In this blog post I discuss "Worst-Case Scenarios"and the recent revelations I've made around them.
I recently made some discoveries about my “worst fears.” When making big decisions like whether or not I should reach out to an old friend or deciding whether or not I should have an open and honest conversation with someone, there’s always a negative outcome that I fear greatly.
“They’ll cuss me out if I reach out. If I voice how I feel they’ll be annoyed. If we have a much-needed discussion, it’ll lead to a huge argument.”
These are just a few of the things I feared in the past, and although these fears are valid and realistically possible, I wondered how likely they were to actually happen. I asked myself to name a time where my worst fear about a situation came true. I couldn’t. I realized that when things have gone horribly wrong and shit hit the fan, it was over situations I could not prepare for. Further, I realized that when things went wrong in the past, I adjusted and dealt with it and more importantly, got through it. They never turned out to be "the end of the world" like how I imaged in it to, so why was I so afraid of them? 🤔
I also noticed that I would often plan my actions in anticipation of these "worst-case scenarios." If I felt that someone might be angry with me about something, it wasn't uncommon for me to alter my actions to avoid that outcome. I would leave parts of an important text out or sugar coat things so that they won't be as annoyed with me.
Taking accountability now, that's actually kind of trash (🥴), because i'm manipulating my actions in order to get the reaction that I want or to avoid a reaction that I don't want.
There's obviously I number of problems with that, but I can name three that I think are important to note. 1) When you do stuff like that, you never end up saying what you actually want to say. If your words are carefully crafted in anticipation of what another person might say or do, it’s never authentic or genuine. 2) As a result, you'll never be able to tackle the problem you're hoping to solve. For example, say your boyfriend constantly leaves the toilet seat up in the middle of the night and it annoys the hell out of you. You want him to stop, but every time you try to bring it up to him, you sugar coat it, so it sounds like it's not that big of a deal. You do this to avoid getting in an argument over it, but the problem? He doesn't get it, and therefore he keeps leaving the f*cking toilet seat up! You keep having to have the same conversation with him over and over again, without actually tackling problem. 🤷🏾♀️
Lastly, 3) The other person in the situation is robbed of the ability to have an authentic reaction. Maybe they would have actually been upset if you said what you had planned to say initially. Emotions are valid and you can’t dictate how or when someone should react to something.
I also realized that worrying and focusing so heavily on someone's potential reaction, might mean there is other underlining things to unpack. For example, recently I was contemplating reaching out to someone and having a much-needed but difficult chat. I was concerned about how they would interpret or react to what I was going to say. After thinking about it for some time, I realized I wasn’t actually concerned about their reaction, I was concerned about the subsequent outcomes that might follow it. I was worried that our chat might prompt them to not want to be friends with me anymore, which was obviously the opposite of what I wanted. I valued the person and our relationship and wanted to keep it, that’s why I was so worried (duh! 🙄). With this new realization in mind, I was able to re-focus. I decided to shift my attention to what I actually wanted to say, which was that I loved the relationship that I had with this person and wanted to continue it, rather than on their potential reaction to what I would say. I was now more determined to get my point across effectively and authentically.
ANYWAYS. I’m not entirely sure what prompted me to write this blog post this week, over some of the other more light-hearted ones that I had initially planned for. I’m also not entirely sure what the whole point of this semi-rant is either. 😅
Maybe it’s just to re-analyze how we view fear. Maybe it’s not just about WHAT we’re scared of, but WHY, and being honest with ourselves about the why.
Maybe this blog post isn't even about fearing our “worst-case scenarios,” maybe it’s what we are scared to lose as a result of them. Is it a potential relationship? A scholarship? Your comfort zone?
Maybe this blog post is a call to you (and to me) to re-evaluate what we value most. Maybe the answers to our worries lie there.
With Love,
-M
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