Dealing with people who think you're crazy?

I've been confronted with a lot of people calling me crazy. because of my views on life eating habits (vegan) and general spirituality.
Now i know this is their issue and not mine but I'm still curious to how most people on here deal with this.

I personally thank people I'm not close to. Others i am close to i ask them why it bugs them that I'm not being who THEY want me to be. they normally just shake their heads and drop it.

[Tuesday]

I personally take things very carefully. I don't blur out opinions that don't resonate wit the other Person. Of course i tell my opinion, but in a way that the other Person can digest it.

Of course there are radical people and radical opinions and it's important to share those ideas. But we should ask in which way we share them. Whether it's during a conversation, which rather needs or doesn't need stirring up, whether it's through a blog or with mind-liked people.

I'm not a pushover, on the contraty I tell what I mean but I try to listen what the other person is able to digest.

Banging your head to the wall is not the answer.

[Shivani Devi]

Depending on my mood;

1. I tell them that they are right and to watch their back.
2. I ask for their qualifications in psychiatry.
3. I say 'who told you? it was 'sposed to be a secret'.
4. I say 'what are you doing trying to reason with a crazy person then? this makes you more insane than I am'.
5. I say "I may be crazy, but I'm not an ignorant buffoon".
6. I just ignore them with a 'meh...whatever'.

Suffice to say, they run a mile after that.

[Baile]

Originally Posted by Badcopyinc

I've been confronted with a lot of people calling me crazy.

Do you mean ha-ha crazy, or do you mean people harshly judge and criticize you? I hit my 40s and couldn't take peoples' judgement anymore, it caused me to become ill. So I eliminated all of them from my life. Started all over in a new place, created a whole new life for myself (became a vegan even). One of the better things I ever did, certainly one of the most positive and transformational.

[Shivani Devi]

I realised a few years ago that there are 7.5 billion people in the world. For everyone who thought I was crazy, there would be 10 who would think the opposite and a million who couldn't care less. This is how I got over it.

[SaturninePluto]

If I talk general spirituality around my family what I go through isn't even considered normal by most standards. I am not even talking oh well nothing really can be considered normal anyway... I mean to say the way I am reacted to is simply and most obviously not normal in the slightest behavior

If I discuss spirituality with my father or the last discussion we had entailed something much as-
I ask him something like a spiritual question- coyote teaching like questioning right back, we get into talking- he starts letting me know without my asking or probing.. how the new leader of france is the anti-christ... a discussion about Reptailians ensues... I am over here wondering why I am being whispered about navajo devils in the dead of night and going through other spiritual and religious thoughts I scoff at the thought of reptailians but also keep an open mind enough to state that if such things exist we as humans should be helping each other- I open up about some of own "negative seeming beliefs- which aren't even that negative A and none of his business B "
He then gets angry almost violently so, gives me the most harmful evil look like I am the most vile evil person to walk the earth and he then probes me viciously spitting on me in the process " Who even are you anyway are you one of them"?

I then state who the hell do you people actually think I am?

And last time he started screaming about the anti-christ at me, and he was getting very angry and almost violent about convincing me I came out with the assertion

"Well Jesus dad, only the actual anti-christ would try so darn hard to convince anyone else whom said anti-christ is, or is that just blatantly obvious to me"? And yes I said this with complete vile and disdain in my voice..

For some reason.. his answer to that was just as crazy as the entire conversation was...

"How did you Know"?!

So without a doubt the way I deal with people's judgements about me, about how crazy I am, or even as to whom I AM, I absolutely at this point am to ignore them.

I also no longer wish to talk about spirituality around anyone in my waking life, with anyone ever. It is obvious to me some people take crazy so seriously as to threaten violence.

Therefore at times- I do not bother to mention it in my everyday conversation. I do not at times care to bother with it.

I feel like a teenager going through puberty. Like I'm just learning how to be again. Even though I just truly learned how to be! Lol

My thing is along the lines with what some have mentioned. Learning what you can say and what the others are ready for. But at the same time I feel like that is a restriction or filtered version of myself. But then I can see the egoic side where I'm trying to master planting a seed while not blocking their sunlight. Giving the direction they will be open to take. Affecting someone without being offensive or weird.

But i think internally the biggest thing i'm learning from this phase is acceptance of those who don't understand. most importantly that I'm not supposed to help everyone. I'm supposed to help me!!

I appreciate everyone's input and opinion so far and look forward to others input as well.

[Glitterkiss]

i'm curious what, beyond vegan which isn't crazy of course, they might find crazy. Likely it's just so contrary to what they do that they can't figure it out. I knew people who were strict vegans but were also cokeheads.

So, I found the distance between choosing an unprocessed diet and the practice of snorting cocaine a bit hard to grasp. I never called them crazy, but did sometimes jokingly suggested they have a cheeseburger and ease up on the snow.

[Shivani Devi]

Part of my reaction was understanding that I am offensive and just plain weird - it's part of who I am.

Thus I went beyond all those spiritual 'constructs' we make within our minds saying that we must act/behave this way or that way to be 'spiritual' when it's not being true to ourselves or our inner nature one iota.

People will say that I am arrogant and proud - I will agree because I'm just like that. Then they will start going on about my lack of humility as being 'unspiritual' - I made a whole thread about that on here once.

If my behaviour serves me and my ends, why should I worry what others think? Of course I am arrogant. Of course I lack empathy and compassion - somehow these got lost in translation somewhere, but it didn't affect the outcome.

That outcome being "I am happy being who I am without your attempts to change me" because I realised years ago that if I listened to everybody's 'good advice' as to who I should be and what I should be doing, I would go crazy and yet, I was unable to apply anything anybody else suggested to me anyway - I didn't know what 'fitted' and what 'didn't fit' as I had no mental filter or powers of judgment and discernment whatsoever.

So, I just decided to listen to myself...my 'higher self' and/or God at any given time.

So yep, I talk to God and God talks back to me and you think you have problems being vegan?

[Baile]

Originally Posted by Badcopyinc

But i think internally the biggest thing i'm learning from this phase is acceptance of those who don't understand. most importantly that I'm not supposed to help everyone. I'm supposed to help me!!

Not pulling an age thing, but I read this and thought, "Age thing!" Here's what happened with me:

I spent my 20s and 30s and half my 40s believing I needed to be there and living for other people (demanding partners, demanding coworkers). Heck I was in a spiritual cult for two decades that taught that we need to be spiritual warriors and go fix the world!

All that fixing everyone else made me ill in the process, and I was sick for years as a result. I didn't come to the understanding you've come to, until age 48. So good for you, you seem to be well on the way to nipping this thing in the bud before it does a number on you like it did me.