Explaining and Justifying
Little Donna, 1961
I realize now, thanks to the help of a trusted therapist, that I spend a lot of time explaining and justifying myself, my choices, my feelings, and my behaviors. I mean A LOT of time. This is a habit borne out of a long-held belief that if I can make others understand my perspective, they will agree with me, or at least see why I am the way I am. And agreement equals safety, and safety is everything. As though I need permission to simply be myself. With my logical mind, I can plainly understand that this is not healthy. But try telling that to my inner child who is still trying desperately to protect herself. It’s a process.
I was reading a post from Colin King’s The Last Layer today. Even though his post, You’re not missing anything, was ostensibly about the design of a room, I could easily draw parallels to my own need to optimize the hell out of everything.
“That’s the shift I’m still learning how to trust. That clarity doesn’t always come from adding the right thing. Sometimes it comes from removing the thing that’s interrupting what’s already working.
I see this outside of rooms too, which is deeply inconvenient.
In conversations where I say one sentence too many and can feel the moment politely leave. In work that would’ve been stronger if I stopped a paragraph earlier. In decisions where I keep searching for a better answer instead of trusting the first quiet one, which was correct and annoyingly calm.
There’s a version of more that feels like care. Like you’re being thorough, attentive, invested.
And then there’s a version that’s just avoidance wearing a nice outfit.
I’m not always great at telling the difference.
But I’m getting better at recognizing when I’m adding something to solve a feeling instead of a problem. Which, unfortunately, is most of the time.”