Have you ever been talking with someone, possibly sharing a problem or concern and everything you said or any story you told was one-upped or turned around to be about them? Yes, I too have been guilty of this before and I would love to say it his hidden deep in my past, but it shows up from time to time and here is why.
1. I can be too spongey. I start taking on people's complaints and problems like it is my own and think their life objections and grievances now echoing in my head are actually being said about me somewhere else by someone. This may sound crazy - but my listening can actually go this far south sometimes. I feel the need all of a sudden to defend myself, as if this story had ANYTHING to do with me.
2. I have no real idea what to say to them. Sometimes I can not relate to the person at all and I am stuck in how to coach them. I will try to grab onto anything I can think of that might help and it usually looks pretty messy and creates an awkward space for them. I have literally said to someone before - "Forget everything I just said. I actually don't know what to say to you, so all I am going to say is I love you, you are perfect and trust yourself - you know exactly what to do." This is by far the best coaching I have ever given, surpasses any of my stories.
3. I am self conscience. I can start talking too much about myself when I am in my head trying to figure out if someone likes me or not. It is more of a nervous chatter where I actually have a conversation hangover hours after the conversation. That guilt of indulging too much in stories about myself. Yuck.
4. I am overly confident. For some reason I can sometimes think that I have the voice everyone needs to hear. Well, I am hear to tell you that I don't. Foot in mouth I think is a common expression to explain this scenario. I don't think I need to elaborate much more, you get the picture.
So - I am completely and utterly aware that the earth does NOT revolve around me and I like to blame my humanity for the instances where I forget that.
My challenge to you is go get lost in conversation so fully that you disappear. Watch what shows up. I promise it will be profound.
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