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30-DAY WRITING CHALLENGE / 17 SEPTEMBER 2022
This Is My Biggest Risk Yet
Finding the courage to be myself
I am so not a dominant personality.
Men and women who have the capacity to not hold back and say it like they see it both fascinate and intimidate me. They possess sharp minds, sharp tongues, sharp attitudes, and they have no fear when it comes to wielding those abilities.
Growing up surrounded by such strong individuals created deep-rooted insecurities in me. What was logic/truth to them seemed unnecessarily harsh/cruel to me. At that time, I did not understand that people came in many flavours, so my genteel nature stood out as a weakness in comparison.
Seeing myself as weak and a doormat meant that I struggled to build relationships. I was not like them. I did not enjoy feeling constantly crushed under their dominance. I was already ashamed of being a people pleaser (a term I did not know about as yet), that I did not want to feel ridiculed any more than I had to.
I got good at hiding my feelings. Keeping anything that hurt me to myself. Avoiding situations that required vulnerability. Saying what would be the least hurtful, all the while withholding my true feelings. Terrified of ever hurting anyone, I just never got involved. I became an…
