What’s happening behind your back

Two weeks after my wedding, I found out that one of our guests said something really mean about me to her husband at her table during our reception. It felt like getting stabbed in the back.

Most of us can point to at least one memory like that. Someone talked about us "behind our back," and it left us hurt, betrayed, a little sick to our stomach.

Maybe the thought or even fear of being talked about has impacted you. Maybe it's held you back, made you small, kept people at a distance, kept you from expressing your truest self. So we suppress. We censor. We shrink.

And maybe if you're in or past what I've been calling your "F*ck 'em Fifties," that concern has loosened its grip. And yet it probably still shows up. Concern about how you're aging. How your body looks. Your politics. What you posted. The prices you're charging. We worry about it because deep down, we know it's happening. 

Every single one of us has talked about someone when they weren't in the room. We have opinions and judgments, and as humans, we love to talk about the people we know and even the people we don't. 

People really are thinking about you, judging you, talking about you regardless of whether you choose to shrink yourself or fully express yourself. 

Yet, we only ever see talking, thinking, and judging as something bad.

What we don't always let ourselves see is that, way more often, it looks like this:

• You were someone's favorite part of a day.
• Someone passed along a piece of advice or wisdom because you're the one who taught it to them.
• Someone noticed and loved your jacket, the color of your eyes, or your outfit, and told the person next to them.
• Someone looked at you and smiled because they felt your energy.
• You were the reason someone kept going or tried again.
• You were raved about in a conversation you weren't even part of.
• A simple act of kindness you don't even remember is still carried in someone's heart.
• Someone heard your voice in their head as a guiding beacon.
• You played a part in someone believing more in themselves.
• You are the one someone "judged" as courageous, kind, wise, brilliant, or hilarious.

You are being thought about, talked about, and judged all the time. But it's not always to be feared.

Someone said something mean at my wedding that wounded me.   I wish, at 22, I could have mostly felt the gratitude for not hearing it at my wedding and having the time of my life. I wish I had known that it was more about her than it was ever about me.  I wish I had understood how many MORE beautiful, loving things were said about me and to me that day and every day since. 

Let's remember how much beauty and goodness really does surround us, and stop spending energy guarding against someone’s unkind judgment.  Instead, spend it being the person who's talked about because you made someone's whole day a little brighter with your kindness, your big smile, or your contagious joy. And then let's also say amazing things about others behind their backs and right to their faces, too.