Something I’ve been thinking about the recently in my self reflective shadow work is the person I became over the last several years, the person I want to be, and also how much I feel like I don’t really align with most people these days which feels like both a blessing and a curse. I’ve been thinking about both the left and the right, how both have become cults in which both look at the other in disgust and stay confined within their own little echo chambers. I think the left is obsessed with pushing and crossing boundaries, many in which should not be crossed, and I think the right is obsessed with maintaining a certain order of things and are very unwilling to make compromises and consider various scenarios that need compromise. I consider myself more central in my views and I feel like in today’s society that’s not really a popular stance to have. If you’re not fully with the lefties, you’re automatically deemed a raging Trump supporter who believes every conspiracy theory out there 😅. And if you’re not fully with the righties, you’re considered soft and weak minded. I feel like finding a place to fit in society is harder than it ever was before.
.
This train of thought also got me thinking about my personal relationships, particularly with my parents and even my work relationships and just how out-of-sync I feel with people in general these days. With my parents, I came back here after spending almost a decade away from them. I had my spiritual awakening, and I started realizing all the things about my upbringing and about them that really damaged me growing up, particularly my dad by my mom isn’t out of that picture either. We didn’t have an easy breezy relationship growing up either. There are certain things I have come to not be tolerant of anymore. I grew up in a really controlling Christian household, and one of the things I have recently noticed in my reflection is that I used to be really fearful to communicate my feelings. That was one of my biggest hurdles in my old relationships, I always had a lot of difficulty communicating when something was wrong, which caused a lot of problems between me and my ex boyfriends. In my reflection I realized this trait was due to my upbringing, because of how my parents always made me feel like it was unsafe to share my feelings or confess things to them. When I met my husband, we had a long distance relationship so it forced me to communicate more and get past that hurdle, but for the first time, I felt safe. He makes me feel safe sharing with him and talking about our issues, and I finally feel like I am at a place where I have healed that part of myself while we were living away from my parents for so many years. Since we have come back, I am seeing again all the reasons why I was so damaged growing up, and it just makes it hard to be here and be close to my parents now, because even with my mother I am feeling like she prefers the damaged version of myself.. the one who was easier for her to get along with, more submissive, who let her walk all over me at times and not say anything because it felt unsafe. But it also has me questioning myself as well, if I have actually become a harder person because I have set so many boundaries due to my past negative experiences with toxic family members and toxic friendships. I have been hurt a lot, both from family and friends growing up, and a lot of those wounds stuck. I won’t let people treat me like that anymore, and I’m really quite intolerant of being mistreated now. I will speak up if I feel like I’m being disrespected, and I am quickly learning that people REALLY don’t like that.
.
I have practiced my boundaries in my workplace, and noticed people don’t like it when I stand up for myself there either. There is one coworker there who has been known to snap at other coworkers. She’s snapped at the managers as well and has been spoken to several times because of it. She has snapped at me and been really disrespectful towards me, and I have confided in the assistant manager about it and really just felt like she was trying to discourage me from confronting the abusive coworker for the sake of keeping the peace. Luckily, Christmas season seems to have mellowed the coworker out and I haven’t had issues with her since before the holidays, but there was also an instance I had with management a few months back where one of the managers announced to everyone one morning that she was going to get everyone switching tasks in the afternoon because her and another manager agreed it needed to be fair, and the afternoon rolls around and I was the only one excluded from that switch up. I had a talk with the manager about it, I was feeling really upset because I had been dropping hints for months I was not well suited for this particular task, the other managers knew and were really great about assigning me elsewhere when able, but this particular manager wouldn’t most of the time and was very determined to keep me in this particular role. I often wondered if she had something against me because of it. Anyways, I had a talk with her about how I felt it was unfair that I was the only one excluded the day she said we would all switch up, and I told her my feelings about this particular task that I didn’t feel I was a good fit for it and why. I brought up I was considering other employment opportunities if it was a role I was to remain in because it really isn’t a good fit for me, but would love to stay if we could compromise so I wouldn’t solely be assigned to that task when we worked together, and she made it clear her preference was for me to quit instead of working out a compromise. The other manager thankfully was more reasonable and willing to hear me out and compromise, but ever since that day I stood up for myself, my hours have been cut back, and she has been scheduling me to work with the coworker who she knows was verbally abusive towards me when previously she’d schedule me so we worked opposite shifts. Actions speak louder than words, and I can’t help but feel like this is a direct consequence of me talking to her that one day, that she is holding onto resentment for it and this is her way of getting back at me and hoping I’ll quit. Anyways, all that to say, people REALLY do not take well to being confronted with issues that they have a hand in, and it has me questioning myself a lot and wondering if I have set too many boundaries to protect myself, if I should be more tolerant of verbal abuse, if I should be more tolerant of being treated unfairly from everyone else, if I’m in the wrong for being more vocal and speaking up when I feel like I am being mistreated. Because people make me feel like I am in the wrong for sticking up for myself when I feel like I’m being mistreated, and it sucks to be made to feel like I should just take it. So I am really not sure what I should be doing anymore. Part of me also considers maybe the last several years have had such a toll on my stress levels, with protesting and fighting against all the abuse the plandemic brought about, that maybe I just don’t have it in me to be tolerant of things that are more minor in nature and they feel deeper than they actually are. Maybe I am still trying to figure out how to achieve balance after being forced to be brave and really headstrong for 3 years, that part of me doesn’t know how to get out of that fight mode after being in it for so long. Or maybe it’s just a mixture of everything. I’m not really sure. All I know is that interactions with people these days is really exhausting, with the state of society and the cultish political tribalism on both sides, and even just in general. I don’t feel like I fit anywhere and I am not really sure where to start to determine when it’s me who is the problem, when it’s others who are the problem, when I should and shouldn’t stick up for myself, how to pick my battles, and I guess overall just finding balance socially post-plandemic. It’s not easy, and there’s also the part of me that feels like I shouldn’t get too comfortable either because if the government overstepped their boundaries once and caused all this social chaos once in attempts to rein in more power and control, there’s another crisis waiting just around the corner for them to attempt to do it again. Lol. The past few years gave some really real trauma and major trust issues not just towards the government but towards people in general too, how quick and easy it is for everyone to turn on you and be put in situations where you’re always forced to fight. It’s not healthy, and I think it caused some really real damage, not just for people like me who were fighting against the corruption taking place, but for people who got totally consumed by fear and paranoia over the virus. I feel like it’s important to talk about even though life has returned back to normal, because it no doubt took a lasting toll on a lot of people’s mental health.
.
Anyways, that’s what’s on my mind lately. 🤣 Needed to get all that out. Writing helps. I feel like I needed this. And hopefully writing it out helps others understand why I am the way that I am. I’m human. Just trying to figure things out.
[bpfb_images]
1_0-08051000-1706236222_screenshot_20240125-205608_mull.jpg
[/bpfb_images]