Desiring to be a better friend, lover, and basic human being than I was yesterday is a consistent theme in my life. The one thing about improvement is that there is a glass ceiling... As soon as you have leveled up in one area, it's time to focus on a new area and get to work. It's frustrating because you are always pushing towards this imaginary cap of healing/growth but comforting because every day is a new opportunity to work towards everything you've wanted to be and more. The only way to learn from a past experience is to acknowledge where you went wrong, thoughtfully rework how you could have better approached the situation, and intentionally act the next time you encounter a similar scenario. It seems like I have the steps laid out in such a way that prevents me from committing the same crimes against my personal evolution more than once. Wrong! I am human and sometimes it'll take more than 10 attempts before I learn how to navigate and rectify my indiscretions. And that is okay as long as I know that this process is a marathon, not a sprint. It's less about how quickly I get to the end goal but more so about what I learn along with the way/how much effort I put towards actually getting there.

Why am I talking about learning from mistakes? Well, recently, a friend helped me identify major stagnation in a particular area of my personal development. She basically told me that I needed to learn how to stop being so reactive because as much as it's a coping mechanism it simultaneously harms me. It is literally a double-edged sword; I impulsively react in an attempt to relieve myself from whatever I am feeling in the moment but afterward feel worse about how I responded. I read this tweet once that said "Don't react to things that were sent out to destroy your peace". I definitely read that tweet, though it was super profound, bookmarked it, and proceeded to allow myself to react to the very things that blew up whatever peace I had at the moment. Sometimes, you are given the tools to move forward but you are not ready to take the first step and that is exactly where I have been for a while. That's okay too.

Today, November 16th, 2021, I was intentional about how I decided to respond to a scenario. I was presented with an issue that rubbed me the wrong way. I was tempted to react in a similar pattern because it was not only familiar but comfortable. It is so easy for me to fall into routine habits because no thought is required or actual energy expended to do it. Anything that makes you a better version of yourself will be uncomfortable at first but your dedication to yourself has to outweigh the level of discomfort. To end this short story, I decided to communicate my feelings, boundaries, and expectations with an individual that I would have typically found unworthy of my vulnerability. I established that I have developed a complex where I dictate who deserves to hear how I'm feeling in order to protect myself from falling on deaf ears. I took the time to really unpack that... Why do I pick and choose who I effectively communicate with? Where did this come from and why is it a comfortable place for me? The funny thing about patterned behavior is that it always stems from somewhere–– typically an isolated event or string of events triggers it.

When I tracked down where this reactive behavior came from, I identified that it was a behavior that I had (1) seen before so I just adopted it for myself, and (2) I recognized that there have been moments in my life where I have expressed myself and in return was met with misunderstanding or I was just blatantly ignored. Out of fear of experiencing any of that again, I chose to keep my feelings to myself and unleash them in a more volatile way. Collectively, those experiences shaped my selectivity for sharing my feelings and thoughts with individuals I assumed would just shut me out. In retrospect, after expressing myself in a healthier way, I felt better about myself in the situation and I no longer cared about how the person received me. I learned that communicating how you feel is less about the receiver's response and more about relieving yourself of a burden that you have been carrying for longer than necessary.

To future me, girl you doing a good job! It takes a lot of self-awareness and maturity to not only analyze your faults but to take accountability for how you have reacted in the past. Just because you have reached a milestone in your growth journey doesn't mean you won’t relapse on a bad day or that your journey is complete. You are human... have grace for yourself and others. Most importantly allow your journey to be what it is... the act of traveling from who you once were to the woman you dream of becoming when you close your eyes at night.

With love, 

BWE