Disingenous "Blessings" to You Too

Even though I do healing work, I don't usually get all warm and fuzzy in my email. I don't sign my emails "blessings" or "love, light and laughter" and all that warm, huggy new age stuff. It's not that I am against it, but I have found, sadly too often, that some people who throw these things around without thinking are often hiding some deep resentment and anger.

Women in particular have been taught to put on a happy face even when we don't feel like it. So it never surprises me when women turn on each other online and get vicious in a completely unwarranted manner.

This evening, I had one of those email situations where someone I did not know spammed me about a book that he thought life coaches would find interesting. He CCed a large group of people, and so my email was on a list of 50 other folks I did not know. When the first person responded to the group with a "thank you" I was a bit concerned that I had just been added to a group discussion list that I had no interest being on.

When the second person send out a response to everyone, I felt it was time to nip this in the bud. I was certain that other folks would also feel put out by the email intrusions. I wrote a note clearly and without emotion asking people to please not "reply to all" but to the sender only, and that I wanted to be removed from the list. I felt I was polite and did not flame. I was simply direct.

The woman who had sent the second group email had written one of those semi-gooey love and light emails, with the sign-off "blessings." Well, surprise, surprise! She wasn't all love and light when she responded to me, telling me I was "offensive" and wrong to send my email. When I tried to explain to her that she should not take it personally, she bit off my head again, this time going at me for not being an effective coach and my "not so nice" behaviors (of which she was displaying plenty). She was upset, apparently, that I was telling HER how to behave. (Ironic...and no, you don't have a right to just spam my email box without my permission.)

I've been through this time and again on the Internet, due to being a strong woman. It's always the women who hate me the most, it seems, just for me making a statement without apology. I am more direct, which threatens women who have a Stepford Wife upbringing.

Once, last year, I emailed a female coach to invite her to be a part of my podcast, because I had enjoyed her online radio show. I made a frank suggestion, however, that she be careful to not dominate the conversation on her show, and let the person she was interviewing speak up more. I felt I said the feedback clearly and kindly, but she flipped out on me. She went off and got into all this bizarre stuff about how her parents stifled her as a child and now she just needed to speak out whenever and wherever she wanted, to heck with sitting back and hearing the other person talk.

She was, once again, a woman who in her marketing and to the world tried to present herself as this evolved loving being who was all about positive energy all the time. I could not believe how completely nuts she got with me in email, however. She went so far as to complain about me to the person she interviewed, who was a spiritual teacher I had known for some time. (He wanted no part of this.) And this was all in reaction to my invitation to her, and a simple suggestion I had to improve her show. (I certainly wouldn't have said something if I had any clue she needed years of therapy on that one issue. Yikes!)

My problem is that I tend to engage back with people. I'll be the first to admit that the most spiritual thing for me to do would have been to just ignore these crazy emails completely. I just fuel the flames by trying to defend myself. I am certainly guilty of wanting to have the last word in every disagreement. (I'll blame it on being an Aries, though I had a friend tell me once to stop using my astrology sign as a cop-out!)

What I try to do now is to step back and stop getting caught up in other people's anger and energetic "stuff." Especially on the Internet. So many people are so deeply frustrated and angry about their lives that it's easy to take it out on the semi-anonymous person who is at the other end of the line.

My problem is that I'm smart and I love to be right. In fact, I have to honestly say, I pretty much believe I am right most of the time, with some very glaring exceptions. (I am saying this with a bit of humor, in case you didn't get that!)

The best example of which was once, when helping my friend find a new printer, I told him under no uncertain terms that there was no such thing as a "color laserjet." I was adamant about it. I insisted. I went on and on and we were arguing over this. Well, we turned around and there was a whole row of color laserjets. He still gives me grief about this incident years later, with much glee.

So my need to be "right" comes up constantly when faced with the crazy people on the Internet. There they are, being completely unreasonable (or perhaps it's me, hehe), and you know that no matter what you do or say, they won't come to realize it. Of course they won't. That's the definition of nuts. And there I am, being nuts back by trying to talk some "sense" into them. Real smart.

It's important to disengage, and also be genuine online.

I am certainly interested in genuine, warm Internet interactions. For me, however, they need to go beyond repeating new age platitudes of "love, light and laughter." Certainly, if you absolutely are feeling "love, light and laughter" today, then go for it. But if you are just tagging on these overly warm-fuzzy signatures just to prove to everyone that you are spiritually advanced and loving...but then you behave in a manner that is the exact opposite to your professed "blessings," you might want to rethink things.

I can never promise "love, light and laughter" because I honestly don't feel that when I'm writing an email to a stranger. Sometimes I am just doing my duty by responding. Sometimes I'm tired, sometimes I'm rushed, sometimes I'm annoyed. But I don't want to come off as some spiritually evolved light-being when I'm just a human typing things.

Thus, for me, the best email sign-off I could come up with was a simple "thank you." It is simple, and yet sincere...because ultimately, no matter what you are emailing me about, I can find a reason in my heart for thanking you. Even if you just annoyed the pants off of me. Because then, I will have a reason to get back to my spiritual center, and remind myself why it's not important to engage in such petty dramas anymore.

So thanks for that, "blessings" lady!

For more thoughts on email sign-offs, see this article:
http://www.entrepreneur.com/management/article180872.html