Over the last few years, I’ve been on a personal journey to improve my mental, spiritual and physical health.
Recently, I’ve been reflecting a lot on how most of us have been raised in unhealthy or “toxic” environments to the point where it became our norm.
It wasn’t until I started doing the work on myself and actually trying to put what I’m learning into action, that I realized how engrained abnormal or “toxic” behaviour is in our lives and society.
If you really know me, then you will know that I often get “random” bouts of revelation at odd hours of the day and in the most unlikely places lol. Well… today, as I’m writing this, is one of those days.
My recent self reflection has been on the way I communicate, which is the theme of this new revelation that I have.
It dawned on me that as people, we are not use to what is normal or healthy. It’s not until we make the decision to become healthy that we realise that what we considered normal all along is actually unhealthy or toxic behaviour.
To personalize things, I have noticed that those on the outside often view my attempt to communicate in a healthy way as offensive.
To give some background, I am naturally non-confrontational. I will shut down and go silent when offended or hurt instead of verbally expressing my feelings to the offender. This then manifests as passive aggressiveness, resentment and in the worst case, a huge explosion of emotions… sometimes at the wrong place, the wrong time and on the wrong person. Of course, I am now aware that this is very unhealthy behaviour.
And though far from perfect, I’ve been trying to make the necessary adjustments to communicate in a healthier way.
In my attempts, I have noticed that in voicing my feelings, sometimes it is taken as an attack or viewed as offensive. Whereas in the past, suppressing my true feelings and pretending to be fine had no negative effect on anyone but myself. The kick is that no one sees anything wrong or cares until it’s too late; that is “the explosion”.
This brings me to my revelation on a Thursday morning while washing my hands in a random bathroom at work, and it’s this: What has been considered normal is actually what has been “toxic”, but what actually is normal comes across as “toxic” simply because it is unfamiliar. Unfamiliarity is the new “toxic”.
We are not use to “it” so “it” can’t be right. Nothing was wrong before, so why change things or stir up drama now? This is our mind set when healthy is introduced. What’s truly healthy unmasks the unhealthy.
If you lived in a messy house your entire life, the mess will not bother you. You may not even see it as mess. But let someone move in and start to clean up a little. Maybe they just start with one room. Eventually, the remaining mess will become obvious. You cannot walk out of a clean room and back into mess without noticing the marked difference. The mess did not look like mess until you saw what clean looked like.
So… just because it’s unfamiliar, just because it’s new, doesn’t make it toxic, unhealthy or unnecessary. You will not notice the darkness around you until you have experienced light. My challenge to you is to step out of the darkness and into the light. You may just see that the things that terrified you in the dark are actually not what you thought and you will actually grow to appreciate in the light.
Love & Blessings,
Brittany Krystal
Let's B. Krystal Klearr 