~ Losing my Religion (with Respect to REM) ~

The past 6 months have been both and enlightening and a revealing time in relation to my journey  – how I have progressed, how I have physically changed, how my tastes in real food have been defined and refined, how I relate to people and in most of most of my journey to this stage, I have gained – gained friends and acquaintances, gained such fabulous and inspiring knowledge, gained more spiritual upliftment, gained new habits but equal to this, I have also lost – lost weight, lost many bad eating habits, lost some friends and acquaintances, lost an abundance of negativity.  Lost my religion? Read on if you want to know how….

By my nature, I am much of a nurturer, which doesn’t take much as I believe every one of us has this built in ability to nurture others as we are all created equally…with a heart and soul.  So in nurturing others, I believe that I am feeding my heart and soul too.  Naturally, friendships mean a lot to me and I respect and reciprocate meaningfully to all my friends that share with me.

6 months ago I formed an online relationship with someone through a social media forum advocating good health through weight loss and exercise.  We had an almost instant dialogue and “clicked” to form what I perceived as a strong kinship.  We met at some stage and beyond that lunch meeting we remained online friends.  This person shared my journey with me, encouraging and supporting me, commenting positively and sympathetically as the comments deemed and seemed genuinely a friend of choice – someone I could turn to when I needed to.  We shared many similarities and at the same time, deep confidences. 

Contact beyond the online social forum has been sporadic – our lives are hectically busy, both sides and every now and then they would make the extra effort to check up on me and how I am doing and express how proud they are of me…etcetera.  This past weekend was no different and when I saw an inboxed message enquiring about how I was, I naturally responded.  The conversation developed into an almost counselling session as they were going through a bad patch in terms of family and other personal issues and they came across as being suicidal to the extent that I was alarmed and responded (in the nature and spirit of the close friendship we shared) “NO way…thats crazy thinking. ..snap out of it seriously- You are worth much more than u give urself credit for…so clear your mind, timeout to a family or good friend and take it easy! chin up and smile …give thanks u have life… xxx
All seemed well after that with no mention by them of taking offence to that statement – in fact my encouragement of positivity deepened in the length of that conversation.  So I retired for the night with a fair amount of relief that they were going to be ok and I’d check in with them the next day.

The next morning, some 11 hours after our online conversation, I received a text message from them advising that I was responsible for them having left the social network site due to my comments and I enquired what comments were they?  What followed from them rocked me to my very core and I could not believe that any individual whom shared some many happy times with me could turn into a such a poor excuse for a human!  They took all my recent social network updates that I had shared with my online friends and family for information and support and wherein they offered really honest to goodness encouragement, and said that unlike me, they don’t complain…they used my mother’s recent illness, the death of my very dear cousin, the recent  attempted armed robbery of my husband and 8year old son on the way to school drop off, and a recent theft from my home as examples – in a most brutal,  heart-stripping manner that has me still reeling as I write this.  Despite this, my responses were kind and endearing and they basically used an expletive to ask me to stay out of their life….needless to say, I have.  A lot has happened in the first 48 hours after this encounter and a lot has been said which has turned out to be untruths (including they had not left the online forum as they had advised me) on their part but I am ok with it as, as torn as I am about what has happened, I have since discovered that at least 3 other online friends have been “victim” to this malicious individual with almost the same consequences. So this incident is not unique to me among my circle of online friends.  I am intimidated by this person in a huge way and I can only hope that they come to their senses and work hard at strengthening their good qualities which will outshine their bad ones….

So, I have not lost my faith in my Creator or my spiritual Guru – “Losing My Religion” is an archaic, Southern American expression meaning to be pushed to the limit or at your wits end and as in my instance, if you were “Losing your religion” over a person, it could also mean losing faith in that person – and that’s exactly what happened to me this week… And losing friends doesn’t mean forever. Differences challenge us, but the challenge is a good one. Each relationship is important to helping form the person you’ll end up being.

A good friend advised: “As someone who has walked away from friendships, I can say that when the dynamics of the relationship change, for whatever reason, things are re-evaluated and hard choices are made.   Perhaps your paths will cross again in the future, and maybe they will merge. But for right now you are doing what you think is best for you”.  I concur with this in it’s entirety…

People will come and go. The most important thing is to always remain true to who you are. This past week has been a true test of my character and I am glad it’s so very much intact, albeit more reinforced!
Only by such interaction do we grow. And if we don’t grow, what’s the point?  It’s during the tough times  that we discover what we’re made of, especially when we endure them while remaining kind and respectful to them and others -a sign of maturity or my rite of passage?

I continually count my blessings in the amazing support base of family, good friends and encouraging acquaintances….still!

 
And I tell myself….

That was just a dream
Just a dream
Just a dream, dream
[Losing my Religion REM Album Out of Time 1991]

****

The Jungian Personality Profile for me through testing, is interestingly very accurate in it’s description of me as being Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging (Introverted Sensing with Extraverted Feeling)

ISFJs live in a world that is concrete and kind. They are truly warm and kind-hearted, and want to believe the best of people. They value harmony and cooperation, and are likely to be very sensitive to other people’s feelings. People value the ISFJ for their consideration and awareness, and their ability to bring out the best in others by their firm desire to believe the best.
 
More so than other types, ISFJs are extremely aware of their own internal feelings, as well as other people’s feelings. They do not usually express their own feelings, keeping things inside. If they are negative feelings, they may build up inside the ISFJ until they turn into firm judgments against individuals which are difficult to unseed, once set. Many ISFJs learn to express themselves, and find outlets for their powerful emotions.   

The IJSF is warm, generous, and dependable. They have many special gifts to offer, in their sensitivity to others, and their strong ability to keep things running smoothly. 

They need to remember to not be overly critical of themselves, and to give themselves some of the warmth and love which they freely dispense to others.

Aluta Continua….