Good Friday Afternoon! I hope this blog post finds you well and in good health! This post is going to be a little different from the usual writing posts but is an important thing that I just sort of wanted to write about.

Calling yourself out.

So what do I mean by this exactly? Well, to put it simply, we, as people, make mistakes. Lots of them. And sometimes, in situations we can be the “bad guy”. Other times (and most of the time) though, it’s not so black and white. People will wrong us and while this is a crappy move on the other person’s part, we can be guilty of responding badly to things and being in the wrong ourselves. We can be put in bad situations by other people and, despite the fact that this isn’t necessarily what we signed up for, can still be at fault for behaving badly or, more commonly, cultivating some unhealthy thinking patterns.

For example, have you ever been wronged by someone and just written them off as a “bad person” and tried to never think of them again or perhaps even stewed over what they had done. I know I have. And while I think in some cases it can be black and white, this person did you wrong and you did nothing wrong, more often then not we at least had some part we played. But our response is so overshadowed by the bad thing the other party did that we deprive ourselves of a little something called SELF REFLECTION.

To be clear, this isn’t me calling you out. This is me calling myself out.

It is really easy to label people as difficult or cruddy people and move on with your life. And sometimes that’s what you gotta do in specific scenarios. But we can’t do that with everyone. Because nobody is perfect and it’s up to us to check ourselves.

So, here are a few questions to help you call yourself out:

1. “Is that really how it happened or just how you remember it? Or even, is that how you WANT to remember it?”

Have you ever played the game “telephone”? Where people pass on a message from person to person with message becoming more and more ridiculous or unclear with each passing? Sometimes our memory and thoughts can be like that. The more we relive an experience in our brain where we believe we are wronged, we warp the memory more, the more the angrier we feel. And the frustrating thing is often, there is a seed of truth in where this memory starts. This person most likely really DID hurt us. But we must evaluate that we are recalling events properly and are not dramatizing it in our brains to make ourselves feel more and more like the victim in the situation.

2. “How are your insecurities effecting the way you’re viewing the situation?”

Another thing to take a look at is your “weak spots” so to speak when you’re analyzing a situation. Are you taking everything in the worst way possible because you doubt yourself in specific areas?

Nothing is wrong with having insecurities. But it is our responsibility to be aware of them. And these insecurities can make us perceive things in an inaccurate light in specific scenarios so just watch out for them.

3. “What parts of yourself do you see in the person you’re criticizing?”

This is a good way to take a negative (someone treating you badly) and turning it into a sort of positive. This is a chance for you to look at someone and their bad behavior and check yourself. They just showed you how NOT to behave so now you can more properly recognize such a negative trait in yourself if it exists.

4. “Are you more concerned with being right or evolving as a person?”

Ouch. This one I’m going to leave here because I’m still recovering from it.

5. “What blame are you placing on someone else that you can take accountability for?”

Yeah, this one can hurt a little too because, let me tell you, it feels good to cast every bit of responsibility to other parties involved. Taking responsibility implies that you, at least in some capacity, were wrong. Sure, someone else could be wrong-er but admitting that you had some part to play is difficult but still necessary in certain cases, especially if you expect to grow from it.

6. “What hard conversations are you avoiding having with yourself?”

When we throw blame everywhere else, this can often be a sign that we are avoiding some sort of “truth” about ourselves that we don’t want to face. We don’t want to face it becomes its uncomfortable or perhaps because it doesn’t fit our current view of ourselves. But again, we gotta ask ourselves, “how else am I going to grow?”

7. “What is your most toxic trait that you admit to?”

Similar to knowing your insecurities, this question can help you identify further bad habits you tend to fall into and that effect your behavior and how you view people.

8. “Is your ego getting in the way of your healing?”

Another ouch from me.

In situations where I feel like I’ve really been kicked when I’m down, I have a tendency to hold a grudge. I want these people to be sorry because I want to show them that they CANNOT treat me this way. But often this comes from an unhealthy place. A place of ego that demands that people ask for forgiveness at every turn when they say something that slightly offends or hurts me.

But this is not beneficial to healing.

We’re going to have to get comfy that there are people who will not ask for forgiveness. It might benefit ourselves to ask why. Sometimes its because they’re just not very self-reflective. Sometimes it’s because they don’t know they did anything wrong and I just EXPECT them to know.

But regardless, we need to examine our motivations for wanting them to come crawling to us. We must look for where ego might be getting in the way. We desire validation in this situation. And that’s only human. But if we keep anger and ego locked inside because we think that will somehow heal us because we refuse to let this person “get away with it”, we’re never going to truly move on from the situation.

AN IMPORTANT NOTE:

I want to be clear, in certain situations, you may go through these questions and reach the conclusion that you are indeed handling this as best you can, and the other party really and truly is wholly in the wrong. Bad people, insecure people, and rude people DO exist and definitely create situations where the victim of the entire thing did nothing wrong. It doesn’t happen maybe as much as we’d like to think, but it does occur. In those cases, I fully believe it is okay to just say “wow, they’re sort of a bad/insecure/rude person and I don’t need that in my life.” and move on. You are a growing and evolving person, not a doormat.

Love others but also take care of and respect yourself.