"She is too much for me."
A friend recently said this about someone I introduced her to a while back.
I asked her what she thought of all the cool stuff that my friend had posted on Facebook, and she said, "I unfriended her; she's way too much for me."
I thought to myself, "HUH?!?!?! I was legit confused AF. She is the most! AND she's amazing. How in the world does this woman not see that?!"
I wasn't mad or anything; I genuinely felt confused.
I started thinking of all the ways this woman is a complete badass and I squinted my eyes and tilted my head because I couldn't understand why she didn't think the same thing.
I LOVE to understand the mechanics of what's at play below the surface, so I sunk into curiosity and thought about it long and hard.
Again, I wasn't mad or even slightly annoyed with this person at all, just straight-up baffled.
I had an interesting perspective shift on this on my hike the next day.
When someone has a negative opinion of us, most of us internalize it and think of the reasons this person might be right.
But, when someone has a negative opinion of a friend of ours, we usually think of the reasons that person is wrong.
Interesting.
So if this woman would have told me that she thinks I'm too much, I likely would have felt gut-punched.
And I probably would have thought about how she might be right...
"Well, I do post those stupid insta stories with that puffy face filter."
"I am launching a podcast to talk about random stuff with zero research behind it that will probably have 20 listeners."
"I have sent quite a few emails out about my new time management program."
"I do take one funny thing and run it into the ground."
It didn't even enter my thought process to think of the ways that it might be true that my friend was too much…
…but that would likely be my default reaction if someone said that about me.
🤯
If only we could learn to be as kind to ourselves when other people have a negative opinion of who we are in the world.
What if we just chose to feel confused when someone couldn't recognize our amazingness?
What if we decided to trade the "oh-shit-she's-right-I-need-to-fix-all-these-things-about-myself-or-hide-in-a-cave" with "That's so weird that she can't see how amazing I am."
Be your own bestie,
Machele Galloway
Certified Life Coach
Email: macheleg@lifeleapcoaching.com