The catalyst for the end of my deflective tenure happened during a phone call. My friend confronted me with the brutal honesty I had been avoiding for years. She told me, bluntly but lovingly, that my pattern of allowing people to walk all over me was not their fault—it was mine. “You deciding not to change this about yourself actually means you’re okay with it,” she said.
Her words stung, while simultaneously awakening something inside me. The discomfort of staying the same had finally outweighed the fear of change. The revelation moved me to make a promise to myself that day: I will never lie to myself again.