“One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore your faith in yourself.”
~Lucille Ball
It is important when being a writer, in business for yourself, that you have adequate support around you. People reassuring you that you will be successful and that actually believe the encouragement that they are giving you. People that you can bounce ideas off of and they get how your mind works and don’t automatically assume that you are crazy. People that don’t tear you down every chance that they get.
I think that I have built up a good circle of people who believe in my vision and what my purpose is. It may be a very small circle but it is there. The problem that I continue to come up against is the people, or person in particular, who continues to tear me down with every open shot they get.
Now I know that I am supposed to cut any negative form of energy that enters into my circle and threatens my belief in myself but family is a little harder to get rid of. Every time I get to a place where I feel confident in what I am doing and I begin to stop doubting myself (at least not on an everyday basis) this person says such negative, nasty, unsupportive things. Sometimes they just say things that are downright hateful.
I asked someone once how you are supposed to extract that negative energy from your life and your circle when they are family and you have to deal with them on a regular basis. This person told me that just because that person is your family doesn’t mean that they necessarily deserve to be treated the way people normally would treat their family. He said that if they are not living up to the title and are not giving me that emotional support that family is supposed to give one another then they are family in title only but not in their actions.
I never thought of it that way and even though I try to keep this in mind, every time I have to deal with this person (which is often because my daughter is very close to them) the negativity is just there and sometimes it seeps in my subconscious whether I want it to or not. Last night the negativity seeped in for a little while but for a writer there is typically a battle to keep out the voices of doubt, whether it is your voice or the voice of others.
I didn’t necessarily win the time and productivity battle today but every day won’t be perfect and you have to just take the good with the bad. Tomorrow will be a better day, one where I will avoid all said persons projecting negativity my way.
Jimmetta Carpenter
Writer/Editor
The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)
Writing as “Jaycee Durant”
http://unpleasantlyplump.wordpress.com/
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310
Write 2 Be 