This week, two people I’m not close to asked, “How are you?” I couldn’t answer immediately because it drained my energy to connect with them.
I know I’m overthinking it, suspicious about their real intentions, and taking life so seriously.
What I’m sure about –
- I don’t like to respond with an inauthentic answer, yet I don’t simply let people into my inner world.
- I don’t like responding with cliches and being curt.
- The truth is, I don’t feel so well, and I don’t want them to shoulder the burden of solving my problem because I know it’s my responsibility to figure it out.
- The truth is, I’m overwhelmed, and I don’t know their capacity to truly hold sacred space for me. I guess I’ll never know unless I try to tell them.
- At this time, I would rather speak to my best friend about the heaviness that I feel than to a stranger.
- I don’t want to spill my guts because I have yet to learn how to be open to receiving help and not be the one giving advice all the time.
- I don’t want to tell people my problem because I don’t want them to expand and amplify it because now it’s the main focus. I don’t want to give my problem momentum and turn it into unnecessary drama. I don’t want to add fuel; instead, I address the root cause by relying on a higher wisdom that I can tap into when I’m still.
- Is there a hidden agenda? Are they connecting only to open the floodgate of wanting selfish for themselves?
How are you? These are three words that I no longer treat lightly. When we ask this question, we have to be ready to hear someone’s truth and hold space, not because it’s the norm to ask yet expect a regular unrealistic answer or simply brush it off when the truth is uttered.