It’s surprising how easily old patterns can creep up on you.
Today I caught myself in the old habit of ‘absorbing damage’. That is to say I was putting in extra work to process the emotional fallout of someone else’s choices. When I didn’t need to accept that. There was nothing real in it for me. I should have just returned to sender.
In autopilot, I had followed the path of least resistance instead of the path of most integrity, and it left me feeling drained.
The alternative does feel heavy handed. Having boundaries is hard. But letting reopened wounds bleed out onto the rest of your otherwise untarnished life is stupid. So heavy handed it’ll have to be.