How I became UN-offendable. 1/2

For the longest time, I was unable to revisit photographs of my teen years. Every time, a friend from school or a family member shared a picture from their archive, I would hop on to a roller coaster of emotions. Feeling utterly uncomfortable with the way I looked-fat and ugly.

Can you imagine how frightful it would have been to wake up every morning wishing to look slim, flawless with glossy tresses?

It soon became a living nightmare when my inner critic gave permission to outsiders to comment on all the things that I was already conscious of.

I would meet an aunt and about three minutes into the conversation she would comment on my “youthful blossoms” (that’s what my father called acne). Sometimes a pimple would get poked at, just to remind me of its existence. I mean, who pokes a zit? Its common sense to know that it hurts like hell. Such incidents really upset me and I would hate everyone who noticed, commented, advised or poked at these painful ornaments adorning my cheeks.

Then I would spend a good part of my day secretly seething, and feeling very self-conscious about my appearance.

Youth went by but my acne didn't and neither did the attention it attracted. I wondered, "Is that the only thing to talk about!" "If you cant say something good then don't say anything!" "Can you stop pointing out the obvious!" "Ya, I know it looks horrible but you don't have to say it out loud!"

I had tried everything under the sun to take care of my breakouts but nothing seemed to make them go away for good. The blows I received didn’t obliterate my pimples, just my peace of mind. And I couldn’t control what came out of people’s mouth either. So, what was the solution?

My inquiry led to a simple but powerful revelation.

Viktor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist, who survived the Holocaust, recounts his experiences in the Nazi concentration camps. He writes of the guards taking everything away from the prisoners, all of their human freedoms, in an effort to crush their spirit and destroy their will. But Frankl came to the realization that there was one thing that could not be taken away from him: his freedom to choose his reaction to what was happening to him.

As Frankl himself put it, “Between stimulus and response lies man’s greatest power: the power to choose”.

Even though I found myself in a terrible situation with my acne and all and when someone said something about it, I still had the choice to perceive it as an insult or a fact and then choose to react or respond to it. So I chose the latter, and just like that, what I once perceived as an insult, had no effect on me.

But I am not Buddha, unfazed by insults, jibes, snubs or rudeness. However, I am better able to shake them off.

I will share those insights in the next post.