by Tamara Kulish from https://tamarakulish.com/

…and I still got squirted in the eye with onion juice!

We do our best to avoid unpleasantness in life, often finding it has found a way into our lives anyway.

The old me used to take things quite hard in that I’d blame myself for things that obviously weren’t my fault, but I felt that I must be a huge loser or at least cursed for all those bad things to have happened. I would pick up where my abusers and critics left off, either repeating what they said, or finding very negative inference for their treatment of me. Yes, I was quite skilled at tearing myself down and then once I was a puddle, I’d kick myself more for good measure until I was in a depression.

After I learned to speak nicely to myself, and to suspend judgement, I saw that the negatives were not in fact a constant stream interspersed with a few small good moments, but in fact my perception of the frequency and duration of the negative moments was prolonged by the rehashing of the event I did in my mind, over and over, each time painting myself worse and worse.

Having overcome those mental patterns, I saw that the negative moments were not as frequent as I had thought and were at times quite infrequent.

The old me needed to reinforce the negative messaging I had internalized from my abusers, I’m sure because they were in a position of power in my earlier life, and part of my brain acceded that power to them, and furthermore said they were correct because they were in power. “They must know more than I do, they’re older than me.”

The new me had learned to speak gently and kindly to myself, to see my value and to remind myself of the good I do in this life. The new me see the ups and downs of life as just stuff that happens to us all, because we’re all supposed to be learning and growing, and if we don’t come face-to-face with difficulties, we would never go out of our way to learn the deep soul lessons we need to learn in our lifetimes.

The new me and the old me definitely tried to avoid any unnecessary troubles or difficulties, but I no longer take it to heart and beat myself up when they do. It really is a learning process, one that requires practice, a lot of it, to learn.

I was chopping onions earlier and they seemed to be particularly juicy and my eyes were watering badly after only the 1st one. I remembered a tip I had read, and put the remaining onions in the freezer for what was supposed to be 15 minutes but ended up being 45. I thought I’d be safe, but when I was removing the skin on the 2nd one, my fingernail dug into it and I got squirted it the eye with a stream of onion juice. The hack did work for the chopping, but not for the fingernail.

Sometimes we just can’t avoid some unpleasantness, even when we take the steps to avoid them.

How we respond to those situations makes all the difference.

Do we take it out on ourselves? Do we take it out on others? Do we need to blame someone for stuff that sometimes just happens? Does it put us in a bad mood and then spoil our next activities? Does it become a domino effect then of seeing only the negatives in the rest of the day?

How we handle the unexpected unpleasantness of life makes a difference in our days and how we end up treating people around us.

We get to choose our thoughts, thankfully, so let’s choose to see things in a light that doesn’t dim our days or other people’s days.

May the onions of life not squirt you in your eyes, and if they do, know you can clean up the messy situations and move on!

 ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Blessings!
Thank you for liking, sharing this post and for following me!
Tamara

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28 thoughts on “…and I still got squirted in the eye with onion juice!”

  2. This is such a good message, Tamara! We try to avoid life’s little mishaps, but they cannot be avoided. Something is going to happen because it’s life. It is, like you say, how you handle it that is most important.

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    1. Yes, exactly! To get mad when life throws out the curve balls or the odd stuff, is to be unrealistic, ‘cuz like you said, life happens. Why get bent out of shape when we can learn to flow with life instead?!

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  3. We’re all human and of course these things happen. However, when we speak negatively to ourselves our brain internalises that and we alter how we think of ourselves. I’m so sorry you experienced that sort of behaviour due to the abuse you went through but so glad you’re healing and doing so much better now. The thing with abusers is that they love to expect perfection from you but at the same time expect you to forgive them for being imperfect.

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    1. Yes, you so very succinctly encapsulated the paradox. Recognizing it is a very important part of the process for us to disengage from their manipulations, for they need us as part of their unhealthy skills to shore up their own low self-esteem. They need to break us down in order to then feel they aren’t the lowest, that there is someone lower than them. As we slowly untangle ourselves from the net they have woven around us, we can realize that we don’t in fact need their toxicity in our lives, so the sense of shame they have instilled in us for not staying blindly loyal to them at all costs is then able to be released.

      I’m very happy that you have taken the steps you have in your own life. Peace of mind is something we need to develop, and part of it entails releasing the false stories we have believed. Kudos to our hard work! 😉

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      1. Yes, exactly. Plus, making us the bad guy helps them play the victim and hide their shame. The truth is most abusers are sad, small, insecure people who just project.

        Thank you and yes absolutely kudos to us!

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  4. Wow – choosing the see things in a light that doesn’t dim our days or others. That’s so profound. And I love, “my perception of the frequency and duration of the negative moments was prolonged by the rehashing of the event I did in my mind, over and over, each time painting myself worse and worse.” Oh, that’s so true!! Great post, Tamara!

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    1. Thanks so much Wynne! I’m astounded by how much life can change when we teach ourselves to stop beating ourselves up. Thanks so much for highlighting those points!

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  5. Haha, rehash…I love that word. The pathways I’ve worn in my brain from that word Tamara. When I finally got past that journey my boots stop wearing out. I stopped wearing out. Don’t get me wrong, I still do it occasionally, but so much more softly. Great post kind lady, may we understand and begin to wear moccasins in our mind 🤗❤️🙏

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    1. Yes, love the analogy of walking softly in our minds! The rehashing is exhausting and doesn’t serve any good purpose. Our biggest gift we can give to ourselves is to work on this one thing. It’s amazing how so much shifts when we can do it, isn’t it?

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        1. Yes, truly! This is what we’re supposed to do, and then in turn hold out the hand to help the next person just behind us. 😉

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  6. Ouch! It stings when that happens. A creative analogy and title. 🧅 It does seem that our brains are wired to protect us from unpleasantness. Moving beyond that does take a lot of practice, yes. I applaud you for taking those steps and inspiring others along the way. 🌼

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    1. Yes, we’re all here to learn how to do better and to live amongst ourselves in a healthy and loving way. We have a long way ahead of us!

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  8. Wonderful, Tamara. To extend the onion metaphor, the onions will get you. It is a part of life. The lesson is not only to find a way to minimize this, but to cut the onions anyway. If you choose to avoid the onions of life, you will also miss how good they taste and much else.

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  9. “Sometimes we just can’t avoid some unpleasantness, even when we take the steps to avoid them.” What a lesson–amen to that! Often, even when we’ve done everything right, things still go awry. It’s a valuable skill to learn to roll with the punches, and then laugh at life’s little mishaps. ☺️

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    1. Yes, I love how you worded it! We definitely need to just roll with things sometimes! We can spend our time bitchin’ about what happened or we can roll up our sleeves and do the work that needs doing.

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