Walking on Eggshells

Some of you may know my goal for this year is to be authentic and not be afraid to just be me. In most ways, I feel like I am doing better in this area, and in few ways, I feel like I am slipping back into my same old patterns.

Thankfully, I know what stops me from being authentic, but sadly I don’t know how to work through it. The two things that stop me the most are fear of rejection and being perceived incorrectly.

Experiences

As we go through life, we accumulate many different experiences, some good, and some bad, but they all shape us in some way. These experiences become part of us and it’s hard to shake. Our beliefs and thought patterns are tied closely to what we have gone through in life.

I have been guilty of this too, but I feel that we live in a world that is full of judgment and people making assumptions. Oftentimes we see a person, or a situation and we have instant thoughts that come to mind. This is natural, we automatically think of many things when we see something. Much of the time, our perceived view of a person or situation couldn’t be farther from the truth. This is why looks are deceiving.

There have been times when I could have put money on a situation that was unfolding, or that I knew something about someone. I can tell you that I was floored many times by how wrong I was. As ironic as it is, most things in life are not what they seem.

My Thought Process

I always feel the need to censor my thoughts and actions. That I need to go through the motions in my head before I allow them to be free. I try to examine how each thought or action could be misconstrued or misinterpreted. I know that much of this is my anxiety talking, but a lot of it is due to unfortunate circumstances and past experiences.

I feel like trusting in today’s world is very minimal. We place trust in people every day without realizing it. When we drive a car, we are placing trust in the other drivers being responsible and safe while sharing the road with us. We trust that when we go to the store someone will be there to help us find what we are looking for and serve as a cashier when we are ready to check out.

When it comes to true trust as in relationships, I believe that many of us have trust issues due to our pasts. I feel like it takes a lot for someone to trust someone else, myself included. Past hurts spill over into our future and it’s hard to start over with a blank slate even though everyone deserves that chance to prove themselves as trustworthy.

Life Lessons

One thing that I learned the hard way is that one has to be careful when interacting with others. There are many instances where people perceive what is happening as something that it is not. Sometimes people take actions the wrong way. It’s at no fault of their own, everyone perceives things differently, however, it can make for a very difficult situation.

Even though I am much more introverted than I used to be, I have a very friendly personality and I love to talk and engage with other people. You can usually find me smiling even when that smile is covering up the pain. People take my laughter, smiles, and genuine concern for others as me flirting with them or being interested in them in some way. Of course, this is great if this is the case, but I often find it heartbreaking for me because I feel that I can’t be myself with others without creating an awkward situation. Someone always sees my personality as a step further than it really is.

Baby Steps

Sometimes I feel like I need to scale back, hide, repress, and not put my true self out there. Part of me wants to clam up because I never want someone to see me in the wrong light. I strive every day to be seen as the genuine and trustworthy person that I am.

In the end, I know that one is not supposed to care what others think because we know what is in our hearts and our minds. We know our intentions and it’s not up to us to make sure that everyone is on the same page. We all see things differently and that’s where open communication comes in.

These feelings leave me walking on eggshells daily, but I won’t give up. I won’t allow fear to hold me back. I have the power in me to take control of a situation instead of it controlling me. Life has enough stress, there’s no need to add to it! I am not responsible for other people’s thoughts or actions, only my own. I aspire to live a life where I don’t have to rehearse everything. One baby step at a time, I will learn to just be me…to just be.