If You Let 'Em

My niece's 15th birthday was a couple weeks ago. I was in my mom's town preparing a little party for my niece. I had just picked up her birthday cake and was on my way to get a cup of coffee to take home for my mother. As I parked my car, I noticed a lady coming out of the neighboring "Dollar Store" with a bunch of helium balloons. I thought that seemed like a great idea! I had never given my niece balloons on her birthday before, so I decided to go in and get some.

I went into the store and purchased 3 balloons. As I was leaving the store, a woman appeared to me to be just arriving. She was behind me, pushing a cart. I assumed she was starting her shopping trip in the store. As I walked out the door, making sure that my balloons passed safely under the top of the door frame, I glanced back at the woman. She was pushing her cart past the door. I let go of the door, and it began to swing shut.

Suddenly there was a loud crashing sound as the door smacked the front of her cart! She was coming out behind me after all. I had dropped the door on her.

I quickly grabbed the door and apologized to her. "I'm so sorry, I didn't think you were coming out!"

This woman was obviously troubled. She was a bit disheveled looking, and her lipstick was smeared around her mouth. She sort of snapped at me as I grabbed the door and opened it for her. "If you let 'em... they'll just keep doin' it!"

I apologized again and held the door open for her.

Then she muttered, "Just leave me alone!"

I held the door until she was safely out of the store and I walked to my car. She was walking a little ahead of me, and kept turning to look over her shoulder at me. She obviously wanted to get away from me, but we happened to be going in the same direction!

She was muttering to herself, and every once in awhile I could hear what she said.

"I just want to be left alone."
"They always do that to you."
"Go away. Just go."

I felt very sorry for this woman. She was obviously a very sad and disturbed person.

She was perceiving persecution where there simply wasn't any. I wasn't trying to hurt her, but she believed I was. The first statement she had uttered really stuck with me, "If you let 'em, they'll just keep doing it."

Now, in this woman's case, it appears to me that she has a belief that people are out to get her and will continue to do so, if she doesn't stop them. The problem is that she seems to 'set herself up' to experience people 'getting her.' I swear to you, she was pushing her cart past the door I was leaving through. When I turned my back and let go of the door, she deliberately turned her cart and pushed it into the closing door. She slammed the door on herself, and then blamed me!

Someone in my life recently made some decisions about the path they are going to follow, declared that they believed most people in their life would reject them as a result, and has proceeded to reject a bunch of people in her life... and then say that they are rejecting her. It's what she believes to be true, so she's MAKING it happen so she can be right, but blaming other people all the while.

This is a common phenomenon for all of us, actually. The way the universe works, we 'get to be right' about our beliefs.

If we believe that people are out to get us, we will experience that as our reality.

If we believe that our luck is always bad, it will appear to us that it is so.

The lens through which we look at life is powerful. It literally changes what we see to match our expectations and beliefs about ourselves and the world.

Be very observant of your beliefs about yourself and the world. It is affecting your experience every single second!