Pretending to be Positive

Pain demands change.

At least, it should. I have a problem of over-enduring pain. When I look back at my life, I endured way too much.

Sometimes I force the positive. For example, when my old car was smoking out of the hood, I tried to tell myself that I could sit in my car until the smoke cooled off and use the time to review my dreams and goals. Really! That's not being positive! It's pretending to be positive to avoid making a change.

I was the same way with people who mistreated me. I became really good at comforting myself but did not work on standing up for myself. I found so many ways to make myself happy to overcompensate rather than simply create healthier boundaries.

I have learned techniques to deal with stonewalling behavior. Perhaps this was a form of standing up for myself. It helped one person open up about why he was treating me so poorly. Some of his experiences have indeed been heartbreaking. But my heart did not deserve to be broken.

Last night I felt very angry. Tonight I feel more sad, yet also self-aware. My main wish is not for other people to change, but for MYSELF to change! A lot of people have taken advantage of my kindness--often without realizing it! I don't want to be this person anymore. I want to be honest about what I'm feeling instead of pretending I'm feeling great.

Sometimes I can be so nice and smiley that it's hard even for me to know I'm not happy. Especially in contrast to my past. When I was a teenager and at my lowest point in life, it was fairly obvious that I wasn't happy. Especially considering the struggle I had with self-harm. (I hid that from most people but certainly couldn't hide that from myself.) Now I have more skills to carry me through life's challenges, yet it is not complete if I'm still enduring more than I have to endure.

After my car accident several years ago, I had an ankle injury that made it too difficult to run. Running is one of my main stress relievers. I had tried to embrace my injuries, thinking, "What a great opportunity to learn to do push-ups and pull-ups instead." And it was. But that didn't mean I wasn't also in pain! It took me a while to see through my own cheerfulness and admit I was suffering. And thank goodness I finally did, because that led me to get help. If I never admitted that I was unhappy I still might not be able to run.

It is important for me to understand the difference between being positive and pretending to be positive. This is especially important right now. If I find a publisher that feels wrong to me, I don't want to ignore those feelings and say, "Well, it doesn't matter! It's a publisher!" It DOES matter if I can do something about it. I have a great inner guidance system, and if there's a problem, the warnings are there for a reason! I want to learn that it's okay to be honest about whatever I feel.