I have been here in Tennessee for almost two weeks. Okay 10 days. But it feels like a month. This trip has been very hard for me. I know I am not the only one out there to struggle with family, but this experience has felt very lonely.

I wrote the previous post in my first couple of days here. I felt and continue to feel that there is this perfection box I am expected to exist in. I have felt cornered and judged for how I handle my children, myself and my life. I have felt scorned when I didn't do or say something just the right way. I have felt unaccepted and unloved.

My husband's family isn't mean by any definition. I just see life through different eyes than them.

One day I was asked why I don't try to do things to make a person happy. The way I communicate was interpreted as contentious and attacking. I was told that I needed to be nicer and try harder to make a person feel happy.

Oh goodness the Pandora's box that opened. One of the first lessons you learn in therapy is that you are NOT responsible for another person feelings. Cordial, kind, clear communication is essential in life. But walking on egg shells and saying what needs to be said so as to assure no hard feelings...that is abuse. Yes ma'am. Many would disagree, but I think that is because they want people to talk to them like that. They don't want to be offended, they don't want to hear anything bad or have their feelings hurt. They don't want to be wrong.

I went through five years of therapy to learn how to overcome an entire life of having to say something just the right way so that I wouldn't get beaten or slapped or abused in some way. I learned that people are responsible for their feelings. NOT me. I am responsible for the clear communication and kindness part. If someone doesn't understand or is offended by what I say it is their job to communicate that to me. It is not requisite that I try to interpret what they are feeling or thinking. That is dysfunction at its best. That is where manipulation and codependency is bread. We do NOT own each others feelings, we do NOT have to read minds.

People don't want to hear that someone else is not responsible for their feelings. We are in society plagued with emotional selfishness. "You take care of me, but I dont' have to take care of you". Or the other side of that is "I must take care of everyone and make sure they like me." Okay there are actually too many modes of thinking to post them all. Sufficeth to say we live in a society of emotional dysfunction.

My heart is just so full of emotion. My plea, my ache is for the women who walk on egg shells unneccesarily in fear of offending someone. Our Savior would not have you emotionally trapped in such a way. Speak. Speak freely. Speak kindly. Speak clearly. There are occasions in which it is better to keep quiet than to stir a hornets nest. Accept for those rare occasions, grab hold of your courage of the love you have for yourself and YOUR feelings and speak. If speaking your truest feelings is hard, or is something that you are not sure how to do then you must learn. I say must because it is essential that you speak your heart. You see when you hold back in life, you hold back in prayer. You hold back from the Lord. You hold back really in all aspects of your life.

Politically correct is NOT correct. YOUR feelings are correct. And there is a healthy way to communicate them. Yeah someone could get hurt or offended but that is their ball of goo to deal with. And vice versa. If you are or have been offended by something someone said then communicate that. We can not be so afraid of anger or sadness or even contention that we neglect our hearts. We will always disagree. Disagreement is a part of life. The learning part is not about never disagreeing, is about learning how to disagree, and how to communicate our feelings.