I felt like Wormwood pushed me too far while I was stewing over a conflict and accidentally led me to repentance.

I was thinking about a particular conflict and how I would totally blow up at this person if one more thing happened. Then I thought about how crazy I would sound; how my threats would seem like they came out of nowhere. I had become a bottler without realizing it.

In high school I spoke my mind without caring about how it made others feel. I liked conflict because I thought it was a great way of making people face the truth. If someone was wrong, a conflict with me would show them their error. There was no sense in pulling any punches. If someone was wrong, they needed to know. I was the opposite of a bottler.

Then my best friend told me about how much PR damage control he had to do for me behind my back. He told me about how I hurt many of our friends with my “straightforwardness.” I was ashamed beyond words. I swung to the opposite extreme.

After that, I automatically assumed the guilt in any conflict, no matter what it was. I would “roll with the punches.” The person would yell at me, and I would apologize profusely, assuming that they must have had some good reason for yelling at me. I would later justify my pacifism by thinking that it was good that I didn’t say anything, or else things would have gotten worse. I thought I was a peacemaker.

However, tonight I realized that I had unknowingly become a bottler because I didn’t want to be like I was in high school. I always knew bottlers were a disaster waiting to happen, but I never thought I was a bottler. It turns out, every time I uncritically accepted blame for something, I subconsciously told myself “here is another example of your failure to be perfect.”

Knowing that perfection is an unrealistic standard, I would agree, stuff this message in my bottle, and move on. I can’t tell you what happened to warrant these kinds of messages. I simply don’t remember. All I know is that I have accumulated a bottle full of failures from times when I should have spoken up but didn’t.

I discovered the bottle a while ago when I tried to stand up for myself in a conflict, but ended up crying like a little girl. It didn’t really have anything to do with the person. The fail bottle defeated me. While it’s true that perfection is unattainable, my bottle full of failures fermented into the message that I could never meet anyone’s expectations, but was still expected to try.

Only people who are convinced they’re right enjoy conflict because they don’t have anything to lose. People who tote the fail bottle don’t enjoy conflict because they have everything to lose.

Interestingly, a few days ago, I decided to go on the attack the next time I was in a conflict, regardless of the consequences. I was so tired of rolling with the punches that I needed to do something extreme to shake the passivity, even if I’d regret it later.

Because, when I “roll with the punches” I deny the other person an opportunity for growth. Just because they’re the one on the attack doesn’t necessarily mean they are right. Emotions do not validate truth. Statistically speaking, there is no way for me to have been wrong 100% of the time. I know I walk around with feet of clay, but Calvinists don’t even believe in that degree of Total Depravity.

It’s a lose-lose situation: The other person loses because they’ve been denied an opportunity to learn that frustration does not justify disrespect, or that they are simply in the wrong. And I lose because I internalize a message that sets me up for failure.

There’ll be times when I’m wrong and I’ll need to graciously own my mistakes. And there’ll be times when the other person is wrong, and I’ll need to graciously help them realize their error. I can’t continue bottling up these hurts because it will all just explode in an irrational frenzy of bad, unjustifiable decisions. I want to be free to deal with conflicts on a case-by-case basis, without the additional burden of the fail bottle.

So, there are some people I will need to apologize to this week. Not only for denying them the opportunity for growth, but also because I h

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