A good and spiritual friend of mine once posed the question: “How do you resist insanity?”
Then she answered her own question. “The only way for me, as an individual, to resist is to hold on to who I am amidst all of the forces that want to turn me into something else.”
At first, I thought: “What a wonderful answer! It truly is all about staying centered when external chaos swirls around us. Each of us must stand tall when insanity claws at our clothes.” But then I thought about all the physical forces in my life that have swept me away from what I thought was solid ground, and into the raging current.
What was the purpose of those experiences?
Does one resist insanity or just release it and move on? That has been a constantly recurring question in my life. Usually, I’m stubborn. I exhaust every viable avenue for reducing the insanity before I’ll release it and walk away.
Insanity is the realm of bullies and dictators. Choosing to resist their arrogance, violence, and control issues can have huge spiritual benefits, both for the individual resisting, for the bullies, and for the world. It equalizes the playing field and reduces the bullies’ dysfunctional power.
However, if one chooses to resist insanity, there are non-functional and functional ways of doing so.
Spotting the non-functional ways
1. Allowing oneself to get sucked into the dictator’s insanity
2. Screaming
3. Name-calling
4. Hitting
5. Killing
6. Being nice because you’re afraid to set limits and to say ‘no’ and then continuing to feel anger
7. Becoming passive/aggressive
8. Continuing to bang your head against a stone wall that won’t budge
Take this path instead
1. Standing firm in one’s own spiritual identity. This takes a lot of energy when you’re being battered by dysfunctional human beings. You’re just like a lightning rod, standing there all alone, taking that dysfunctional energy and grounding it so it doesn’t harm either you or others. You won’t have enough energy to do that by yourself. If you can trust in and connect to a Power Greater than yourself, you have access to unlimited energy and resources.
2. Visualizing a shield of white light surrounding you that deflects the negative energy back to the perpetrator.
3. Sometimes turning the other cheek. Turning the other cheek often defuses the negative external energy. Why? Because the dysfunctional person expects you to fight and you don’t. It confuses them. The exception is when turning the other cheek is perceived as weakness rather than strength.
4. Setting boundaries or limits on bad behavior and sticking to them. Remove your energy from the bad behavior. Stop enabling it by giving it your attention. (If necessary, physically remove the offending person from your environment and allow him or her to cope without your support.)
5. Walking away so you don’t continue to feed the insanity with your presence and willingness to listen.
