I like the phrase, moral busybodies. It explains it all. We all know at least one. Most of us have even been the moral busybody at one time or another, yikes, I know I have. Now, I know to run from them instead of offering explanations excuses or justification for anything.
I just don’t even bother with them any more. Moral busybodies take up valuable space and time and they suck life out of others. Just not worth it.
No longer do I put any effort into avoiding them. Instead I offer no effort, but when they do invade my space, I disregard them.
I have not always been able to see this much less distance myself from one. It has taken time and patience with myself to get there.
There is pure joy in watching people who intuitively know that someone is a moral busybody and see how they disregard the invasion. I don’t have that intuitive power yet. Was never taught it, never lived with anyone who had it, never grew into that natural response to it.
But I am learning. I am growing. I am realizing I don’t even have to bother with them. I don’t owe them an explanation excuse or justification for anything.
I beat myself up plenty for all of my faults, I certainly don’t need more of the abuse from others. I desire to grow in my kindness towards myself and others and get out of the loop of all the negativity that has always surrounded me.
I am getting tickled with myself and my growth. I can (now) politely dismiss myself from even the ugliest of moral busybodies with a smile on my face, a skip in my step and a peaceful heart in the midst of removing myself from them.
I now have better things to do with my time and energy. I am enjoying my healing journey. Cleaning up my health, refining my lifestyle, and accepting myself exactly as I am, more and more every day.
Still a long ways to go but looking at today, just today, I am happy with myself and all my complexities.
Hope you are getting settled into your complexities and how beautiful you are, just as you are.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be “cured” against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals. –
~ C.S. Lewis, God in the Dock: Essays on Theology (Making of Modern Theology)
Finding peace as I grow.
Maribeth
