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Learning about me. Hey, friend.This one is less a lesson and more a reflection of some deep stuff I've been going through. I hope you get some good from what I'm learning... but I can say with confidence I don't have this figured out yet. Let's do it. I've been learning the same thing from a lot of directions lately. It's both surprising, and not surprising at all, how many places I've been getting this same message from--like how you hear a song and then all of a sudden hear it everywhere.
I don't know exactly how to describe what it is that I'm learning. But, let me attempt to describe it. I'm learning... a series of related concepts. Many of them have the word "self" in them: self-direction, self-awareness, self-esteem, self-assuredness; a few don't, like confidence, and assertiveness. I'm learning about saying no to things, and not being worried about disappointing other people. Recognizing that taking care of myself will often mean disappointing other people; that I make commitments that aren't the healthiest for me, because I feel conscious or subconscious pressure to do them, because they're what I should do, or what's expected of me.
Some of what I've learned has come from places I expect wisdom to come from. Books about self. Counsellors. Programs teaching you self-sufficiency and -awareness. But much of it has come from entirely unexpected sources. Family members to whom I haven't turned in the past for guidance, who've proven themselves to be unexpectedly wise; learning programs that I didn't expect to have anything to do with me and my issues; even the Bullet Journal book has been surprising me with how much wisdom it contains regarding my own self-awareness and self-direction.
I thought I had already learned these things. I've often called myself conflict avoidant and a people pleaser. I thought I understood this part of me that wants to make everyone else happy. But those phrases, those concepts, miss so much of what I'm learning. They flatten and narrow the idea that I need to understand and advocate for me. They criticize my response to the outside world without helping me understand the damage it does to my inside world.
So, this is what I'm trying to do. Learn about myself, and become my own advocate. Un-do behavioral and thought patterns that have hurt me in my attempt to satisfy others. As someone shared with me as they reflected on their own similar journey, "I had learned to be a spiritual and emotional contortionist to make myself enough for others." Oof. That's raw. And that's me.
Why am I sharing this? First, I hope I can write it clearly enough that it might help someone else discover the same thing. Second, because I'm a millennial, and we over-share. Third, because I hope it's going to change how I approach my obligations, which is relevant to the sort of stuff I tend to share here. One of my favorite parts of the Bullet Journal book so far has been the mental inventory where I differentiate what I'm doing, what I should be doing, and what I want to be doing. I hope this time is helping me, among other things, shift how I spend my time and attention towards the things I should be doing, and eventually even toward those I want to be doing. I thought you, dear reader, might be interested to hear that. Whew. That's it for now. No more emotion today, mmkay? I guess I should also mention that my book is going to the printers on Monday. That means it's so friggin close you can almost smell it. Me too. But mainly you. Woo! Woo. Woo! Now? Off to spring break with my kids. Hopefully turning off my phone and Slack and Twitter and all that stuff. I'll be back to the general Internet space in a bit more than a week.
Thanks for reading! As always, if there's anything else you'd like for me to be sending out in these emails, let me know. Until next time! Your friend, |