I Won’t Be Your Villain

I’m not someone who easily lets things roll off my back. When I start to spiral, I ruminate. I dwell. I deep dive and ask as many questions as I can to get as much information as possible. I self sabotage, self loathe, and go so far inward that it seems impossible to get out of my own head. I take things people say about me to heart, even when it’s not true, because I don’t always have a level of confidence in myself to not let those negative things seep into the cracks of me. I’ve not only accepted the title of the villain in other people’s stories, I’ve often taken the title to heart. Rather than telling my side of a situation or rather than explaining how I was also affected by something, oftentimes I’ve not opened up to anyone I should have and just accepted the fact that people now see me differently – walking away from some of the people closest to me and going so far into my own mind that I let all of those thoughts spin until there’s a storm of self hatred brewing under my skin.

The thing is… I’m not a bad person – something I have to remind myself of sometimes. I take accountability for the fact that I’m not perfect, I know that I make mistakes and unintentionally hurt people, and I’m almost always open to having a conversation if that’s something that someone needs. If someone says something negative about me, I look at myself (probably a little too self critically) and try to see the validity in what they’re saying. Seeing a situation from another person’s perspective is really important to me, but I do often take that too far to the point where I make excuses for someone else’s behaviors while being overly critical of my own. I don’t always do this in the heat of the moment or when emotions are high in a situation, but I can guarantee that I’ll do this after the heat of the situation has dropped to a simmer. A part of being human is that we all experience situations differently – sometimes slightly differently and sometimes entirely differently. Honesty, compassion, and kindness (for others and ourselves) are the most important things when it comes to those discrepancies though.

The people who are closest to me, who really know me, and who are willing to have hard conversations – those people know and tell me that I’m a good, kind, genuine person. In the moments when my own thoughts of self doubt are drowning out any kind words in my head, I lean on those people. I do need to learn how to quiet the negative voices in my head and replace those thoughts with kind ones on my own also. I’ve had two therapists tell me that in the last couple of weeks so I know, I know… I’m working on it. I can write out all of the things that I should be able to tell myself daily without question: You are good. You are kind. You always have good intentions. You are genuine. You are honest. You are healing. You are compassionate. You deserve goodness. You deserve to be happy. But to turn those statements into beliefs 100% of the time is an entire other story. There are more days than there used to be where I genuinely believe those things, so that’s an improvement.

If I try to take off the self loathing filters that I’ve grown so accustomed to and look at my actions, my words, and my intentions in how I move through this life… then I can see it. It’s as clear as day. I know that I’m all of those positive things that I wrote above. I know that I’m not a villain – a villain wouldn’t be questioning if they’re a good person any time someone says something negative about them. So no, I won’t be your villain and I also won’t turn other well intentioned people into villains either. As long as we are being introspective, kind, compassionate, and honest then we should all be able to move forward with a clear mind and clear conscience. This world is hard enough to navigate through without us being so hard on ourselves in our internal worlds also.

So, in short, let’s all be a little more gentle and kind to ourselves and others today and every day. We deserve to give ourselves and others a soft landing when we will inevitably stumble navigating this thing we call life.