Several years ago, a therapist of mine (in Virginia) told me, “Well, Jodi, you’re different.”
She was responding to me talking about how I get bullied so often, and it hurts, and why does it keep happening?
She then told me that in a world of chickens, sometimes one chicken is just different from the others. And the other chickens don’t like it, so they go and peck-peck-peck-peck on it. They are relentless and brutal.
It helped clarify that I am different, and for some reason, that means people want to pick on me.
I saw the same thing with my dad—he was different and got picked on a Lot. It made me so sad to see people picking on him because he was such a kind-hearted, sweet, funny, and smart soul. He didn’t deserve to be treated with such pecking.
I got picked on and laughed at online this week, and I’ve been picked on and laughed at online many times before.
I was shocked and dismayed that someone who talks a big game about support and kindness could be so rotten to me, encourage others to laugh at me, and spread vitriol and cruelty my way. I was mostly in shock, and then I felt deeply hurt because of all the good things I had done for this person and the things they had sincerely thanked me for in the past.
Each time I am attacked and pecked on, I sit and make a choice: Do I want to stoop to their level and waste my energy responding to all these false accusations, or do I want to move on with my life, finding things that bring me joy and harmony, and let it go?
Intellectually, I want to let these things go. The ADHD emotions in me, though, rocket up high, and I find them hard to release, as much as I want to.
In this week’s case, I have grown enough now, as a person at the age of 53 who has raised kids into their 20s, I chose to do something I even wrote about in the book coming out November 18 - I decided to be kind in my response.
[My next book comes out November 18, 2025, on what would have been my dad’s 80th birthday. He wrote the first half of this book & I wrote the 2nd half. It’s a good book. It’s a fun read and has a lot of teaching moments in here.]
After typing kind responses to the chicken-peckers, I went and unfriended and disconnected from the one specific person who led the false, cruel charge against me. I disconnected.
And then I was so grateful I had therapy the next day, and a kind friend to also listen to me post-therapy. The therapist and my friend read the screenshots I took and validated that the attack against me was extreme and that I had been kind. I had done the right thing to disconnect myself from this person and the corresponding groups attached to that relationship.
So, back to the hens - barnyard animals act on instinct a lot. Do they have emotions and things? I am positive that cows do. That’s neither here nor there, though. That’s a subject for a different post.
I think we humans can take a step back, take a breath, and make a choice to be kind. It takes courage and strength of character to continue to stay kind. And yes, it’s different from the group-think and mob-mentality we are surrounded with so constantly in this digital day and age.
I believe we can behave better than barnyard animals. We can look at and learn from someone who is different and not just attack them for being different.
Don’t confuse kindness for weakness.
Kindness is courage, growth, strength, and eloquence.
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I hope you have a splendid weekend!