"Are You Tired of Putting Up With Bad Behavior?"

It's been an interesting year of becoming aware of how much bad behavior I put up with….and that was before the 2016 campaign! Carpenters who messed up and then billed me for correcting their mistakes, clients who complained nothing was getting better but didn't do homework for learning new skills, friends who told me they were there for me-not. You know the drill as you too are putting up with bad behavior and calling it love, family, being nice, etc.

What is "Putting Up with Bad Behavior"?

• You make excuses for the person behaving badly, saying s/he is going through a rough patch, had a bad childhood, doesn’t really mean it. Rough patches are a part of life, I have yet to meet someone who adores their childhood, and when did we begin treating words as having no impact? What you tolerate is how you will teach other to behave with and towards you.
• You treat yourself badly and then wonder why others do so as well. Eleanor Roosevelt called it out-you teach others how to treat you. The one person you have the most power with, control with, creation with is yourself. Yet how you treat yourself, how you talk to yourself is often downright mean! In fact, if you treated a child the way you too often treat and talk to yourself, you would be appalled! Be nicer to yourself-and and be honest about what you tolerate from those who say they love you-and your life will change for the better.
• You are unhappy in your life or a relationship and tell yourself there is value in tolerating bad behavior. You may have been taught what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Nope, that is how you survive life, not how you will thrive and be happy in life. There is absolutely nothing to be gained from enduring (your gift of) life or a relationship. Life is short and being a martyr does not earn you brownie points for being a good person or entry into heaven.
• You tell yourself "it’s no big deal, you can handle it" when you are being dissed, denigrated, or dismissed. It IS a big deal and there is a price both the person dissing you and you are paying for putting up with bad behavior. The people you cross paths with in life are for your benefit somehow, as you are for them. Your choice to stand up for yourself or for your values may be exactly what the other person came into your life for, despite appearances to the contrary. Never doubt your value in life-or in another's life-nor your power to inspire through no longer tolerating bad behavior.
• Your body never lies and will reflect back to you what your choices are really costing you. Your mind may tell you to dismiss or ignore what you/r body is feeling, your culture will tell you to take a pill for it, but ignoring your body's messaging is done at the peril of your well-being. The price of putting up with bad behavior has a price to your spirit as well as to how you feel about yourself and others.

Dismantling your learned habit of not caring for yourself, not honoring yourself, not respecting yourself won't happen by thinking about it. Learning to no longer put up with being dismissed, being disrespected or being denigrated happens through taking action one conversation, one choice at a time. Putting up with bad behavior and telling yourself you’re being nice, not being a bitch-or my favorite, not being negative-is justifying and condoning bad behavior. 

Learning to care for yourself as the sacred being you are will make you uncomfortable, maybe even be scary at times. But isn’t feeling better about yourself and your fellow humans worth it? The irony is that when you no longer put up with bad behavior, you’ll find yourself more willing and able to be kinder, more tolerant, and more loving in your life. 

The choice to no longer put up with bad behavior has moved from optional to what now seems imperative. At the heart of your challenges in life is your soul's call to remember and live as who you really are... Powerful. Creative. Wise. Courageous. Compassionate. Committed. Generous. You get the idea. You were born for this turbulent time of evolution, for living out loud the nobility, dignity, and divinity of being human, and uplifting and inspiring those who have forgotten.