What I Learned Monday

Ok, its Monday and what did I learned this past week?

Well to give you a bit of history on my personality, I would say that for a large part of my life I have been somewhat of a “People Pleaser”. I never wanted to say or do anything that would offend or upset anyone and have them think that I wasn’t a nice or good person. As you can imagine this had its stressful moments, cos in my effort to make everyone else happy, I was pretty much unhappy. But as comes with the territory of growing up, you get wiser, so I would say age has brought with it less of a need to please others.

However, a knock on effect of my “People Pleaser” past was my discomfort with confrontation. I wasn’t always good at pulling people into check when they became too invasive, pushy, nosey, said things they were out of order saying or were generally thoughtless with their comments. So I developed a habit of saying nothing. I would just keep the anger, hurt or frustration inside, or I just shared it with Husband in a very loud and emotional way when I got back home. As a result of not dealing with these situations in the moment and making it clear to the people in question the ground rules on how they can and cannot talk to me, or how they can or cannot treat me, a lot of aggression and passion would build up, causing me to eventually snap. Not a pretty scene and definitely one that could have been avoided had I just spoken out gently but sternly and stood my ground in the earlier stages.

But as most of my family and friends will testify to, I’ve gotten much better in this regard. I address the issues as they arise instead of letting them fester.
But, having said all that, I’ve had a bit of a relapse lately. I’ve been biting my tongue and staying tight lipped with so many different people over various issues recently that I’m boiling over. My short fuse has resulted in me losing it A LOT this past week and everyone’s been a target. Husband has got it, friends have got it, people at work have got it and oh yeah, my immigration lawyer got it too. Which was probably not the smartest move, since he may have me deported. But I stand by what I said, the bastard was completely rude and bang out of order. Anyway, all these conflicts forced me to do some re-evaluation. Why have I been coming to blows with so many people? And that’s when I noticed my “People Pleaser” history had come back to haunt me.

So that was last weeks lesson. Not to forget to stand up to the people in the moment when they piss me off and not leave the issues ignored or suppressed. That way I will avoid unnecessary conflicts with others who have very little to do with where the actual anger is coming from. What a deep lesson I had to relearn.