Days 374-375: A neurotic bitch: fixing others' mistakes in secret

05-07012014

My partner pointed out a behavioral pattern of mine that I had not paid attention to before, and as I was processing it I also noticed that I do it at my workplace. It's when I notice somebody making a mistake or doing something “wrong” from my perspective, and instead of directly talking about it with the person I try to quietly correct it on my own. When me and my partner were discussing this I said that the reason I do this is because “I don't want to be bitchy”. So basically I realize that “my way” of doing things might as well be wrong, and so I don't want people to believe that I'd believe my viewpoint to be the only right option (arrogance). I realize that this pattern is for me to avoid conflict and uphold an equilibrium of sorts, which of course doesn't work because mostly people notice that I'm correcting the stuff they did “wrong”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear speaking out my opinion.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that speaking out my opinion might be seen as “bitchy”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will react to me speaking out my opinion and giving feedback even though my intention is not to mock but to organize things in the most beneficial way.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to doubt my perspective on how things could be organized in the best way possible, thus being afraid of bringing my viewpoint into discussion so that we could all together come up with a solution to how things should be organized.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will criticize me for bringing up points where others could improve or change.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear a backlash of blame and resentment from people when and as I bring my perspective into discussion.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react with dissatisfaction, irritation and worry when and as I see that something has been done in a way that I perceive to not be best for all.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give feedback to others from within the dissatisfaction, irritation and worry, thus actually attacking others by superimposing my viewpoint and thus giving others an incentive to counter-react with defensive behavior, such as blaming me and thinking of me as “bitchy”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have created this fear of others attacking me when I give feedback, by giving feedback from an unclear starting point, basically blaming others for my discomfort, and thus creating situations where others attack me to defend themselves.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have created this fear myself.

I see X -> I perceive X to be “wrong” -> I react to X and want to fix it -> I look for the cause for X -> I choose a target (Y) and believe them to be the cause for X -> I believe Y to be the cause of my reaction, not realizing that the cause for my reaction is ME and not Y even though the cause for X is Y.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my way of doing things is the right way of doing things, not realizing that even though I have carefully assessed all the perspectives I have recognized, there may be viewpoints that I have not realized to take into consideration.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that the actual solutions for how things can be done in a way that is the best for all can only be achieved through a discourse between all participants.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that in order to find actual solutions I need to discuss the issues with other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try and fix things “my way” without notifying others, thus hoping that nobody would notice that I am behaving “neurotic” and “bitchy”.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself for wanting to solve things by thinking that I am “neurotic” and “bitchy”, not realizing that the issue is NOT my will to implement solutions but the fact that I do not discuss this with other people.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear giving others feedback as I have feared that they will take it personally and believe their reaction to be my fault.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that even if others would blame me for their reaction to my feedback, it doesn't make my feedback invalid - quite the opposite.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not look at the reactions of others as they are – manifestations of who they are at the moment – and that I have instead taken them personally and defined myself accordingly.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that the solution to my habit of reacting to others' mistakes is to fix things in secret. (When I put it that way I'm starting to see how ridiculous this is, lol. Ingredients for a comedy film!)

I commit myself to no longer fix others' mistakes “in secret” by not addressing the mistake in any way and hoping no one will notice.

When and as I perceive someone to be making a mistake, I stop, I breathe and I check myself for any and all reactions. I remind myself that I am reacting to something I have labeled as “wrong” - something that I do not want in my reality – and that by rejecting a part of this reality I incapacitate myself from acting within it. I remind myself that my conception of “right” and “wrong” (what is best for all) might be flawed and that the only way to expand my conception is to discuss it with others.

Thus, I commit myself to bring up the mistake in discussion with the people involved to reach a shared understanding on what the best course of action would be.

• For further support, some phrases I can start the discussion with: “I see you're [doing X]. How did you learn to do it like this? Have you considered [perspective Y]?”