I’ll be the zillionth person to board the TSwift bandwagon to say “It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.”
If you’ve been here even 5 seconds you know I am a big fan of peace and love and harmony and acceptance and worth and faith and belief and quality relationships and all the warm-fuzzy feelings.
What I DO NOT LIKE is conflict or yucky feelings of any kind. Which means I am REALLY GOOD at some REALLY AWFUL skills such as but not limited to:
Blame
Shame
Denial
Manipulation
Dishonesty
-and my personal pitiful specialty-
Flattery for the sake of my own personal gain.
You heard it first here, folks. This is me. And this is my Conflict-averse Master’s Library of Crappy Tools and Resources. I’d charge you $497 for the online course but that doesn’t seem fair. Maybe there’s a market in the supervillain industry? Let’s look into that.
I am much better at lying than saying the thing that’s hard. I am way faster to blame someone else than admit my own fault. I am way more likely to twist a situation to convince myself I don’t feel bad (or that I didn’t hurt someone) than I am to call out what’s not working and ask for a redo.
But these are all quick-fix bandaids that only give short-term relief. Sometimes they don’t even do that. None of these garbage tactics actually solve the problem or grow me as a person. They definitely don’t benefit my marriage, or make me a better mom, or a more reliable coworker, or a trusted friend. Ultimately they just hollow me out to a fake-nice person who’s uncomfortable in her own skin, who abandons her own integrity for the sake of fake-peace, until she can’t look herself in the mirror anymore.
So let’s do the hard thing. We can gulp up 20 seconds of courage to be honest with ourselves and with the people we love. Maybe today’s the day to say the hard thing out loud. To grit our teeth and breathe through the painful conversation. To stare *whatever it is* in the eye and choose not to run.
I’m wise enough to know and strong enough to admit that I’m the problem. I want to believe I’m big enough to lean into the solution.
HP, J 