A letter to my hater

To the woman who told me to GROW UP

Silver Lake x Lani Trock

Dear Hater,

Last week, I received your unhinged email about my Mother’s Day essay. It was flat out nasty.

You were more helpful before. Now it feels you are looking for some sort of worth, a pat on the back, some kind of acknowledgement; a YAY, a well done, or empathy/sympathy. 

You have taken on a lot since having a child, buying your land, and serving as a foster parent to many. And it seems to be torture for you! Why do you punish yourself and your family with this seemingly devastating way of life? Is it your new addiction? [...] I bet Nic is at his wits end. [...] Don't be the woman who tries to save lost souls, yet fails herself and her family and her own kid!

STOP! Help others through your positivity. Don't dangle your experiences in front of others hoping we feel compassion while we take the bait through the "poor me" rabbit hole. GROW UP! ¹

I have to say, if you meant this to feel like a sucker punch to the gut, well done. My mouth went dry, heat flooded my body, my heart rate sped up. (I’m a highly sensitive person, but that's not new information, is it? You've opened nearly all of my essays multiple times for over a year.) But if you think I'm looking for sympathy, you couldn’t be more wrong.

I stood up, moving the anger out of my mouth with a few loud sighs. I shook my arms and legs, turning my torso left and right. I jumped up and down. I shook and shook the nervous system charge out of my body. I shook and shook the horrible things you wrote about me out of my mind and out of my energy field.

Within a couple of minutes, the initial defensive response was processed giving me room to feel a layer deeper to the sadness below.

But this time something was different. This time the sadness wasn’t for me—it was for you.

This is not my first experience dealing with haters in my email, in comments, on my social media feed (truly grateful to be off Instagram), or in my DMs. This is however, the first time I am not feeling shitty about myself from an email, I am feeling sad for you for sending it. 

I keep coming back to the work of poet, activist, and artist, ALOK. In their practice they speak about how they cannot control how people see or treat them, but they can control themselves. ALOK’s work has been a cornerstone in my life over the last few years, and a quote from this video beautifully sums up how I am feeling about you:

Imagine, having the ability to live on earth, such a sacred place, with so many beautiful things. And wasting your time hating me when you could be free.

The thing is, your email is all a projection. Nothing in your words is true about me. (Trust me, I checked.) And so, because that kind of judgment doesn’t come from nowhere, I’m left thinking your words must be true about you. I can only imagine the number of gut punches you've weathered in your life, like the one you dealt me. You might be surprised how much they still ache. 

It is strangely simple when I break it down like that, though it took me a very long time to get here. I have a history of people projecting their unconscious stuff onto me and absorbing it. It has taken many seasons of healing to be able to differentiate what is mine from what is yours.

I recognize that I am the villain in your story. I get that by being vulnerable about my life and the ways that I open my heart, I represent all the work that you have yet to embark on. All the work that you are avoiding. It makes sense that you want to bring me down.

I see you.

And hey, I get it. I spent years judging other people, gossiping and stalking their websites only to text my friends, so and so did xyz, can you fucking believe her?

Yes, girl, I was you, which is why after processing all that anger, all that sadness for you, I snapped back into the present moment and laughed out loud, because you know what? I have grown up. I am actually doing it— I am living a life I’m proud of. I am writing what I want to write. I am keeping my mouth shut about people I don’t know. I am cultivating a loving life for myself and my family, and I am trusting myself along the way. Can you say the same?

As Brené Brown says, I am in the ring, dancing with my fears of not being lovable and the voices telling me I am not enough. And you my dear sister are in the bleachers, screaming your doubts at the top of your lungs to those of us in the ring. I heard you for a moment and recognized you as a younger, more discouraged version of myself. I took a deep breath and kept on dancing with that fear, fire, and passion that burns deep within my belly and drives me to keep showing up and doing my work because it gives my life deep meaning.

I cherish my life today.

I am proud of myself for showing up for the kids in my care. I am proud of myself for the emotional labor I am engaging in each day, the cycles I am breaking and the resilience I am honoring. I am proud of myself for staying committed to my writing practice and gathering the courage to write about my experiences fostering. Being this vulnerable has been challenging—in the past I put a tremendous amount of pressure on myself to stay positive, which it sounds like you can relate to. Some of your comments struck a chord because they are exactly the kind of unsupportive and mean-spirited bullshit I used to tell myself all day long. How alike we are. How my heart wishes for your suffering to end.

So, my dear hater, today I have nothing but gratitude for you. 

Thank you for taking the time to express your disdain with my life.

Thank you for preparing me for a glimpse into the reality of growing my readership and reaching even more people with my work.

Thank you for reminding me that the best litmus test for my spirit is living with integrity, not measuring my worth against your limited ideas about who I should be.

Thank you for bringing to light what an incredible and supportive community I am part of with radical humans who are in the ring, dancing with their fears, and living with their gorgeous hearts open wide.

And mostly thank you for showing me that when the rubber meets the road, I can trust my own truth. I don’t need yours. 

With love,
Ashley

I look forward to connecting with you in the comments. I have a feeling this piece will spark some lively conversation.

When sharing, please offer compassion and respect to everyone in the group <3

1. This is a short excerpt from the email I received.