When You Point a Finger at Someone, Three Fingers Point Back at You
It's just the scientific truth.
What’s the most painful lesson you learned from living through 2020?
I’m still cataloging my memories from the past year, and my answer to the question above might change tomorrow or next week or next month. But today, the answer is loud and clear.
When I react negatively to someone’s bad or annoying behavior with a particular ferocity and I can’t figure out why I did, it’s probably because it triggers something I don’t want to admit: RECOGNITION. That’s a hard pill to swallow for an empath.
I’m reminded of something I used to hear a lot in Catholic school: “When you point a finger, three fingers point back at you.” It’s one of those things that sounds trite and unoriginal — like the whole footprints in the sand schtick — but is actually a concept worth a meditation session or two.
What’s the Point of Pointing? Why Do It?
Why do I associate the saying above with Catholic school?
It’s probably just a more easily digestible version of Matthew 7:3–5, which begins with, “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?” It’s an impressive setup for the more famous quote, Matthew 7:12: “Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.”
(Yes, I’ve read the Bible — a lot, actually, as a former Jesus camper. Let’s move on.)
Back to pointing. What do I mean by this, especially when we all know that I’ve not been around other humans — aside from my husband — for nearly a year? It’s figurative, obviously. In reality, my pointing fingers look like this:
Snide comments that I spit out when I’m scrolling my social media feed
Frustrated tweets when I’m up to my ears in writing projects to edit
The face I make behind my mask when someone is doing something I don’t like
Off-screen eye-rolling when I don’t agree with someone at a Zoom meeting
And Reader, I do these things a LOT. I used to joke that I was judgmental because I was very particular about grammar and nitpicky about film adaptations — but 2020 turned me into a veritable Judgy McJudgerson.
What IS the point of all of this? I suppose it’s a way to interact with the world without actually being in it. It’s fear — valid as it may be — pulling me back into the shadows, out of earshot, out of sight, out of mind. It’s ego, too.
I pretend that my voice matters because I have an opinion, even though I keep everything to myself. The negativity of it all stays in me like poison waiting to spread into everything I think and do.
Why Does Everything I Notice Have to Be Negative?
Okay. It’s not EVERYTHING. However, I find that it’s what’s negative that sticks to me the most. I can spend whole days just trimming my feeds of what annoys and triggers me and have weeks where I’m glowing blissfully, working on myself, and genuinely trading positive energy with others. But it never lasts.
I get fired up by the littlest things. And I hate to admit it, but I get OBSESSED and it takes a while before I notice the habit and put a stop to what has to be an unhealthy coping mechanism from my childhood. (It has to be one of those, right?)
My theory, as best as I’ve come up with after dozens of meditation sessions — which sometimes consists of just beating myself up for not being more transcendent and above all this fucking pettiness — is that I get attached to the negative things I notice because it’s the only way I can get myself to focus on what’s going on in my shadow.
I mean, it’s downright obvious if you look a little closer:
I get annoyed at people that submit writing projects with grammatical mistakes, perhaps because I often send out these newsletters with typos I only get to correct when I notice them days or weeks after it’s already in your inboxes.
Sometimes, oversharing on social media bugs me when other people do it. But it’s literally my “brand,” if I ever had one. I mention it in my bio and a good portion of my creating writing is nonfiction prose.
I don’t like unboxing videos and other retail-centric content because it’s something I truly struggle to understand. Whenever I buy something that’s not a need, I always feel guilty — to the point that I psych myself out and use new items less often. I feel like I need to “earn” the right to enjoy what I buy, even though I earned the money to buy them in the first place.
Shadow work is important. But damn, it HURTS. At the heart of it, I “point” my finger at people that seem to be just fine doing the things they do — while I would probably turn to dust out of embarrassment or guilt for doing the same. It’s really about me not being able to forgive myself for being human and having flaws.
The focus on negativity is due to me not wanting to accept my shadow. I can’t think of it as a part of myself that’s worth of the same love I give to the part that’s bathed in light and consciousness.
So What’s the Actual Lesson Here?
As with most things, the only way out is through. Yes, it’s painful to realize that I’ve turned into a person that at times gets fueled by negativity. The worst aspect of this situation is that I kept all that negative energy in me.
No one really knows this side of me — except for my husband and my dog. I knew it wasn’t healthy but I kept on doing it because pointing fingers was easier than facing myself. AND I subjected my family to this less-that-average version of me during a time when everyone was already so stressed and exhausted.
I need to accept what I’ve done and take steps to curb this nasty habit. I need to let go of the inherent selfishness of shielding myself from my shadow and finally just deal with it. I need to love myself completely until it doesn’t hurt anymore.
So that’s what I learned. What lessons did YOU learn in 2020? Tell me.
Maybe if people talked like this more, less of us would keep frightening and dark versions of ourselves inside. Maybe we’d be happier. That’s a thought worth holding on to as we head into the unknown.
Here’s to letting go and letting the light in us this 2021.
Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash
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