There’s something I’ve been thinking about lately.
When people are in crisis, they don’t always come together.
Sometimes they look for someone to blame.
Someone who becomes the problem. The difficult one. The one who doesn’t understand. The one whose motives get questioned. The one whose words somehow always seem to mean something different than what they actually said.
And once that role gets assigned, it can become almost impossible to change someone’s perception of you.
You can explain yourself.
You can defend yourself.
You can try harder.
You can become quieter. More accommodating. More careful.
You can do all the things you think might finally make somebody see you differently.
And sometimes none of it matters.
Because their perception isn't really about you anymore.
It’s about what they need to believe in order to make sense of what they’re experiencing.
And that's where this gets interesting.
Because fear can make people see things that aren't there.
Fear can make another person's confidence look like arrogance.
Their boundaries can look like rejection.
Their independence can look like defiance.
Their faith can look threatening.
And when you're standing in a place of faith while someone else is standing in a place of fear, you may discover that you can't convince them that you're not their enemy.
So what do you do?
You stop trying to prove it.
You stop fighting for a place in someone else's perception of you.
You remember who you are.
You set the boundary.
You step back when you need to.
And you refuse to become what someone else's fear has decided you are.
But here's the part that matters most to me:
**You don't have to answer fear with fear.**
You don't have to answer judgment with judgment.
You don't have to answer rejection with rejection.
You don't have to become hard just because somebody has been hard with you.
You can choose something else.
You can choose love.
And I'm not talking about the soft, sentimental version of love that says everything is okay when it isn't.
I'm talking about a love strong enough to tell the truth.
Strong enough to say *no.*
Strong enough to walk away.
Strong enough to stop participating in something that diminishes you.
Strong enough to let another person have their perception without making it your identity.
Because sometimes loving someone means getting closer.
And sometimes loving someone means giving them—and yourself—space.
Either way, the choice doesn't have to come from fear.
It can come from love.
Maybe that's the real work of personal growth.
Not learning how to make everybody like us.
Not learning how to avoid conflict.
Not learning how to control what other people think.
Maybe it's learning how to remain ourselves in the middle of it.
To feel the anger.
To acknowledge the hurt.
To recognize the bullshit.
And then decide what frequency we're going to live in.
Because that's where the choice is.
Rosemarie Ashley
**And the answer is love.** by 'tude Vox Ro