Tuesday, September 24, 2013
We ran away to the mountains this past weekend. I like to imagine living here, where this photo was taken. It's an old homestead and it's so peaceful there. Except life is never really peaceful for long.
I work with a woman who is passive-aggressive. She drives me crazy because I am like her in some ways. I cannot change her, I cannot even reason with her. Dealing with her terrifies me, my heart pounds, my palms sweat. She does not like me and anything I do will not make this any worse than it already is, so what's the problem?
The real problem is that I dislike her because of what she represents to me, my own worst nasty bits. The judging, critical, dogmatic, passive-aggressive bits that I would like to pretend don't exist. Except they do and because she makes me look at myself and see these nasty bits within, I dislike her. I feel like a bitch around her and I probably am to her.
But there is another side to this. She is passive-aggressive and by working with her daily I can see how destructive passive-aggressive behavior is. She is a chance for me to change how I behave. She is a constant reminder to do better, to practice speaking up assertively, to tell others what I need and what I want.
Change is so hard. It's scary and I hate scary. I like nice, I prefer nice. Conflict makes me very anxious, it reminds me of growing up, it reminds me of being a little girl and being scared because my dad was yelling and I didn't know why. Which makes me cry.
So I need to be scared and keep going. I'm not a child anymore, I can chose to behave differently. I want to behave differently.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I understand completely. I used to have a secretary who just drove me nuts and if I was honest, it was because she reminded me of myself on my worst days. She is gone now, though, and I've vowed to hire somehow completely foreign to myself.....
ReplyDeleteIsn't it something when we see ourselves standing right in front of us! Years ago I realized how awful "neediness" was.
ReplyDeleteAwesome post! xo