When and How to Leave a Toxic Environment Like a Mystic with Psalm 94

Hello and Welcome to Loving the Imperfect!!
Sometimes it can be hard to tell if you're experiencing a toxic environment.  The toxicity can disguise itself and sometimes you've been existing in it for so long you can no longer read the signs. Join me as Psalm 94 guides us into this topic, and I tell you a little of my own experience leaving a toxic work environment. 

Books and Episodes mentioned in this episode:

Episode 4: How to Deal with Bullies

Witness: What I learned from Ellie Wiesel's Classroom by Ariel Burger

Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening  by Cynthia Bourgeault

Intimacy with God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer  by Thomas Keating

Thank you for joining me.
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For more information about me and my work, please visit www.brianneturczynski.com or www.lovingtheimperfect.com

Transcript

Welcome to Loving the Imperfect Podcast, a show for laypeople and seekers of deeper contemplation. I'm Breanne Turczynski. 
 
 For 10 years, I've been studying offerings from holy teachers and holy texts. I'm a journalist who has listened to the stories of many people throughout the years, and so I thought it was my turn to share a thing or two about my journey and my thoughts on scripture and holy work from different faith traditions and practices, mostly from Sufi teachers, Buddhists, and Christian mystics. So, join me as we imperfectly and clumsily make our way through each day, mustering up compassion for the person who honked at us this morning on our daily commute and some words of love for the hours ahead. 

 Hello and welcome to Loving the Imperfect. 

Today’s psalm is Psalm 94. It is 23 verses, and it is by an anonymous psalm writer. 
 
 Psalm 94:

 “The Lord is a God who avenges.
   O God who avenges, shine forth.
 2 Rise up, Judge of the earth;
   pay back to the proud what they deserve.
 3 How long, Lord, will the wicked,
   how long will the wicked be jubilant?

4 They pour out arrogant words;
   all the evildoers are full of boasting.
 5 They crush your people, Lord;
   they oppress your inheritance.
 6 They slay the widow and the foreigner;
   they murder the fatherless.
 7 They say, “The Lord does not see;
   the God of Jacob takes no notice.”

8 Take notice, you senseless ones among the people;
   you fools, when will you become wise?
 9 Does he who fashioned the ear not hear?
   Does he who formed the eye not see?
 10 Does he who disciplines nations not punish?
   Does he who teaches mankind lack knowledge?
 11 The Lord knows all human plans;
   he knows that they are futile.

12 Blessed is the one you discipline, Lord,
   the one you teach from your law;
 13 you grant them relief from days of trouble,
   till a pit is dug for the wicked.
 14 For the Lord will not reject his people;
   he will never forsake his inheritance.
 15 Judgment will again be founded on righteousness,
   and all the upright in heart will follow it.

16 Who will rise up for me against the wicked?
   Who will take a stand for me against evildoers?
 17 Unless the Lord had given me help,
   I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death.
 18 When I said, “My foot is slipping,”
   your unfailing love, Lord, supported me.
 19 When anxiety was great within me,
   your consolation brought me joy.

20 Can a corrupt throne be allied with you—
   a throne that brings on misery by its decrees?
 21 The wicked band together against the righteous
   and condemn the innocent to death.
 22 But the Lord has become my fortress,
   and my God the rock in whom I take refuge.
 23 He will repay them for their sins
   and destroy them for their wickedness;
   the Lord our God will destroy them.”

So, the only way God avenges people, I think, this is just my opinion, is through beauty. This can be through what you learned or experienced, or what this person who caused pain learned or experienced through your pain, how the joke's kind of on them because now you're twice the person you were in your previous state once you get rid of those people in your life, once you separate yourself from them, or something happens to them that causes a transformation. And if they never learn their lesson, they've left an infamous legacy behind, a cautionary tale for others that is repeated and repeated throughout generations. And God uses these people to teach others how not to behave repeatedly. Maybe you have a family member you're thinking of. In some cases, these people will have difficulties. I have seen many roadblocks appear in their path, and they stumble along without learning, or they continue to triumph.

I have seen this, too. I've seen people that just hurt others, and they continue to triumph over and over again. And that can be very frustrating for people on the ground who are watching this thinking, when are they going to fall? Because you want justice to be served.

It looks like they're triumphing. But what's happening to them or their spirit with every step they take further into selfishness, I'm not sure. I want to know. And I'm not sure. I want to know what lies ahead for them. We can seek justice in a court of law. And maybe in other ways, I can't think of that do not cause unlawful harm to others. But my thing lately, I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to keep peace, that I have failed to speak up, when I ought to have, not only for my own sake, but for the sake of others. So now I've made a promise to myself to speak up if something is bothering me and to be completely honest, not to hurt the other person, but to be honest about my own feelings and to defend my own feelings. I have not always done this. I always make an excuse to not make further conflict, to just end it and I'm taking this promise to my prayers, being completely honest with God and likewise myself about what I'm feeling and where these feelings are coming from. 
 
 This kind of prayer, we would call a lament, or a plea for God's help and aid. I will say that though sometimes it pays to not say a word; for wisdom to not speak we have to listen very carefully to the spirit and so that comes with a lot of practice of listening—of contemplation.

And this is why meditation is so important. Centering prayer is something Christians do. If you're looking for a Christian meditation, there are several books on this: the contemplative life of looking at everything and seeing God in everything. This will help train your ear—the ears of your heart—to listen to when it is that you should be silent. 
 
 I was working in a very toxic work environment it was a Catholic school and I was not Catholic. I love the Catholic Church, but I cannot handle some of the discriminatory practices that the church upholds. I think the school kind of saw that some of the more rebellious kids the troublemakers, I would take them under my wing, and I would talk to them instead of giving them detentions.
 
 I would talk to them, and the school didn't like that. They wanted me to discipline these kids like they had been doing for 50 years or whatever. And I just didn't think that was right. Obviously, it hadn't been working. So, I chose to talk to the kids instead and welcome them into my classroom and get to know them as people.

I completed a whole year there, a whole school year and never had one evaluation for my teaching. Some of the teachers I feel like kind of looked at me with suspicion, especially some of the department heads. They never talked to me or asked me questions. They would just watch me from afar. And I think when you don't ask questions, you don't get to know people. Yeah, they can be very suspicious, it's easy to hate someone you never speak to. It's easy to make enemies with someone who seems very distant. 
 
 In my last episode, I talked about Nicodemus, who was a Pharisee who approached Jesus and wanted to get to know him a little bit better because the Pharisees were very suspicious of Jesus. And I'm sure they were talking about him a lot behind his back. And so, Nicodemus probably had had enough of it and he was like, ‘I'm going to go see for myself who this person is; I have questions to ask’, and so he went to go get to know Jesus, and that was the beginning of his transformation. 
 
 But in the real world, this doesn't happen like that usually.

It takes a miracle. And those are the beautiful moments when it does happen, when people do reach out and want to get to know something and want to discover truth. That's the Holy Spirit. I spoke about this last week. 
 
 And the Holy Spirit speaks to us in many other ways, not just like that, but the Holy Spirit tells us when to be quiet. The Holy Spirit tells us when to speak. And it usually comes with that nagging voice. That nagging little tapping on the shoulder that won't leave you alone, and it's usually more like long term things. Sometimes you react quickly and you're like, ‘gee, I don't know why I said that. It just flew out of my mouth’ maybe that's the Holy Spirit, too. I don't know. It depends on what that is. In my case it's more like that constant nagging, constant tapping on the shoulder. When you go to a place and you offer your peace and your peace is not returned to you, then leave, leave that place.

When I left, I kept hearing this voice say, just leave as quickly as you can. Leave this place and just be very graceful about it. Don't say a word, pack up your things and go. And so, I did. But that took me really listening to the spirit to know how to leave that place. It was a toxic work environment and I should have left it probably sooner than I did. 

And I felt like if I had stayed, it would have slowly destroyed me. These are all signs that wherever you are, if you're in an environment like this, you need to leave it. It's toxic and it will destroy you because eventually you'll become complacent to the toxicity, and you will become part of that system and part of that toxicity. And so you have to listen to the spirit and the spirit will sometimes tell you to be quiet and just leave. And so meditation is very good to train the ears of your heart.

It's like the verse from Matthew, chapter 10, verse 14. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town. And so, you know, you go to a place, you bring your peace, and if that peace is not returned to you, shake the dust off your feet and leave. 
 
 I must remember to do this myself because I always try to be the nice person and go above and beyond, thinking that someday I'll turn these people around, and they'll grow to like me just because I'm so nice. And that's not the case. These people, for whatever reason, they've chosen not to like you. And they've chosen not to receive your peace or receive your hospitality. You've done what you could.

Continue being who you are, but you're also welcome to leave that peace where it is and just go on your merry way. When you leave these toxic environments, always leave in peace, and keep the door open. Like Elie Wiesel taught we must give people space to change and grow.

So that's my episode for this week. Join me next week when we read Psalm 101. We're almost done. I think we have maybe five episodes left in this season and then I'm going to start interviewing people, which will be probably way more interesting than any of these episodes where I've just talked.

If you have any questions, you can always email me or contact me on social media. My website is in the notes for this podcast. Thank you so much. I hope you have a great week. Bye-bye.