Recently I had a revelation.
My teenage years were when I ...'blossomed'. I came out of my shell. Went from an extremly quiet 15 year old to someone who was the life and soul of the party. But I achieved this from years of training myself to see what people responded to, what people liked to see and how to make people feel special to create a false sense of closeness.
I recall with my first boyfriend moments of hating myself, why did I respond in certain ways? I'd look back and not understand why I did it. And that feel of certain reactions happened consistently, throughout my life. I'd do or say things which would get negative responses from people, the rejection was so hard, too hard for me. So I figured that I didn't like myself. I couldn't understand it; how can you act a certain way and dislike it? How is it that it was me to be a certain way, but also me to not like that response? It didn't make sense. If I truly believed what I did and didn't like, why did I act in two different ways?
But it finally dawned on me; recently I relaxed around someone and allowed myself to be me and my instinctual reactions made me insist I was right when I wasn't, and instead of listening and questioning myself I stuck to my guns until I was proven wrong. I literally told someone what kind of brand of tennis ball they had and they brought out a ball holder of a different brand. Why would I know that better than her?! And that's when I realised - I was responding through my conditioning. I grew up learning that I had to be right in an argument, and to fight. A part of me I would always want to suppress.
But now I've learned that there is a differentiation; the piece of me that I don't like is my conditioning, not my entirety. Yet I suppressed both. My learning needs to be that I can be myself, but I need to stop and question my instinctual reactions. I need to amend my conditioning.
Of course I like myself; I have created this version of me to protect others from what I thought was a version that I didn't like. I don't like my subconscious biases, I don't like my attitude when I suggest people are wrong and I'm right. I don't like when I disengage and let myself go on autopilot. I'm not being myself. This all explains so much that I didn't understand; for a long time I thought my biases were just who I was and that I believed it, but it was so conflicting with how I really feel that I really struggled with who I am.
I need to unlearn. My conditioning doesn't suit me. It doesn't align with my values. It feels like I'm rejecting my family, I'm not. I adore my family. But they are also victims of learning this way of existing. They are kind people with good intentions, but they do not know that there is a better way to exist. One which doesn't put people down, one which doesn't require bullying, one which allows others to have an opinion. A way that listens, a way that allows you to express your emotions, a communicative life, allowing everyone to exist as they are.
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