The Illusion of Being Offended

I cannot offend you. You cannot offend me.

People seem to be offended all over the place today and wear that badge on their sleeves like an honor or a cause. So much so, that freedom of expression has been under attack in an unprecedented way in our country.

There have been successful attempts at controlling speech, topics of conversation, and opinions, all under the guise of protecting people from being offended.

There is righteousness in being offended. At the drop of a hat, I can become a victim when I believe I can be offended by something someone has said or done. Or even something I assume or believe someone is thinking.  And today, what higher rank is there than victimhood?

If you say something I disagree with, I may take it personally and voila, I can invoke the “O” word. Offensive. It has been elevated to have quite an energetic charge around it.

Something you call offensive may not be considered offensive by me. Something that you stew on for days will slide right through my consciousness like water.  How can this be explained?

By clearing up a simple yet profound misunderstanding of the human experience. Once we begin to understand the true source of our experience, even a tiny inkling,  the entire notion of being offended begins to unravel. That you can actually offend me and I might need protection, will look ludicrous.

The key is seeing that you do not have the power to offend me. In fact, you don’t have the power to create or cause any experience or feeling in me. Seeing this for the first time can be a game-changer.

In a nutshell: at any and every moment, we experience our own thinking. Our thinking is a function of the energetic power of thought. Thought creates every experience and feeling we have. We can’t have an experience or feeling without thought. The colored lenses we all wear from which we look out at the world are made of the energy of thought. Thought filters everything we take in through our senses, creating our experience of life. The illusion is that our experience comes from the outside in. The truth is that it comes from the inside out via the energy of thought.

This would account for why it seems we are each living in our own separate realities. We are!

And how we each can have a different experience of the same words or events. We can and we do!

And how our experience can change from moment to moment. Thought is fluid. It is truly like the river in which you can’t put your foot in the same place twice.

And how you can hear something and declare “I am offended” and yet it will roll right off the other person’s back. Or in one moment you are not offended yet in the next, someone says you should be, and you are.

This understanding of thought would account for how real things appear when we dream at night. How we can feel truly frightened while we are asleep in a bed under some cozy blankets? How our hearts can pound or we can break into a sweat while running from demons in a dream.  This thought energy is the same energy that creates our daytime experiences.

I recently got to wear virtual reality goggles and fly a plane in my son-in-law’s basement. My heart was beating so fast as I looked down at the ground far below me. I got scared when he asked me if I wanted to land the plane. I was afraid of crashing!

Sitting at a computer in front of a plane’s instrument panel, my mind got tricked into believing I could actually crash that plane. I felt it in my belly. A mix of fear and excitement. I knew I was sitting in a chair in front of a machine, yet the power of thought created an entirely different reality. What a powerful illusion!

Being offended by something we have heard with our ears, and read with our eyes, is also an illusion. We confuse thought with reality. Your beliefs/thoughts are creating your reality, as are mine.  And if they are in opposition in some way and the topic at hand feels big to one of us,  the “I am offended” sword might come out.

What would the world be like if we were able to shed light on the misunderstanding of where our experiences and feelings come from? What if we all knew it was an inside-out job rather than outside-in? What if we all knew it was impossible for one person to offend another?

This looks like it would be a game-changer. Censoring speech would seem silly. Needing a safe space because someone might feel offended by words would look ridiculous. Open and honest debate and a wealth of different viewpoints would be respected rather than shunned or censored. We might be willing to truly listen to another’s point of view and attempt to understand where they are coming from.

Understanding you do not have the ability to offend me is powerful. I keep my power where it belongs. Within. And I know that any hurt I am experiencing is created from my own thoughts about something you have said. You cannot push my buttons because buttons do not exist. They, too, are made of thought.

It is a relief to know, deep down, that my comfort level is not controlled by another. What a gift. I cannot offend or be offended.  I may get fooled from time to time but if I wait awhile, my thoughts will flow through and I will see clearly again.

Humans are unbelievably resilient. Safe spaces exist within each one of us rather than outside of us. We can feel the full gamut of human emotions (joy to hurt and everything in between) yet be safe within our core.  I cannot offend you. You cannot offend me.

Understanding this is a gift and a stepping stone on the road to harmony.

*****

Gayle Nobel is a life coach, author of 3 books, and blogger who is passionate about sharing a simple, yet profound understanding of the human experience.