Day Five: On Breaking the Rules.
The chasm between my two unfortunate incidents was a space of about 5 years. I didn’t suddenly wake up one day and arrive with an inherent confidence to speak up for myself. It took time.
If I ever had spoken up for myself in the past (or broken the nice girl rules), it usually would follow with a spell of anxiety, tears, depression, or incessant apologizing for possibly offending the person who actually wronged me, and doing whatever they needed me to do to feel like they were the queen/king and I was the sorry person; only to secretly hate myself for responding this way. This was a life long bad habit. I did not have the inward fortitude that valued self. My therapist calls this a shame state. An inability to live or exist beyond this feeling of shame. I had so internalized shame that if I dared to try to step out of its boundaries, shame would quickly whip me back on into its realm. Breaking rules was counter cultural to my inward belief system, which were reinforced by messaging that I had received from the world around me. In my mind, my voice was not in any way, valid- for a host of reasons. But that’s a different blog for a different day.
I know that some of you out there cannot relate. You truly are my heroes and you may find me creeping on your instagram feed. But anyway, for the rest of us-
What got me to a place of solid ground in this area, in self, in the ability to step out of shame and ‘break the nice girl rules’ was not one thing. It was many things. Such as:
- Two solid seasons of therapy- best gift I ever gave myself.
- Safe relationships.
- Life going up into flames, and only having two choices; deal with it head on, or bury the pain.
- Dealing with pain. Putting all the cards on the table.
- Feeling the pain I never actually felt and not numbing the pain.
- Looking at the belief systems I had married and painfully divorcing them- it’s much easier in the short term to be unhealthy. But we miss life, true life when we life this way.
- Reading
- Sleeping better
- Eating better
- Taking a ton of vitamins.
- Allowing myself to grieve.
- Having so much fun that I nearly peed my pants on many occasions.
- Making decisions and trusting my decisions.
- Owning what was mine.
- Refusal to own what was not.
- Naming what really happened, in past or present. Not avoiding the facts.
- Confrontation.
- Trusting in the divine.
- Boundaried thinking. * if I was ruminating on something, or feeling awful, telling myself things like, I can think about this, at 7pm. Right now, we are doing _____.
- Crossfit. Something about physical strength directly translates to emotional wellbeing. Crossfitter’s and gym regulars are the calmest and most grounded people on the planet in my experience. These are my people. They do no harm, will bring you cookies, and will laugh it out in the box, but they also take no mess. I am grateful to have stumbled upon this tribe of humans.
These are a few things. But you get the point. It wasn’t an ‘a-ha, lightbulb moment’ for me whereby I suddenly felt shameless, and could tell someone who directly attacked my personhood that they were in fact, a shitbag. It was a progression and a cocktail of all of the above that went on over time until my insides became resilient. The Tetris pieces (over time and really hard work) fell into the right places. Nope, I’m not totally ‘there’. I’m not super human. But for me, that list above is what has helped me and what continues to serve me in the pursuit of becoming more congruent. The same everywhere I go. Again, I’m still under construction, but wholehearted, and one is my goal. Being me is my goal.
Fast forward to the unfortunate encounter that I wrote about yesterday: it cost me everything and nothing to respond in the way that I did. I cost me all of the above, points 1-20 and more. Those were the prices I paid to earn the emotional credit in order to tell someone what I really thought, but this time- there were no tears. No remorse. No trying to atone for my so-called sins of speaking up for myself. Just a rejection of BS. That’s it. I could walk on and go have fun. That had never happened to me before. I realized that I gained some ground. I realized that shame was no longer in charge and that finally, I was, or at least starting to be.
In all of this, I can’t, CAN’T under estimate the value of golden people. I think people really have the power to heal us if we allow them to. I have ingrained in my memory moments, phrases and conversations from different people, all who have put a building block of goodness in me. Kindness. Peace. Clarity. These people, mostly women, and a few exceptional men have helped me cross over to a line that I never thought I would even see. Blessed, happy and fortunate am I to be able to click a button and get a loved one on the blower, hear their voice, and just communicate. But REALLY communicate. Warts and all kind of friendship. If its 3am and you murder someone, you call me and I will help you bury the dead body kind of friendship. I remembered a friend having a crisis a few years ago, I went over to their house. No idea what happened but I knew something was off. I enter. She tells me what has kicked off. I eyeball her, I was so freaking serious (I was in the angry part of therapy). I literally said- say the word, and I will get over there and beat the shit out of them. I am ready. I think she considered it, but wanted to spare me jail time. One of my brother’s famous lines is, that I LOVE is, “I will drive my F-150 into that persons living room’ if you need me to. He means it. He will just not tolerate injustice and will rise to protect the people he loves. BUT THAT’S what I am talking about. No questions asked, hands down, I’m with you to the end cupcake, kind of stuff. It is glorious.
If you do not feel this way about the people in your sphere, I pose the question of why not. I don’t mean acquaintances. I mean the special people in your life who are fresh air. People who are the equivalent to jumping in a swimming pool on a scorching hot day. I don’t know how I have found these people, some have found me. Some have crossed the earth to fly in and have dinner with me. I don’t know why. Some of these people I am lucky enough to be related to. How do you get to THAT level of friendship? It’s that gross word called vulnerability. It’s running the risk of saying how you feel, knowing you could be rejected, but betting on yourself. You will fall on your face and strike out from time to time but that is okay. You’ll find the ones who are yours. There are people out there in your magnetic field, we just have to be brave enough to try to find them… There’s just something so life changing about reciprocated, honest, relationship, that my God, is worth everything. We. Need. People. We are worth having people. Rant over. Blog about this later because I’ve already hijacked two paragraphs and in doing so, digressed.
Look, this is not fool proof. There are still instances that can try to reduce me to nothing. NOTHING. But the difference is that now when I see or feel that pull of ‘shut up and sit down you stupid girl’ playing out, I go back to my list. What of those things from my list do I need to do to bottom this out. Exercise? FaceTime or text a friend and ask them how their day is, or tell them that I am spiraling? Contact the divine? Take a nap? Laugh? Eat something? Therapist? Read a book? Allow it to hurt and move on when I’m ready? Or the worst of all, do I need to talk to this person, and talk about what’s happening. Eww. These are my healthy coping strategies for life. Didn’t say I liked it, but these are at very least, constructive.
Well, its 9:56pm and I need to sign off for the weekend. Thank you all for reading, I’ve had 1600+ reads of this thus far and a fair amount of DM’s. I’m so glad to know that this resonates with you, keep the chatter coming! I am a people person so thank you for your message. I love it. Go strong, have a great quarantined weekend.
Love as always,
Allison
