Note to Myself 2018: No. 11

Let's face it:

nobody's perfect.

Each of us is a hot mess of contradictions.

Sometimes patient and kind,

sometimes snappish and irritable.

Shadow and light.

Light and shadow.

Even our most cherished qualities

have a negative side.

For example, being loving and forgiving

is generally seen as a positive thing.

But, if inappropriately overdone,

it can lead to enabling,

becoming a doormat,

turning the other cheek 

when the offending party 

has no interest in curbing

his or her egregious behavior.

And those negative parts of ourselves

that we're critical of?

Those bouts of aggravation 

tell us our boundaries are being violated

and we need to act. . .

to confront someone's behavior 

that violates our standards

or threatens our self-esteem.

Or to examine what is putting us on red alert

in order to see 

whether we're reacting appropriately

to a here-and-now violation 

or whether something has triggered well-wired reactions

and we've been transported to the past.

One of my earlier "Notes to Myself 2018"
proclaimed too much of a good thing can be wonderful.

Well, sometimes.

Sometimes not.

It's good to balance light and shadow.

To not let either side get out of control.

To dig into the things we prefer to keep hidden

and figure out how we can benefit from illuminating them

and use them to our benefit.

To stop being blinded to the downsides

of the upsides we think of as our good points.