Hey MBob, good thoughts here.
Reflect, reflect, reflect...
I think I have less issue with keeping my mouth shut than I do with not opening it enough.
In my drinking days, on the worst days, yes I'd spit the truth out with all the venom in the world.
Now I think my silence is a passive aggressive manipulation.
Or it's just outright befuddlement.
Some times tho, I rush to fill up the spaces of silence, be it in my head or in a room, with all the words that tumble off my tongue. I may come off witty, or intelligent and often times goofy but mostly it's me running on high nervous energy and my talks come before my thoughts.
In meetings tho, I struggle to keep my shares short and quiet my mind.
I have a hard time listening, and following things I read.
My (higher power, intuition, instinct etc) is poking me inside my brain saying to shut up and LISTEN.
So I try but I get all nervy and blabhblhalaablaaah. Then I try and listen some more.
I do NOW, sometimes chew and chew over the things I would LOVE to bring up from the past, to "right some emotional wrongs" in my own head by ripping apart and down a bunch of people in my family.
Why? To what end?
Vindicate my own place emotionally in life where I was when I was a teenager? And how the comparisons hurt and nobody's perfect?
I have to keep reminding myself to take off the Pity Party Hat, pull out the Resentment feather from it, because staying in that party, all I'm going to do is hurt everyone I care about whether they are close to me or not, and myself.
I can't control it anyways. Only my own tongue, which has done it's fair share of damage. And my own actions, and my own reactions. So, serenity prayer, keep my nose in my own business, and live with love.
Sometimes I think of the saying, as does this thread make me,
"Be careful the toes you step on today, as they might be attached to the a.. you have to kiss tomorrow."
So true.