We have all had those moments in life that catch you out. When we are heading down a highway of happiness, balanced on our hard earnt Jimmy Choo’s, the sound track of our lives blasting out loudly and our hair flowing like a Pantene advert (hey, it’s my day dream!!) they temporally knock you off your path and can send you into a mini spiral of self doubt. It is the moment that can cause an irreversible crack in your being, the pain runs deep and yet the issue can almost be superficial. Yes ladies, we have all felt the jellyfish effect.
The jellyfish is a stinging comment said by someone we love, respect and admire, usually regarding we are something we are sensitive about. Normally a throw away slip of the tongue, maybe meant in jest, maybe said without the speaker thinking and nearly always in the middle of a conversation so you don’t even realise you have been stung before you walk away! My personal favourite was from an ex colleague whom I hadn’t seen in a long time – ‘you look wonderful darling, so well, so happy! The extra weight suits you!’. My response – ‘Oh thank you..... er what.?!!’ As she walked away I realised that I’d been 100% stung! As she swished off in a cloud of Dior I was left catching flies, my apparent double chin grazing the floor.
The problem with the jellyfish effect is that in line with sod’s law, 99.99% of the time the toxic stinger is someone we love or loved. We can say a million wonderful things about this person and yet every now and again they throw us an emotional curve ball, for what seems like no reason. And this is where the pain comes from. In line with the pain comes the shock and the fear that they mean what they say. Is this how they really feel? Do they secretly hate us? Are we really that bad?!
But then there is the super king jellyfish sting. We have all had that one person, be it friend, family member or boyfriend who likes to publically put us down, belittling us in front of their friends and any social group. We have all felt the uncomfortable silence that follows and the wonder of what kick that person got out of it. I have an ex who appeared to take total delight at announcing he thought I should be going to Weight Watcher’s whenever he had an audience. Uncomfortable silence all round, swiftly followed by my defiant chomping of chocolate!
Then there are the occasions when the sting isn’t provided by a friend, family member or ex. There is a time when we can all quite readily give them to ourselves. Sometimes self destruct is all too easy to hit. Be it stepping on and off the scales 5 times a day, counting every calorie that passes our lips, comparing ourselves to the super model types we work with or remaining friends with an ex on Facebook, we can create our own destructive cycles. Constantly reminding ourselves of the goals we are yet to achieve, that mean so much to us can be a destructive game. These can be worse than the imposed jellyfish as the stop button is a long way off the further we let ourselves spiral. Strangely finding out own stop self destruct mode is more challenging than it can seem. There can be no truer saying than we can all be our own worst enemy.
Whilst we can never stop the friendly jellyfish sting we can choose to look at how we cope with it and why that person as stung us the way they have. Of course things can just come out in a way that it was never meant and that is something we have all done. An embarrassing error that came from a genuinely good place. But from time to time that isn’t the case. A wise and beautiful lady once said to me that these stings come from a person’s own insecurities and they are just reflecting them on to you. So maybe next time we are stung or we are stinging ourselves we should take a deep breath, remind ourselves we not the thing the sting implies and remind that much loved person or ourselves how fabulous we all are xX
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