I know the good, the bad and the ugly about myself.
In the last few years, I have made a personal inventory of my life and listed down the toxic behavioural habits that I have presented over the years.
I am not making any excuses for my imbalanced behaviour even though my mental state of mind is partly to blame. I had the capacity to of made different choices to the way I had reacted to these situations that have not gone well in my life.
Self-pity has been my downfall as well as the resentments I have held against people for many years.
It was a matter of laying to rest, the pain and sadness that I carried throughout my life and forgiving them and moving on to positive living.
In the past few years, my attitude to life has drastically changed because now I have the right tools to be able to desensitise myself from the negative forces.
The words ‘no one is perfect’ means little to me. I see it as an excuse to continue failing yourself and others. I believe that we should strive to become a better people.
Your relationship with self is particularly important as it will protect you from any fears of what people say or think of you.
Once you truly know yourself and live a positive godly life, what people say or think will no longer matter.
I am so in tune with myself that I instantly recognise when I am not going to act helpfully. I try to walk away from situations that will trigger the negative side of me.
Recently I was surprised with my behaviour whilst out shopping the other day.
I was on my way to joining the queue to purchase my items and was astonished to see the line of people ended towards the back of the store.
An older Black woman accused me of trying to push in and spoke to me in a condescending voice and then an Asian woman decided to add to it. I am a normally a polite person but felt instantly angry and told her to ‘shut her mouth.’
I was not having a bad day but one of the biggest red flags is when someone talks down to me. I refuse to tolerate it. Luckily, my sister was with me and told me to forget about it. She understood my anger but felt it was not worth the bother.
It took me over an hour to get over that one incident. I even found myself hating on that woman when I saw her paying for her items.
If I were having a bad day, I would not have come out of my flat at all.
When I look back on the incident, I felt like a failure, I still feel annoyed, but I know that it is now in the past and I have to let it go.
I think it is because it took me so long to find myself and build up my confidence and self-esteem to have someone try to make me feel so small and insignificant.
What some people may feel is petty can feel like a hate crime against me. I have to be more mindful and learn to switch off from people like this as they do not matter.
At the end of the day, it was a moment of weakness on my part. I gave those two women permissions to upset me.
Daily I reflect on my behaviour and if I acted badly, I would think of ways to change that.
This is how I live my life today and it keeps me on the straight and narrow.
In everything there must be a balance.
Natalie Bleau
The Scripture of Balance
