I’m learning to pay attention when something bothers me so that I can look at it a bit more carefully and suss out why it’s bothering me. Once I know this, I can begin figuring out what I can do or how I can work through it, or begin to work through it, so I’m not being held hostage by my unaddressed feelings.
I know that I won't always have the necessary words in the moment of the unfolding action or directly after the incident. But when I do give myself and the feeling the space that I need to identify and process things, then I can feel out what would have been the healthiest way for me to speak up (and if it's possible or necessary, follow through and speak up).
Holding space to figure it out for myself beats not addressing it at all. Because if I don’t address it and it keeps showing up, piling up, or bothering me, then that’s a lot of energetic gunk that I’m carting around and choosing not to deal with. And not dealing with it, on some level, is likely to result in an ever-widening gulf between myself and the others involved.