i used to think this was an ugly photo of me but now looking at it, it is rly cute especially since it was taken from my grandmas perspective… weird how grief works.
Insults are very often also specific to the person spewing them in relation to something unintegrated within them. I used to judge and criticize other people heavily for perceived “laziness” or lack of initiative, when I was really just triggered by the fact that they felt safe enough to rest. They did not define their self-worth on how productive they could be, or how much had accomplished, unlike me!
It was painful to accept how I could devalue another person so quickly out of my own unintegrated shadow around things like rest & recovery. I realized that my insults were protecting me from my own shame by projecting that shame onto someone else and making them responsible for it.
When we understand ourselves to this degree and accept these things about ourselves, it really does become so much easier not to take it on or take it personally when we realize that we are now on the other end of that kind of projection. To the person doing the projecting, it unconsciously feels like an act of self-protection.