The need to be right.

 I have been contemplating the need to be right for a few years now and this morning I had some new awareness around it.  Maybe the need to be right is really just the need to be heard. I have done a lot of work healing my childhood hurts, many of them the result of adults not “hearing” us when we say “I am scared”, “I don’t want to do that”, etc. As adults when children say this to us, we just want to fix it for them, but what they hear is “its not okay to feel what I feel”.  And so, I went back to these moments in time and felt the hurt, forgave the adult, and forgave myself for believing that my feelings did not matter. But I did not really put it all together until this morning.  I do have a strong need to be right, always have, I have strong opinions and am not afraid to speak my truth, but often times this turns into a situation of “I am right, and you are wrong”. I have now learned to say “we can agree to disagree”, but I think there is more here then meets the eye. I thought about all the times when someone strongly disagreed with my opinion and could feel that it felt the same as not being heard. If someone said to me, “I can see why you believe that, but I don’t agree with all of it” or “I don’t have enough information to talk about this further”, it totally diffused the situation.  But if both of us were caught up in the need to be heard, in reality, neither one of us was!! Lol

 Considering the divisiveness that is going on in the world today I have been interested in why we have developed this us against them culture, and wonder if it has something to do with this.  I have long felt that many people are disconnected from themselves, from their authenticity, their truth, their soul.  Maybe this need to be right is just the need to be heard.  And so, you ask the question, heard by whom? Would it make a difference if everyone saw it our way? Would that bring us peace and happiness? To some degree yes it would, but at some point, that “right” is going to change if you are relying on something outside of yourself to tell you if it is right or not. I believe that who we most need to hear us, is ourselves.  By being true to the truth of our Being, we no longer need something or someone outside of us to make it so.  How many ways do we not “hear” ourselves; when we put others needs before our own, when we are hurt but do not express it, when we feel sadness, joy, happiness, grief, or despair and pretend that we don’t out of concern for others opinions, put unrealistic expectations on ourselves, I could go on and on, speaking from experience 😉 . . . . but I guess what I am trying to decide for myself and maybe that would explain it for others too, is if I listened to myself, if I made my feelings important, if I spoke my truth fearlessly, would I no longer have the need to be right?  Could I post a comment on a social media post that just stated my opinion without making the other person wrong? Could I have a debate on a hot topic and not have my nervous system go crazy? Would I stop my righteous indignation at the media when I do not agree with them?  Only time and awareness will tell.

 Much Love,

Tracy