Troublemaker

She looked me right in the eyes, leaned forward and said to me, "You are a troublemaker." 

Then she leaned back and waited for me to respond. She didn't say anything else, just waited. That's what she does, she just waits. She's really stinkin' good at the waiting part. She can outwait me all day. 

I kind of squirmed and looked around, picked at the pillow I was holding, wrinkled my nose and said, "No, I'm not. I'm a nice person!" 

She smiled and said, "You can be a nice person and be a troublemaker, and you are a troublemaker. There's nothing wrong with being a troublemaker, but troublemakers make people uncomfortable, and that's what you run into, most often, and that's what is happening to you in this situation. You've made someone uncomfortable, because you were truthful. You've made them face an unpleasant fact, you've raised a valid point, you've stood up for someone who needed help, and it made someone else look bad. So rather than face the reality that you may have been right about this particular issue, you were branded the one with the problem. Which may or may not have been true."

Man. Even though I pay her, I love my therapist. She has a super clear way of getting right to the meat of every single issue I bring to her, every time. 

She's right, though. I am a trouble maker, but she (and I) didn't mean it in the traditional sense. More along the lines of Congresswoman Maxine Waters. Now, phew, there is one troublemaking woman. Or Rosa Parks. Or Susan B. Anthony, or Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan, and Mary Jackson, or the unnamed women who fight every day for the rights of all. 

I have always had a big mouth. Always. I have always been a person to speak up when I see things that aren't right, and I have spent much of my life trying to squelch this, to be quiet, to fit in and not rock the boat. To close my mouth when people hurt my feelings, to tamp down when I'm unhappy, to turn away and let things roll off and just- ignore.

But being a troublemaker isn't a bad thing. It's actually a good thing, to stand up and speak up. Without the troublemakers of the world, there would be no reform. There would be no checks and balances. There would be no one to keep people accountable. The world would run amuck. 

So, I think I will no longer let things slide - I'm going to be the best version of me that I can be, and if that means being a troublemaker when I see people behaving poorly, guess what? I'm calling them out. 

 

Comments

[ELIZABETH BAUER]

Amen! "Troublemaking" is a gift in this sense, so don't waste it! Of course it may still hurt a bit to have (some LOL) people mad at you, but it sounds like you are learning to manage that with some spot-on advice.