What’s Your Toxic Trait?

Avoidance. Anxiety. Shame and Jealousy. Hello to the shadow parts of me.

Prompt: What’s your toxic trait?

Do you have any personality traits that you’re not very proud of? Is there a habit you have that you’re ready to break? How are you living with and learning about yourself? Write about your introspection and tag “Writehere.” Source: Creators Hub.

— -

This question hits too close, I don’t want to answer. I don’t want to see it or touch it, this toxicity that is the shadow part of me.

Oh. I see you.

Avoidance.

I withdraw. I distance. I procrastinate, too, I stand in the kitchen snacking in secret. I try to hide from myself. I want to escape. It’s too much, there is too much, I’m overwhelmed, I need space. I can’t right now. I have many reasons, there is always a reason.

Self Sabotage.

I once wrote a short story about the master of self sabotage. Just now I tried to find it on my computer, which is arguably a case of avoidance and procrastination.

Self-sabotage has many companions. Shame. Insecurity. Guilt. Fear. They move together in a pack. They talk about each other behind the other’s back, they are critical and cruel and very small. The master of self sabotage feels at home in small places, in cold places. Stay where you are, he says. It’s safe to be frozen, to be still. You don’t need to change. You can’t change.

Jealousy. Envy looks out and make comparisons, envy says why aren’t you better yet? Why aren’t you like her or him, what is wrong with you?

Judgment. Judgment says, I know what is right, I know how things should be. Judgment, like jealousy, loves to make comparisons. Judgment, like jealousy, sees what is lacking. What is wrong. How you are wrong, how you have been wronged.

Anxiety. Anxiety is toxic, and insidious. Anxiety is a pandemic, contagious and dangerous.

Hello, anxiety.

I would avoid you.

But the avoidant part is anxious too, everything anxiety.

I see you.

What do you have to teach me today?

Thank you Anxiety for teaching me where I am afraid.

Thank you Judgment for telling me where I am seeing things from one side.

Thank you Jealousy for showing me where I want to be.

Thank you Self sabotage for trying to take care of me.

Thank you to Avoidance, Procrastination, Resistance, and Overwhelm. You have given me something to overcome.

Thank you to Shame, to Fear, to Guilt, to Insecurity and its company.

Without Fear, I could not be Brave. I’m learning, too, to meet Compassion and Kindness.

I’m still full of toxic selves patterns and all the rest.

(And that was twenty five minutes.)