Growing up I was the sweet one. The caring one, the one that loved everybody and did everything for everyone that I could. I didn't speak my mind, I'd let people walk all over me. I basically never stood my ground. I'd have my closest friends yell at me and tell me continuously to be more firm. To not always do what people ask and it's okay to say "No" or tell them how you're feeling.
Evidently that never changed with time. I tried to get better about expressing my feelings and I was always good about expressing the positives, but when it came to the negatives I would hold it in. Let's be honest, nobody wants to hear negativity. Ever. This tends to get me into trouble most of the time. I feel as though when I do speak my mind I get nowhere fast. People don't expect that to come from me. When I worked at my old job, my friend Shay would call me out all the time. She'd say "Damn it Melissa, quit being a wet noodle!!" A wet noodle? I wasn't sure what she meant at the time but I quickly learned.
Believe it or not I think me being a wet noodle was a game changer in my marriage. 12 years of not saying how I felt = exhausting. So in retrospect, it's hard to blame only him. He was good about sharing his feelings, just not in the most kind way, where I was better about holding them in....for a very long time. Here's my advice. Don't do that. It's not healthy, it's not good for you and it will eat away at you like you would not believe.
I've been better about what I say. I've learned to hold back when needed and try to speak out when I want to be heard. You know that saying "if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all" sometimes I want to call "BS" to that. I think you can say something to someone and have it not be nice per-say but be tactful about it. You don't have be rude. My point of this rant is from an experience today. It went something like this:
6am Kickboxing class with 30 + in the room. An instructor yelling out combinations left and right....jab, cross, right hook, two burpee's in between....etc. If you don't know what a burpee is...let me enlighten you.
Evidently that never changed with time. I tried to get better about expressing my feelings and I was always good about expressing the positives, but when it came to the negatives I would hold it in. Let's be honest, nobody wants to hear negativity. Ever. This tends to get me into trouble most of the time. I feel as though when I do speak my mind I get nowhere fast. People don't expect that to come from me. When I worked at my old job, my friend Shay would call me out all the time. She'd say "Damn it Melissa, quit being a wet noodle!!" A wet noodle? I wasn't sure what she meant at the time but I quickly learned.
Believe it or not I think me being a wet noodle was a game changer in my marriage. 12 years of not saying how I felt = exhausting. So in retrospect, it's hard to blame only him. He was good about sharing his feelings, just not in the most kind way, where I was better about holding them in....for a very long time. Here's my advice. Don't do that. It's not healthy, it's not good for you and it will eat away at you like you would not believe.
I've been better about what I say. I've learned to hold back when needed and try to speak out when I want to be heard. You know that saying "if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all" sometimes I want to call "BS" to that. I think you can say something to someone and have it not be nice per-say but be tactful about it. You don't have be rude. My point of this rant is from an experience today. It went something like this:
6am Kickboxing class with 30 + in the room. An instructor yelling out combinations left and right....jab, cross, right hook, two burpee's in between....etc. If you don't know what a burpee is...let me enlighten you.
Fun right? Ha! For the record mine don't look near as pretty...but I'll take what I can get considering I couldn't even do one a year ago. Anyways, as I was saying, during class there was a time when a lot of us weren't getting a combination right and the instructor was frustrated and yelled out at us "You guys are frustrating me!" and I thought to myself. Whoah. Did she just say that? I mean really? Did that just come out of her mouth? I get it, people weren't doing it right, but cut us some slack, we had been doing burpees up the wazoo endlessly and people were tired. That pissed me off. Needless to say, I opened my mouth and posted something in our FXB peeps page about it. It was mostly in regards to the fact that I didn't think it was necessary to call us out like that in class. It didn't want to make me push myself to my level 10. Instead it made me want to get up and quit and to tell her to shove it where the sun don't shine. (for the record, I didn't write that). I wrote it without thinking and posted it and carried on with my day. Then after a few comments which made sense I made the decision to take it down. I removed what I said but then my phone blew up and people asked why I took it down. Do you know the answer? Oh yes. Because I am still a WET FREAKING NOODLE my friends! I mean seriously. Even when I want to say how I feel, I say it and then take it back.
Today was full of frustrations let me tell you. Some people were like this page is a place for positive feedback etc. and I get that....however, I also feel like when we are out on the mat busting our ass daily, that we should also have nothing but positive feedback there as well. It could have been said in a more "tactful" way then "You're frustrating me". Again it's just my opinion. A couple of things people wrote to me outside of that via text were things like:
-"Just don't let others push you around girl - be you"
-"It was well written and you were speaking your voice. Don't ever compromise your experience...your reality or your voice for ANYONE!" -"You need to speak your mind and quit worrying about being nice, within reason, speaking your mind is needed at times"
Ok enough of my rant. My point of all of this is that we need to learn that it's okay to speak your mind. I guess when I say "we" I mean "I". I need to learn that it's okay to express how you're feeling about a situation or an incident and not hold back. It doesn't make me a mean person and it most definitely shouldn't change anyone's point of view of the type of person that I am. People expect me to keep my mouth shut, to not say anything when things should be said! Perhaps I said something for once that a lot of other people wanted to, but didn't know how to approach it. I guess we'll never know.
Today was full of frustrations let me tell you. Some people were like this page is a place for positive feedback etc. and I get that....however, I also feel like when we are out on the mat busting our ass daily, that we should also have nothing but positive feedback there as well. It could have been said in a more "tactful" way then "You're frustrating me". Again it's just my opinion. A couple of things people wrote to me outside of that via text were things like:
Ok enough of my rant. My point of all of this is that we need to learn that it's okay to speak your mind. I guess when I say "we" I mean "I". I need to learn that it's okay to express how you're feeling about a situation or an incident and not hold back. It doesn't make me a mean person and it most definitely shouldn't change anyone's point of view of the type of person that I am. People expect me to keep my mouth shut, to not say anything when things should be said! Perhaps I said something for once that a lot of other people wanted to, but didn't know how to approach it. I guess we'll never know.
“When you give yourself permission to communicate what matters to you in every situation you will have peace despite rejection or disapproval. Putting a voice to your soul helps you to let go of the negative energy of fear and regret.”
― Shannon L. Alder
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