22 february 2018
i want to be better at:
- identifying, more quickly, when someone's lashing out at me not because of me, but because of something that's hurting them;
- catching myself once that happens;
- not getting worked up about it or taking it too much to heart
this is a particular kind of empathy and quelling of an egocentric experience that i know is historically very hard for me, but i think it will go a long way in both keeping me calmer/healthier, and calming down my environment a little.
today, this came from me pushing back at someone (who is a contact at work that's an external vendor and swings through once in a while for business) for laughing at me and making comments about my wet clothes when i was getting into work after biking through heavy rain. i'm always a little on edge when i see this person coming down, because i've started anticipating negative exchanges and it doesn't set us up to be nice to each other; this meant that as soon as i saw them i was already bristling a little, and took those comments extremely poorly.
i don't think my response was particularly out of line, given the situation (i very firmly told them not to laugh at me, and then made them wait for me to finish getting myself settled before i would speak to them again and complete our business), and i do feel good about being able to quickly establish a boundary and enforce it; that's a response i've been cultivating for a really long time, and i'm very glad it just activated without a lot of work from my end.
so the next step i want to work on is to not retreat into my head afterwards and fume quietly about it. with this particular person, i'm aware of a general disatisfaction with their situation, and that the frequent rude commentary often comes from a sense of confusion or frustration; just because they don't have a more productive way to communicate those feelings doesn't mean i need to absorb all of that angst. if i can work to let this slide off me, i won't be derailed as much when it happens, and i can spend more energy focusing on doing things that improve my environment.
[ a general note on my pronoun usage; lately, i'm trying out omitting references to a person's gender when it's not relevant to the current context, especially when i effectively want to anonymize someone. i will do this regardless of their presented gender or declared pronoun if that person is never expected to be visible to people that might hear me. i'm not sure if this is the right thing to do yet, but i'm trying it out for myself; if you have strong feelings about this practice, i'd love to hear from you. ]