Today’s Reflection: The Change I’m Most Proud Of
When I asked myself this morning writing in my journal, “What change am I most proud of?” the answer rose up immediately, without hesitation or negotiation. I am most proud of the way I now face challenging conversations — and the way I recognize, much earlier, when I am bargaining away my worth. For years, my default responses to discomfort were predictable: stay quiet, run, cut them off, make a joke. Anything to avoid the heat of conflict. Anything to keep the peace, even if it meant abandoning myself in the process. But something shifted. Slowly at first, then all at once. Now, I make the attempt. Even if my voice shakes. Even if I don’t get it perfectly right. Even if the conversation ends in a way I didn’t expect. The win for me is the attempt itself. It took me years — years of unlearning, years of therapy, years of watching myself repeat the same patterns — to finally choose myself in those moments. To stop bargaining with my worth just to be chosen, to be liked, to be kept, to ...