Keep Your Goat

Theme song: Don't Rock My Boat

But it is not what I am saying that is hurting you; it is that you have wounds that I touch by what I have said. You are hurting yourself. There is no way I can take this personally. - Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements

This is a story about goat-keeping. It illustrates the difference between what is truly true, and how each of us interprets the truly true.

When my sons were smaller and younger, the older one used to find ways to what I called "incite to riot." In other words, he would tease, poke, or punch until the little one would explode into a rage. From an adult perspective, it seemed so obvious that he should ignore his brother, or play elsewhere.

Easier said than done, come to find out.

My ex-husband advised our little son not to let his older brother "get his goat." I like it because it's concrete in a strange way and funny to visualize. Also, keeping your goat is something you can do regardless of the other person's behavior. If you keep your goat, you don't need to ignore other people or play elsewhere.

The thing about goat-getting is that sometimes people are doing it on purpose, often just to see if it can be done, and sometimes they are not. If they are doing it on purpose, they may be doing it because of their own wounds and issues, and not because it has anything to do with you. They get defensive, for whatever reason, and go on the attack.

So what is your goat, anyway? I mean, besides a steady source of chèvre.

The goat, according to the Urban Dictionary, is your state of peacefulness. Yeah.

It's a strange thing about people that they will, purposely or not, try (and seem to succeed!) to get your goat.

Lately, my goat was got. Someone told me that I was selfish, narcissistic, chaotic, not worth it, and extortionist! Sheesh, mama, all of that? I mean, definitely, my state of peacefulness was Audi.

In fact, it still embarrasses me so much that someone would say those things that I had trouble including them in this post. I feel fear that my readers will say, "Yeah, those things are true. I never liked her, anyway. I'm glad someone finally had the guts to tell the truth!"

Self-doubt churned my gut as I heard those words and feared that I was guilty as charged, yet wrongly accused. A little voice in my head cried out, "But, wait! I try so hard to be a good person. It's not fair!"

Why couldn't I, as I advised my son, ignore the comments, or at least play elsewhere? Instead, I experienced anguish and insomnia. It was awful. And, in fact, I can feel some of the words still gnawing at me--probably the way goats will eat anything, including, I am told, tin cans.

Don Miguel, author of The Four Agreements, tells us that "nothing is personal." It is the second agreement. I asked a few people whether they thought it was true and a good way to try to live our lives. No one I asked could fully wrap their minds around it. Even if they agreed, theoretically, that it was true, they said they were not able to live as if it were true. Me, neither--obviously!

I suspect it is true that nothing is personal, but I can't quite work out how. When someone says something it is about them, not you. Taken to its logical extension, though, that would mean that even love isn't personal. That seems scary to me as it points to an essential aloneness that feels like floating in cold, grey ocean even to think about.

The other thing is, what if people say things about you that do happen to be true. Technically, I've never committed the crime of extortion, but what if I had? Then, even if what was said was not personal, it would still have been TRUE. What are the implications of that?

On one very important occasion I did not give up my goat when certainly I could have. If you are a regular reader, you'll remember that I started this entire blog as a way to keep my goat. To recap, my ex told me that she didn't love me and she wasn't attracted me. You know? She also said she didn't respect me. I didn't put that in the post! A sure sign my goat was got.

Still, in the midst of the pain, I felt my strength and I knew that our business--hers and mine--was done. I could ignore her and I could play elsewhere and that is what I did.

One take-home is that to be human is to have your goat got--kind of. To be human is to interpret the truly true. If someone tells me I'm selfish, I interpret it in a certain way and feel a feeling. Could be peace, could be pain. Could be anything.

It's not even about whether you are enlightened like the Buddha. Buddhism tells us that to be enlightened is not a matter of not feeling. In fact, we may feel more intensely, because we will feel consciously and we will feel fully.

The question is whether we let the feelings change our actions--pull us off track--and for how long.

It's important to remember that your goat is your own, just as your life is your own, lived by you because it can't be lived by anyone else. Without your collusion, no one can get your goat. Yes, you may cry about hurtful things that are said and done, or you may, like me, lay awake at night letting it worry you, which was my experience the truly true--the what happened.

What happened was that someone told me that I was selfish, narcissistic, chaotic, not worth it, and extortionist. As they say in Landmark Education, the rest is story.

Ultimately, and this is the truly true, not the experience or interpretation of it, you are the one living your life and so, to be happy and productive, you come to terms with your goat. No one else can do that for you.

My answer, learned in recovery rooms, is to take a fearless and searching moral inventory and discover why my goat was got. What vulnerability was tapped into by a given comment or action, and why? What do I need to change? What do I need to ignore? Who should I step away from, and who should I step toward? Those answers put me back in charge, insofar as humans are in charge of anything.

Each of us is given only one precious goat. My advice? Keep your goat and keep it well.