Words That Feel Like Fire

Part Two of the Self Love Series

About this series: I’ve had this idea to write about self love for a while now, but it took some time to wrap my brain around what that meant. Because the topic is so dense and multifaceted, I decide to break it up into pieces - the mind, the body, and the soul - these three parts make up the Self Love series. I can’t promise that each piece will be released consecutively, just that the work will get done. If you missed part one, you can read it here. Ladies and gentlemen, part two (the mind), enjoy.

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I knew I shouldn’t have come to this Target because all my experiences in Downtown Brooklyn can be defined by one word “shitshow.” Unfortunately, I needed the convenience of this particular store today, so here I am, annoyed at the checkout counter. I’ve just spent way more in this store than anticipated, which inevitably happens during every Target run, and now my irritation is growing as the cashier searches for a discount I didn’t ask for. This goes on for several minutes, until I tell her “it’s fine, I don’t care about the dollar off,” and clarify to her that I have a gift card not that I was looking for one. Finally, I pay for my items, but of course she does one more thing to drive me up the wall before I go - wipe her nose on the back of her hand. I panic, freeze, watch her carefully to see if her now contaminated backhand will rub up against my items (I’m a germaphobe if you can’t tell). They don’t, but this won’t stop me from spraying all my purchases with disinfectant spray when I get home. I will reminisce about this moment for several days because it’s one of many in which I should’ve spoken up, asked the woman to sanitize before touching my items, so I wouldn’t have to do it later. But I didn’t because unlearning my penchant for swallowing my words and people pleasing, has turned out to be the hardest thing I’ve ever done.

My family loves to tell me stories about who I was as a child, almost always with the label “bad.” I said and did what I wanted with no care for the outcomes or the feelings of others; I didn’t care for rules or social norms, and I would do anything to be that girl again. I had no problem being me back then, but it seemed like everyone else had an issue with me. I frequently found myself in trouble with authority figures and in conflict with my peers, and unfortunately this was the only thing standing in the way of a successful academic career. Coming off the heels of a suspension in eighth grade, which unjustly occurred because my defense of myself was labeled as “bullying,” I decided to stay out of it - everything. I stopped engaging with the nonsense, stayed out of trouble, and got my head in the books; I had places to go and I had the opportunity to get there. This primarily had a positive impact on my life, I would go on to attend Boston University and graduate with honors, but it also backfired. I unconsciously stuffed myself into a mental cage that would take me fourteen years to try to break out of.

The only way I knew how to steer clear of conflict was silence, so I stopped saying what I really felt for fear of repercussion. I unwittingly developed the habit of conflict avoidance. Another unintended side effect of my silence turned out to be likability. When I stopped being bold, being “bad,” I started to be liked by peers, teachers, and family, and I liked being liked. I was the kind of kid growing up who had few friends, and lots of books, so when I figured out how to be likable it was high I didn’t want to come down from. What I didn’t know until recently is that likability can be oppressive.

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For years, I have swallowed all the words that feel like fire. I have allowed myself to be uncomfortable for the comfort of others. I have shrunken into places that have felt too small for my being, and I have avoided conflict at all costs. I decided to change that at the end of last year. Frustrated with my inability to engage in conflict in a city that demands it, I ordered a book called Not Nice by Dr. Aziz Gazipura. I am still reading the book, it’s the slowest I’ve read anything in my life, and it’s not just because the text is dense it’s truly because the work is too.

Learning how to not be nice is really an unlearning of all the things I was taught by polite, southern society, by family, and by America at large. Girls are supposed to be nice, charming, and easy going. Girls don’t get get angry. Girls say what they feel in journals, whispers, and to confidants, but I am not a girl anymore. I am entering womanhood, and in doing so, I am creeping out of my cage. I have been in there so long though, it feels mortifying to come out. Nevertheless, I’ve been doing so. Little by little I find myself freeing the words that get trapped in my mind, and have slowly felt my true self come alive again. The work is ongoing, with the biggest obstacles being fear of repercussion, the desire to still be liked, and the urge to prevent people from being mad at me - as if I have any control over that.

At the root of relearning to speak my mind and be myself, of course, is self love. Every time I stay silent, when I desire to do otherwise, I betray myself. And, when I leave most of my words trapped inside of my head, they start fires inside my mind and spirit. When I do things for the comfort of others, I choose them over me and I always lose. My mission is to love myself so much that I stop caring about other people not liking me, disagreeing with me, or being upset with me. The process is brutal, but it’s one worth sticking to because being accepted by the world is worthless if I can’t look in the mirror and love myself.

On my journey, I have to be careful not to beat myself up over the moments when I fail to say what I desire to because there are two sides to freeing my mind. One side is external, speaking freely with others, and the other is internal, speaking kindly to myself. I have to learn to watch what I say to myself because I am always listening. I mentioned in my last piece that I have an intense inner critic who has operated largely unchecked for some time. I see her mostly as a positive force, pushing me to constantly do better, but progress doesn’t always have to come from tough love. Instead of beating myself up for failure, I am working on coming from a space of compassion. I am actively dulling the edge on my sharp thoughts and making room for words of affirmation, for softness, for ease.

My prioritization of self love is my attempt to show up in the world as the woman I envision in my head - someone who is powerful, authentic, bold, grounded, confident, and fearless. I’ve realized recently that everything I want to be in the world I already am, she’s just buried underneath years of pain and conditioning. Freeing my words, and thus my mind, is another step toward evolution and liberation.