Are you offended?

Smiling sky

The dictionary defines offended as “to be

resentful or annoyed, typically, as a result of a perceived insult”.

I would add to that understanding of “being offended”.

To be offended is to be in your ego versus in your spirit. In an earlier blog post of mine from April 4^th, 2013, entitled  "Spirit versus Ego" I addressed the difference between being in your spirit vs. ego. All drama, which includes being offended by another's comments, occurs when we are in our ego. That is because ego based thoughts are generally fear based. When we shift into spirit, we come from love, which includes understanding, acceptance, compassion, forgiveness, and many other high energy states.

I generally like to write about what comes into my field of awareness. Recently this topic of being offended came in several times, nudging me to take a look at it. For me, as a writer, I go through a process of first observing and then writing it down as a way to make sense of it.

I was at a gathering of lady friends one night. When you put 10 females in a room, add liquor, and a lot of talking going on, there's bound to be a bit of drama. We represented 4 decades of ages..including 20 somethings, 30 somethings, 40 somethings, and 50 somethings.

Maybe an hour into the night, when we gals were all standing around chatting away, one of the gals said very loudly, “shut the f**k up Lynne”. This got everyone's attention & now it was focused on the gal who said it. I was not offended. I know that this gal is a friend of mine. I know that her utterance had very little to do with me. Everyone was chatting away having a good time, me included. I could see how someone in their ego might be offended by this utterance but that night, and at that moment, my spirit was in attendance. 

Could she have gotten everyone's attention a better way? I suppose.  But, I do know, that at the time of this utterance, it was no big deal to me. It could even be viewed as a bit humorous. Who talks to their friends that way, I mean really? It was forgotten by me as quickly as it was said. 

When only 4 of us were left, the host, me and 2 others, one of them brought it up. She delivered her opinion of that utterance directed towards me. Basically she thought I should be offended. After all, she said, it was rude. I know that what she meant was that if it were her on the receiving end of that utterance, she'd be offended. Then the other two chimed in by this time, agreeing with her that this was rude behavior and agreeing I should be offended. They all agreed that they care about me & this was why they were offering their opinion.

I let them know I was not offended. I cannot control other people's behavior. I can however be empowered in my response. I do know that being offended is a waste of my time. I don't think I successfully explained to them that night why I was not in the least offended. In writing this post, I went to my collection of books & found the following:

In Wayne Dyer's book, Ten Secrets for Success & Inner Peace, he has a chapter entitled “There Are No justified Resentments”. “I have a right to be angry, hurt, depressed, sad, or resentful”. This can be heard any day from anyone. “Anytime you're filled with resentment, you're turning the controls of your emotional life over to others to manipulate. When you live at or below ordinary levels of awareness, you spend a great deal of time and energy finding opportunities to be offended. Not being offended is a way of saying, I have control over how I'm going to feel, and I choose to feel peaceful regardless of what I observe going on. When you feel offended, you're practicing judgement”.

(I found out days later that this was a line from a movie called The Big Lebowski, the original line being "Shut the f**K up Donny"). 

Thank you Wayne Dyer.

I recommend checking out his book “Ten Secrets for Success & Inner Peace” if this topic resonated with you.

And once again, many thanks to you the reader, for visiting SpiralHappy. Love & Light!