Recently I had a conversation with someone that left me feeling uncomfortable, like I hadn’t succeeded in getting my point across well. As the afternoon ticked by, I felt my emotions shift, and I did my best to ignore and push away that internal roiling.
It wasn’t until the next day that I realized I’d fallen into an old story about myself. One that I’d probably decided to believe when I was a girl. It went something like this: “I’m bad at living in this world and asserting myself. Everyone else is so much better at it than I am.”