief can be applied to everyone, as well. My previous post was about shadow work, and one thing shadow work helped me to discover was that I am a very reactive parent. I should say I was a very reactive parent because I’ve been working on it for a long time, but I do still slip up from time to time. Anything they said, I used to react to. If Lilly had a problem with school, or if Tegan was upset about something, I was very quick to match their energy and it created an even bigger problem.
Me being borderline is probably an explanation to most of it, but I am also just a high-strung individual. Everything I do, I do it loud. I’m not a quiet person, and very rarely a calm one. My kids love this about me when they want to play or goof off, but I’m not just their mother so I can play and goof off with them. I need to teach them how to deal with their feelings when they come up, and how to calm themselves. In order to do that, I realized I had to be a reflection of that calmness. When they feel like they have a storm going on, I wanted to be the reflective surface of the calmest body of water possible.
Let Them Stare/Talk
Let them stare and let them talk go together, because they are about the same thing: judgement. Are you out in the store with your pajamas on? Is your hair not perfect? Are you getting stared at by everyone you pass? Let them stare. More often than not, we project how we feel about ourselves onto other people. If you feel like you don’t look the best that day, you are probably going to think they are staring at you because you look like a wreck.
I get strange looks because I have tattoos, a septum ring, and short hair. Who knows what else? My loud mouth? Maybe. If it isn’t one reason they’re staring at you, it’ll be another. Be true to yourself, regardless of what that truth is. Pink hair and platform shoes, if that’s what floats your boat. Life is too damn short to tailor how you live it to someone else’s expectations. Let them stare.
People love to gossip too, and it’s something that does not go away after high school. I’ve learned this the hard way, unfortunately, because a few out of my husband’s family (and a few out of my own) sure love to talk about me. There are so many rumors, I can’t keep count. At first, they made me angry, and I reacted to every single one, even the small ones. After a while, though, I just wanted to hear what they came up with to talk about. “Hmmm, is that what I did? What did I do next?!”
I cannot count how much time I have wasted being bent out of shape over these things. I cannot tell you how many fights it has sparked between my husband and me, or how much peace it has drained away from me. Letting someone upset you by gossiping about you simply because their lives aren’t fulfilled is the perfect example of handing your power away. I have cried over rumors spread about me, and all of those bridges are burned; I no longer associate with those people because that’s all they want to do. Does it stop them from talking? No. I stopped reacting, though, and I now have peace.
Let Them Do
As stated previously: you can’t control your emotions, but you can control your actions. The same can be said with other people’s actions. Learning that I cannot change people or control their actions was a tough lesson, and the hardest by far.
People can say they care about you all they want, but their actions speak louder. We can push all we want to get people to do things that show us they care, but it will not work. Those people have to want to do those things. For example, we can start a fight with our spouse for not helping around the house, or we can sit down and communicate how it makes us feel when they don’t.
With that in mind, some people we try to communicate with will not listen. They hear us but since they don’t want to, they will continue doing as they please. Constantly chasing them around, begging for understanding and compliance isn’t going to do anything except frustrate us and rob us of our power. At the end of the day, people are going to do what they want to do, whether we like it or not. Let them do.
Let Them Have Their Moods
Let them have their moods, and let those moods have nothing to do with you.
People can be cranky or sad for many reasons, but you can’t assume you caused any of it. Everyone knows how to communicate, albeit not well, but anything is an effort.
A situation I have experienced many times is that someone will pass the responsibility of guessing their feelings onto me. Not only to predict what emotions they are experiencing but also to act accordingly in response to them. I used to appease, but I don’t do that anymore. For instance, if I have a friend who is angry and she gets angry with me for not knowing she’s angry because she feels like I should have done something to make her feel better, that is emotional immaturity, and I don’t deal with any of that.
The same can be said for someone being sick. If I feel under the weather, I communicate that I don’t feel well rather than expecting everyone around me to guess why I’m not my usual self. I’m not going to get angry because no one came to help me if I never asked for help; that doesn’t make any sense.
Our responsibility should not be to guess how someone feels, just as we should not put that burden on anyone else. We can communicate, and we can expect people to communicate. If someone is upset with you, they can tell you so. Otherwise, do not let it zap your power. Let them have their moods.
Bottom Line
Let people stare, let people talk, let people do as they please, and let them have their moods. No one is important enough to surrender your vigor to. Set healthy boundaries, and successfully take back your power. Only you can decide what is significant enough to require your reaction; choose wisely.
You are a magickal, powerful person. Don’t let someone’s shallowness, judgments, or emotional immaturity affect you so greatly.
Invoke the wonder, command the power.