Anyways I learned something about myself recently, actually I've always known this but it took someone to give me a jolt. I'm your typical nice girl, fun, always ready to help a friend in need, always with a smile and a listening ear. I'm not tooting my own horn, it's just who I've always been. This of course is a good thing, but like with most things it has it's downsides.
I was talking to a friend a couple of days ago and he called me a pacifist and I just had to agree. Because I value peace so much, I always forgive easily, let things slide and hold things in. This of course can be damaging and as I reflect on past relationship I see a string of resentment mostly because I never spoke up for the fear of hurting someone's feelings.
Rewind to Last month in Italy, I had an incident where I stood up to someone, as pacifist this is a terribly hard thing for one to do but something kept pushing me to do it. Here's what happened : So while living in Florence I had made some friends, one of whom was a guy who had a leather shop down the road. Anyways one day we went out to gelato and we were just talking, casually, a friend of mine mentioned that she had plans of visiting me in Nigeria and his retort was "ooooh Sabirah is Nigerian no wonder..." At this point my eyes just flashed red, I knew all the stereotypes of Nigerian women in Italy and it had been a major deciding factor on whether I would go. The fact that he alluded to that made me so mad. Of course he quickly tried to back track saying that he knew that i wasn't like that but the damage was done. He apologized and we made an excuse and left.
As upset as I was I got over it quickly and by night time I had fully forgiven him. A couple of days later I still had a nagging feeling about the whole situation. So I put on my big girl pants and walked to the store. I was so scared because I had no idea what his reaction to what I was going to say was going to be. I walked in there and owned the situation! I explained to him why i was so upset, told him that it wasn't just about me but women in general. long story short I set him straight. It wasn't easy, I was crying before I was halfway through, but little did I know that this was a the beginning of a reawakening.
Fast forward to the present, after this conversation with my friend and some reflection, I decided to put my new-found self knowledge to the test. This guy that had been trying to talk to me was beginning to take things to quickly and I let him know, it was so hard for me but it felt good,Ii explained that I was uncomfortable and he agreed to slow down, although that's now over (before it ever started), it was good practical use of my knowledge
I'm happy to start implementing this in small doses in all areas of my life. Yaay to personal growth.
I love reflecting, learning and growing.
In other news I miss Italy soooo much, i can't explain it, It's like I left something there, my heart maybe? lol yes i'm heavy on the cheese.
here is a one of my fave photos from Italy edited :)
Sabirah!
