Don’t believe the noise. Those mean, petty, hateful voices will never be the majority. They only seem loud and pervasive, because they have the idle time to broadcast their negativity. The rest of us are too busy with real efforts to make the world a better place.
Anthon St. Maarten
Hey, Lovelies.
It had to happen. After yesterday’s post I copped a bunch of mean messages.
People who suggested that I should just catch COVID and die.
People who said that it doesn’t matter if people with disabilities or chronic illness or co-morbidities die because they are useless people anyway who are a burden to society.
People who told me I was all manner of terrible things, and people who wished all kinds of terrible things would befall me.
That’s okay.
Angry people hurt people. Hurt people hurt people.
I managed it by:
- having coffee with a girlfriend
- deleting abuse and blocking abusers, and reporting them if there were threats of violence
- keeping a running commentary with my team about the insults and abuse that landed in my inboxes, in a way that made us all laugh and that diffused tension
- hanging out with my dogs
- meditating, and doing a tonglen meditation for all those people who lashed out at me
- reading all of the affirming messages and vulnerable outpourings from people within the disability, chronic illness and medical condition community and their families, who are also looking for some kind of positive solutions or options for themselves and their families, and who only want to be seen and understood and included, rather than being made to feel that they are worthless and dispensable, or that their situation is somehow all their fault.
These people who abused me yesterday are not the majority – they just make the most noise.
I still have faith in the goodness of people everywhere, and our capacity to love and care for one another, no matter how different we may be to one another, no matter how diverse our views.
Keep being kind, people. Keep being the best version of yourself that you can be. Keep lifting others up. If we don’t, who will?
Love, compassion and the zen space that comes from meditation, Nicole xx
