No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. ---Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt's wife and the nation's First Lady throughout his twelve-year presidency that began with the Great Depression and took us through World World II, was a powerful speaker and activist, noted for her championing of marginalized peoples. Rob Dial, in today's podcast, gave her above quote that dovetailed nicely with his assertion that others...especially those with toxic personalities...can only hurt you with their words if you sense their truthfulness for yourself and internalize them. How such triggers are processed...between the time they are heard and your response...can determine the quality of your life as psychologist Victor Frankl once emphasized. I tend to agree, not that my own reactions to such negative experiences have demonstrated this for much of my life. I can remember numerous instances of encountering toxic people and allowing their barbs to cut me. Yet at the same time I didn't necessarily feel inferior as a result but rather grew to hate those committing the offenses. As Max Ehrmann in his prose poem Desiderata once wrote, "Avoid loud and aggressive people, they are vexatious to the spirit". Yet Dial regards toxic jerks and their insulting bullcrap as a gift to aid in people's personal development...oh, please, I bet you were one of them, dude. By the way, "bully" can be substituted for "toxic person"...
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