I’ve started to try and be more positive, what my therapist would call “having an open heart”. I don’t think of myself as a negative person but I do know that I have a “crusty shell” that acts as one of my main defense mechanisms to protect myself from others.
But here’s the thing: I don’t want any part of me to be crusty! I hate having a hard outer shell, so I am taking steps to remove it.
Part of the process is to be more vulnerable around people and one way to do that is to openly praise others. So my daily homework is to give three meaningful compliments that stretch farther then “oh thats a nice shirt” - there has to be some depth. I have found that this is a whole lot harder then I thought it would be. Yesterday I gave one compliment, today, so far, I have given none. It takes me time to really think about a good compliment and how to deliver it appropriately.
The other side of the task is to lessen the amount of shit talking I do. This, I fear, will be even harder then complimenting people. It makes me cringe to think about how quickly and how often I critique people. I do engage in “constructive feedback”, of course this is all still behind people’s backs, but it is better then straight shit talking….or at least that is what I tell myself.
