Melissa Reddick

The reality of being a Super Hero is that not everybody you are protecting or serving cares, appreciates, or even wants your help.

Do you think you, as a Super Hero, can accept that?

Do you imagine it would break your Super Hero heart?

Who is one person you would fight for, in real life or in an imaginary world, that it would break your heart to know that he or she actually didn’t want you to do that for them?

What if he or she was publicly campaigning to get you to stop fighting for their city, or go fight crime somewhere else?

Is there anything that person could say or do that would make you abandon your mission?

Why do you care about his or her opinion more than anyone elses?

Some people we can just ignore and say “eh, it’s okay if you don’t like me. You don’t really know me, I don’t really know you, so if you’re not happy with me, it doesn’t really hurt my ego or my heart.” Others we think “yeah, it makes sense that YOU don’t want me around.” Either you’re fighting against their best friend, or they just don’t want peace, or they don’t share the same values as you and that has become obvious over time. Or they have just developed a grudge against you for one reason or another. Maybe, unbeknownst to you, he or she is actually a villain in disguise and you keep thwarting his or her secret plans. Or that person is just really miserable, or they don’t really care if everyone else is okay as long as they are.

There can be all sorts of reasons for other people not to like us that are none of our business.

But some people we really, deeply care about. Some people are the reason we even care about being Super Heroes in the first place. Those people are not required, nor should we actually even expect them, to appreciate and/or admire what we do for the town, city, country, and/or world.

But it still stings when they just ignore our efforts. Or complain about us when we are only trying to do our best.

Even Super Heroes feel the sting of having their bids for validation rejected or ignored sometimes. You would hope that wouldn’t happen, but you never stop being human.

One way to overcome this, as a fictional Super Hero character and as a very real Human Being, is to become bigger than the problem at hand.

That means, acknowledging how much it hurts when this person doesn’t acknowledge everything you are doing to help him or her. Recognizing and accepting that it matters to you. Understanding WHY it matters to you is a big one. And then growing beyond that so you can see the larger picture. Or, so you can see the forest for the trees, as some would say. You stop focusing on one person and their actions, and start to see where they fit into the tapestry of what you are weaving with your service.

You can’t change everybody. Even your own Mother, Father, family members, friends. You can’t make them care about what you are doing. You can’t make them understand your plan. You want to hope that they care enough to understand what is going on in your heart and your mind, but if they don’t, unfortunately there is nothing you can do about that. If the people you hope would be your biggest supporters and greatest fans are ACTIVELY working against you by complaining to other people, undermining your confidence at every chance they get – a lot of people have stories about how every time they present something to a parent or loved one, that person does not miss a beat in responding in a way that tears them to shreds without acknowledging that that is what they are doing nor caring enough to listen when you ask them to do something else instead. Being actively hostile towards you by saying there is something wrong with you when you follow the advice of a well-meaning friend, Guide, or Therapist who says “tell them that it hurts you”, and instead taking that opportunity to twist the knife a bit deeper so that you doubt yourself even 1 or 2 degrees further.

Those people are unhealthy. It is hard to accept that there are unhealthy people in a city that you are actively protecting. It’s not impossible, since if people were all healthy there would be no reason to protect anybody from anything.

But it’s easy to accept when you don’t hold those people’s opinions in high regard because they taught you that you have to.

The good news is, everything can be unlearned. So if you feel this way in real life, you can grow out of it, eventually. It is unfortunate that you have to in the first place. But guess what Super Heroes don’t do? They don’t spend time feeling sorry for themselves. Super Heroes can’t afford to wallow. They might feel sad on their own time, but as soon as something happens that they have to defend against, getting right into action takes their mind off of it, for a little while anyway.

Action generates endorphins. So as long as you don’t allow emotions to run the show at the most critical moments, you might be able to revisit your problem later with renewed strength, a more positive outlook. And you will begin to see how those thoughts of doubt only serve to make you weaker.

Don’t let them be used against you by an Arch Nemesis with Psychic Powers who can turn invisible and make you think bad thoughts about yourself. That’s how I think when we have too many erroneous negative thoughts and emotions. They don’t make us stronger, they make us weak.

You are a Super Hero! You don’t run from negativity! You don’t use it to fight evil! You can’t fight evil with more bad. So what do you do?

You use it as fuel to get stronger in all that is Good and Positive about the world instead.

Depression makes you appreciate that which you enjoy in life. Anxiety makes you appreciate that which brings you calm and peace, inner and outer. Poverty makes you appreciate abundance. Being rich makes you appreciate what it’s like when people care about more than just appearances of having a lot of money. Shallowness makes you appreciate depth. Depth makes you appreciate what it feels like to not be drowning all of the time.

The experience of opposites gives us the opportunity to appreciate that which they are and that which they are not.

So…if you were a Super Hero, who in your imaginary or real life would it hurt you the most to hear him or her say “Get out of here, freak! We don’t need people like you around here! We can keep ourselves safe!”

And what would it take for you to listen? To hear them say “We don’t like you, we don’t want you here, we don’t appreciate the fact that you put yourself in danger every day to keep us safe”?

We talked recently about how much danger a Super Hero has to face, AND how much time and planning a Super Hero has to allot in order to be ready to fight crime or evil at any time. How much Super Heroes sacrifice their own enjoyment and relaxation in life in order to be available.

What point would you actually be willing to respond with “Alright then, I will leave and let you defend yourself”? And then take a vaction for a few days. Leave town. Leave the country. Go to a world-renowned spa somewhere that you cannot be reached. Turn off your phone, and/or your signal system, say “Best of luck! You figure things out from here! You’ve got this!”

Knowing you would plan to come back eventually. After he or she had enough time to think through what they were saying to you. Maybe 2 weeks is enough time for the villains to realize they can create chaos and havoc without interruption.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about what that would do to a Super Hero psychologically, and how to separate yourself from other people’s hardships. Especially when you’re living in a universe where everyone can be a Super Hero when given the chance to rise to the occasion themselves. This is when being a Super Hero can actually inhibit other people’s growth, when they need you to step away so they can fight their own battles.

Every Super Hero who is also a Healer has the capacity to help people do this for themselves.