It occurred to me today that when I opened my inbox, I had a subtle bodily reaction of fear. A mild fight or flight response. I think I was bracing for something bad, but why?<\/p>\n
Some part of me dreads opening my inbox because there might be something bad lurking among my unread messages. In my mindful state of awareness, I asked:<\/p>\n
What was I so afraid of?<\/em><\/p>\n It seems like they all carry a certain undertone of disapproval. I’ll get to that later.<\/p>\n Truth is, I have received some nasty emails in my day. I remember the moment I got that letter from my favorite band in 2007 telling me I was “everything that was wrong with the music industry” after finding some offensive work in my company’s portfolio. Talk about a heartbreaking moment – I nearly had an existential crisis after that and wanted to quit everything.<\/p>\n The reality of my inbox is far less threatening.<\/strong> Most of the emails I receive are actually quite pleasant. I don’t get much spam these days thanks to good spam filters. I do sign up for my share of newsletters that I’m interested in, although I don’t have time to read all of them. But for the most part they are nice emails.<\/p>\n I don’t get a ton of comments on the articles I write, but the comments I do receive are almost always positive. And not just “good job dude” positive. But thoughtful replies from real people sharing their stories. Or emails from folks who enjoy my work and just want to say thank you. Or honest requests to hire me or pay me for my skills, those are always good! And even those from people telling me that what I wrote changed their life in some way. It doesn’t get better than that, right?<\/p>\n Somehow my brain likes to ignore nice emails and likes focus on the hurtful ones. Does this sound familiar?<\/strong><\/p>\n In almost 20 years of emailing, there have probably been just a handful of traumatic email exchanges. Comments\u00a0so critical or offensive that it ruined my day. After reading the first few lines, all the blood would drain from my face and I’d feel sick to my stomach. I’d spend the rest of the day in my bed trying to sleep away the pain. And this isn’t even talking about critical or shameful comments from Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube.<\/p>\n Those few emails\u00a0created some form of post traumatic stress disorder. It’s crazy how comments from a few years ago ago still have an affect on me. It’s so deep in my subconscious that I don’t even realize it. It manifests as a subtle dread and instinct to recoil and brace for an oncoming assault\u00a0when there’s no actual threat to be defending myself against. That’s how insidious it can be.<\/p>\n After feeling into this, the reactionary fight or flight response is being triggered by some unresolved shame or insecurity within me. It comes back to my tendency to people please and be nice.<\/p>\n The thing about being nice is that it’s not actually very good for me. I’ve done so many things I didn’t feel like doing because I was being nice and thought that’s what you’re supposed to do. I’d ignore my own desires just to make other people happy. As I do my inner work and healing these days, I realize how out of balance this is. How tragically out of alignment it is with my natural state. I realize there was a healthy amount of self-loathing stewing inside me where I didn’t feel good enough to be who I was. That’s changing.<\/p>\n When you have a reputation of being nice and accommodating, you establish relationships based upon it. When you start standing up for yourself and feeling more empowered, those who relied on your compliance will be upset. This naturally creates conflict! As someone who fears conflict this is scary shit. The thing is, being nice and accommodating doesn’t actually make people happy. It makes people dependent on you for their needs. They get addicted to your compliance and when you aren’t available, they blame you for their discomfort. The classic codependent relationship.<\/p>\n I guess where I’m going with all this is that email had begun to feel more like customer support and people pleasing than genuine connection. As someone who historically worked hard to be liked, followed, and admired – emails with a negative tone were terrifying. Just a few years ago I would have written long emails back to try to win over anyone who disagreed with me. I’d relinquish my position to please the critic so I could retain my following and not “lose” my position in the rat race. It was all based on\u00a0fear and low self worth.<\/p>\n Sheesh, how tiring.<\/p>\n The first step is to get off the hamster wheel. There is no race to begin with. It’s all an illusion anyway. If I can self-source my worth, I won’t be so affected by other people’s opinions. Email won’t trigger me anymore. But for now, being aware of how it does is the first step to overcoming this block on the path to being more authentically me.<\/p>\n What about you? What kind of reactions do you have with your email?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It occurred to me today that when I opened my inbox, I had a subtle bodily reaction of fear. A mild fight or flight response. I think I was bracing for something bad, but why? Some part of me dreads opening my inbox because there might be something bad lurking among my unread messages. In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":4182,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"Why Do I Sometimes Dread Opening My Email? - Maker\/Mistaker","_seopress_titles_desc":"When I opened my inbox today, I felt a subtle dread come over me. A mild fight or flight response. 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A mild fight or flight response. I think I was bracing for something bad, but why? Some part of me dreads opening my inbox because there might be something bad lurking among my unread messages. In my mindful state of awareness, I asked: What was I so afraid of? Well, I could think of a few things. Rude or bitter comments on one of my blog posts where I shared way too much about my life Someone who was offended by…<\/p>\n","category_list":"Personal Growth<\/a>","author_info":{"name":"Jeff Finley","url":"https:\/\/jefffinley.org\/author\/jeff_finley\/"},"comments_num":"4 comments","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jefffinley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4180"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jefffinley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jefffinley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jefffinley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jefffinley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jefffinley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jefffinley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jefffinley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jefffinley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jefffinley.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Well, I could think of a few things.<\/h3>\n
\n
Why was I triggered?<\/h2>\n
What does it all mean?<\/h3>\n
The Problem with Being Nice<\/h3>\n
Tips for Anyone with Email Dread<\/h3>\n
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