I think that time and time again I am always letting the weight of other peoples words bring me down way more than they should. I know that most of the time people are saying things to me not to hurt my feelings, but it’s hard to remember that in the moment.

It makes me reflect a lot on how I choose to communicate with people. I know that I am not perfect and sometimes I say things that also hurt peoples feelings when I don’t mean too. So then it brings me back to the saying, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, say nothing at all.” I use this quote a lot, as an excuse to not provide friends and family with criticism, or to tell them when I don’t like something they did or said. But eventually because I keep it in, something always ends up happening and it comes out in the worse way.

So.. learning how to communicate better is always something that I think, I think about. Meaning, instead of letting it all bottle up, I try a little bit harder to say the hard things but in a constructive way rather than with my emotion. I try to reinforce the positive things I appreciate before going in with the criticism. And I try to convey that the other persons emotions are completely valid and that I know I am not perfect and a part of me and my actions are wrong in this conflict that I have.

But thinking, and writing, it always sounds better when you sit with the thoughts for a while.. It’s a lot harder to do all these things that I know I should do, when I’m in the moment. It’s such a big flaw in my process and I am open to a solution, and I think I’ve probably heard the solution time and time again from people around me and things I read, but I’m just too stubborn or immature to put it into action? But I can’t even remember the solution right now as I’m writing this.

I wish I had more empathy and understanding of people around me so that I could communicate better and not hurt peoples feelings when I’m trying to say something. I know how much it hurts, to feel like you cant be yourself. How much it hurts when you feel like you don’t belong or you’re misunderstood. So the last thing I would want my words to do is to make someone feel like that.