I recently had a conversation with someone that was quite troubling. As always, I did some self-reflection on it and started to question how I reacted to it.

Because of the troubling nature of the messages I received, I chose to not react immediately. I knew that if I did so, it would have led to a "go f*** yourself" and here is why you should. The more I sat on it, the more I started to think about what this person's intentions were in sending these messages. I realized that this "friend" was actually hoping for an argument. I read them over and over again. The more I did so, the more I read the aggressive energy that was being directed at me. I could tell that there was a hope that I would react aggressively in turn.

Instead, I chose to be more kind with my responses than my original emotional reaction would have hoped for. I instead chose to be more accepting of the comments that were clearly meant to hurt me, because I was trying to deescalate the conflict. I was kind to this person even though this person was not kind to me. This is something that I thought would provide me with peace of mind. Why then am I still feeling distraught from this conversation?

In my effort to be kind to this person, I was unkind to myself. I allowed myself to be spoken to in such an insulting manner, that it continues to affect. I am glad that I did not feed into the conflict, but I should not have remained in such an offensive conversation. Looking back, I should have simply removed myself from the conversation all together. I allowed this person to put their negative energy on me in order for them to try and not carry so much of it. I let this conversation affect me for far longer than it should have as there ultimately should have never been a two-sided conversation.