Stage One: Hyper Awareness

Hello!

Week one of this challenge is almost over, and it's been a tough one! I've been trying to cut down on all of those nasty habits I spoke about: blaming, interrupting, whining, bitching, moaning, gossiping, controlling, criticising, judging, and preaching.

Now of course, I haven't been able to go completely cold turkey. Giving up sugar was hard, but controllable. Changing your habits in the way you think and speak and behave is completely different. I'm essentially trying to cut down on something that is part of my current personality. I believe that it's doable, but it works differently from cutting down on something external. I think it goes in stages, and the first stage is awareness.

I've heard the phrase 'awareness is half the battle' quite a lot before, and I like to think that's true. I may not have been able to cut this stuff out immediately, but I feel very aware of when I am doing it, and therefore I am certainly doing it less, and also am able to admit when I have slipped up. 

Now part of the challenge this week has been my environment. I am currently in a show, and so am spending a lot of time in a dressing room with the other girls. It's a very high stress environment and so bitching, moaning and gossiping is kind of a given. And when reflecting on it this week, I don't think that's entirely a bad thing. When things go wrong, it's good to have a network of friends you can go to to have a good rant. And it's nice to be able to share stories with people. What I found interesting this week was defining the difference between getting things off your chest and using each other for support, and then being needlessly negative or mean.

Some examples: My friend and I were swapping stories about ex boyfriends, and obviously not all these stories painted our exes in the best light. And I thought to myself, 'am I breaking my own rules? Is this bitching and gossiping?' Eventually I came to the conclusion that it wasn't. I think bitching and gossiping only really applies when you're talking about people who currently feature in both of your lives, and you do it with an intent to mock/shame/belittle said person in the eyes of the person you are talking to. But sharing stories about people from your past is different. You're really talking more about yourself, and something you have been through. There's no 'shit stirring' element to it.

Later on, when we were talking about the behavior of someone we all know, I thought 'this is bitching and gossiping', because we were fueling and encouraging each other's dislike for the individual in question. I don't think we were wrong in the way we felt, but it made me think, should we waste our time talking about this person? It was only making us feel angry. Sometimes I removed myself from these kind of conversations, other times I was not so honorable, but every time I was super aware of what I was doing. Again, I realized it's quite complicated and hard to draw the line. It's only natural to talk about the people in your lives. The main thing I was trying not to do was 'fuel the fire'. When people tell you some gossip, of course you are going to have a reaction and opinion, but then what I have often caught myself doing is adding fuel to the fire by offering more gossip on top, and that's when it can become a bit of a spiral. 

As well as being aware of myself and my own behavior, I am becoming increasingly aware of other people's too. I realized that again, interrupting is a bit of a grey area. Listening to my friends talk, I saw that interrupting and talking over each other is something we all do all the time. It's the way we naturally converse. Waiting for a proper gap was actually quite hard. And I realised that again it all depends on context. Interrupting each other in normal conversation is, well, very normal. But it's when you use interruption as a tool to silence or put down someone that it becomes a problem, and something I would like to avoid. In proper arguments and debates it's easy to get caught up in your passion, but it's important to really listen to what the other person is saying, even if you don't agree.

So I think I'm starting to get somewhere with this. What's important to acknowledge and remind myself of is that it's only my behavior that I am trying to change. If other people want to bitch and gossip and moan then that's absolutely fine. I will not judge them for it, partly because that's on my list of things not to do, but also because I am in no position to judge. I know that those things do not make you a bad person, and I know they only come from a place of frustration and people need a place to vent that. And so I won't judge, and I certainly won't preach! All I want to do is ensure that I am not adding to any anger or negativity. I want my contribution to the environment to be a positive one, and if that means sometimes I have to just be silent and let things go by, then that's fine.

Twenty Four days to try and crack this thing.