There’s this girl that I’m very much into and she knows it and she likes me too but not in a romantic fashion. And because I’m very motivated when I’m into someone and that I haven’t finished the work to get over my crush, I have been going a little bit overboard with communicating with her, and in a "oh shit"moment, I realised that. Asked her if I need to recalibrate how much and how I communicate with her. And indeed, a recalibration was needed.
Ouch. This started sending me into a spiral of resentment and imaginary conversation that was way too antagonistic. But then I noticed. And I remembered the part of the training about challenging negative self-talk. So I applied the same methodology to my own train of thoughts.
First I looked at what my pain was saying. The part that was saying “I’m feeling invalidated, disrespected”. And the associated self talk “she doesn’t give a shit about you”. So I dug deeper with the question “what makes you think that?” Until I concluded that the factual foundation for that argumentation was not just lacking but fully absent, with evidence contrary even.
This being done, I was able to have a factual analysis of her answer to my query, and form an interpretation that was fact based and much more aligned with the evidence of our rapport and the actual wording of her response. This allowed me to devise a correction plan to make sure I respect her boundaries while also giving me a chance to nip associated negative self talk in the bud. In short, I changed her name in my phone to give her the prefix “full picture” as an invitation to myself to think twice before sharing random shit, while also reminding me that even though it may frustrate my want to share stuff with her, this is not because of an invalidation of me as a person, simply because of a fact-based need for recalibration of our communication protocol.
It stopped the antagonistic self talk, and now after a few hours, the only discomfort that lingers is the aftereffect of my initial painful moment. Which meant that I was able to respond and acknowledge the expression of her needs and boundaries, with respect and grace.
So today I give myself a pat on the back for having successfully put into practice something I’ve learned here. Not only did it help me manage an internal emotional crisis, but it gave me the opportunity to be better aligned values of respect and of “being graceful in all things, including defeat”. This isn’t defeat but expand the scope of this phrase and your see what I mean.
High Five to me!
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