Avoiding conflict

I have always disliked conflicts. I try hard to please people, to not make enemies out of others and want to be friendly with anyone and everyone. And this has been the cause of my doom. People take me for granted, think that no matter how much they harm me, I am going to silently tolerate every crap they throw at me. I am at a point in my life where I dislike this quality of mine. I would like to stand up for my own beliefs and not have my mom stand up for my sake and take a bad name. Every time I face an issue, I run to my mom and make her fix things for me. In the process, she takes a bad name. I wish I had the courage to stand up for myself and tell the person directly about what I did not like.

I recently read this article online: Link. And I have to agree with these points –

Bullies/predators are never attracted to confident people for a reason: because they are strong on the inside and are too much hassle to attack.

Standing up for oneself is not about dominating or controlling another. It is about defending our right to exist, be individual, different – ourselves.

By not being able to stand up for ourselves, we leave ourselves wide open to being bullied, controlled or dominated by those who want to, and we are left with a horrible sick sensation, and feeling that we have let ourselves down.

I have decided to change for the good. Recently there was a big conflict in my life and this time by choosing to speak up, I was able to resolve it in my favor. If I had not spoken openly about the atrocities this person was inflicting upon me, nobody would have known and he would have continued making my life hell. (P.S. Nothing to do with my personal life. Not talking about my family here.)

There is one more bully in my life who has been wrecking my life from last few years. This time I am not going to let her say mean things to me and get away. I am going to show her what I can do if I stop avoiding conflicts. Just because I hate conflicts, it doesn’t mean I am weak. Just because I hate picking fights with people, it doesn’t mean that I will tolerate any crap they throw at me. My idea of avoiding conflict was to avoid the person who creates such conflicts. But doing that makes people think you are weak and cannot fight so they try to create more conflicts. That’s how you get bullied from others.

I am challenging myself to speak up and stand up for myself this time when a situation arises for conflict. Enough of running away from conflicts.