I had another growth opportunity. There are people I know
that are great people, but just very different from me. Not only are their
hobbies and beliefs very far from mine, but they embody a lot of my triggers.
For a while, interacting with them was the only interaction I had, and I
started to feel very isolated, misunderstood and alone. Their judgments and
knowledge were mostly the same (from my perspective), so I almost felt like I
should know about everything they were talking about, even though I didn’t care
for it. Logically I knew that wasn’t true - it wasn’t a conscious thought - but
I can tell that I was still affected in that way. They tried to get me involved
in their activities, but I continued to insist that it did not interest me,
which they deemed as anti-social. My own opinions, hobbies and beliefs felt to
be dismissed, ignored or even laughed at. I understand it was nothing personal,
they were just expressing their own opinions, but I’m a sensitive person… or at
least I was… so living in that reality really didn’t serve me very well.
I like the people. Aside from them rubbing me the wrong
way sometimes, I do enjoy their company. But we really have limited, if any,
things in common, and it is truly apparent in our interactions and how we all
treat each other. I struggled with this for a long time – I still do struggle
with it. Which relationships do you pursue and maintain, and which do you let
go of? Is it something I could continue to work on, or are some of these
relationships truly not serving me and bringing me down?
I’m not giving up on it, though. Not now. I think this is
still an opportunity for me to figure out how to have casual social
interactions. One thing I realized tonight is: How can I complain about people
not talking about anything I care about, when I have nothing to replace it
with? I’ve worked on myself plenty, and now I’m starting to try to “have a life”.
I have to continue to pursue all my interests and find things to learn about
such that I can then turn around and talk about them. That is, when I’m not
with people who would like to talk about themselves…. which are the kinds of
people I was built to communicate with. I’m an INFJ, I’m here to listen to
people’s problems and help them be the best they can be… not chat about the new
iPhone or PlayStation, or complain about politics! But that’s not fair, because
I need hobbies and interests to talk about. And if I search and explore and can’t
find anything like that, then yeah, I need to avoid those types of social
interactions.
Here’s another vulnerable and yet teachable moment: I’ve
been working on not being afraid of jumping into something without being
completely prepared, right? Because I
always plan and prepare, and I’m trying to learn that I can trust myself to
figure things out as I go along. So I decided to play this board game with this
group of people. None of us have ever played it before. I sat there reading the
long instructions before we began. Everyone else’s attention span was very
minimal, so I decided I’d give them a short description, and I’d refer to the
instructions as we went along - trying to work on my fears and trust myself
that we could figure it out. It’s just a game, afterall.
Well, my fears got worked alright. To start off with,
when I went into the next room to get everyone, no one even looked at me. I was
yelling very loud, waving around the instructions. I yelled louder and louder.
Nothing. Finally someone saw me and just sorta gave me a thumbs up, and I
yelled if they wanted to play, and at that point a couple people snapped into focus.
I’d forgotten how that happens with this group of people… that used to be my
reality. I’d already worked on having confidence and speaking more assertively,
so now I know it isn’t me. So it didn’t start off well.
When we started the game, everyone got frustrated with
me, and the kept second-guessing me. I ended up just reading most of the
instructions to them and correcting some things, but of course, as I said,
their attention span was minimal, so they all just talked over me and chatted
with each other as I did it. But one of them absorbed the information and
helped out. Yeah, that was a test, alright. I started to feel how I normally do
– mad, disrespected and upset. Like I didn’t want to be there. But right then I
changed my attitude – this is an opportunity to learn something new. Forget
about them - this is just a challenge, and I should ignore their frustration and
disrespect and not let it affect me. This is definitely a game that stretches
your mind. It would be good to work on things like this. Once the others knew
the rules, they picked up on it much faster than I did (because they play other
games like this, and I don’t). Things didn’t make sense to me because they were
worded strange, but they somehow knew what it meant. I decided to use it as a
learning opportunity instead of focusing on how defeated and alone I felt about
the situation. There was still an undertone of misery at first, but it went
away. You really can just talk yourself out of being upset sometimes…
More proof that I take every experience as a growth
opportunity and to practice the lessons I have learned. It’s just a matter of
how much you want to put yourself through at any given time.
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