My big epiphany as a 'good' person has come from trying to heal every little wound and realizing it will only leave me more stressed. It creates the inability to let go because you want to be at least neutral with all others. So I have had a harder time releasing the things that bother me because I feel like they have to be resolved or better put, "made into a positive."
As I continually strive to free my mind and release the distaste toward past actions, on one hand, it makes me a little more tactful now. On the other, it's that lack of comprehension I have of the different levels of integrity people embody and why their version of 'what's right' is often uncouth and underhanded. I understand, that is a judgment in its own right. However, as a consistently lenient-hearted person, my freedom comes from that realization that it's okay if I don't like people. I can provide you with long, well-researched lists as to why. I just egoically need to understand their methodology, because no matter the circumstance in life, I equate cruelty to weakness and an expression of insecurity.
For the most part, the streamlining of my surroundings has improved my inner world greatly. I have only recently come to realize that being 'too nice' can be detrimental. Both personally and professionally, I have struggled to obtain forwarding momentum, though I offer immense value wherever I go. I believe in people when they don't believe in themselves, but maybe there was always that niggling in the back of my mind that that somehow made me superior because I built them up, and from there, I simultaneously accepted poor treatment into my life because again, we all have different levels of integrity and drive. I have repeatedly been disappointed, a cycle I have striven to break without lowering my standards as that backfires in another way. But alas, I hold the prowess of a nine-lived cat.
I also have long feared bad karma, I don't want bad ju jubes as I refer to them. So I repeatedly put myself into situations I intuitively felt wrong in. As a reformed people pleaser, and the release of having to carry others in a codependent attachment from the lesser highlighted perspective as the 'strong one,' I see how I was enabling in my own way and perpetuating connections that didn't make me feel good. Through experience, I completely realize that my fearful energy is entirely adaptive depending on my environment. I should not have been living in a state of anxiety that any bad thought would create my impending doom.
It's the hindrance of holding onto the need to make good that is the downfall of a nice person. I had the irrational fear of cutting ties, being unkind in any way, and feeling guilty for that, meanwhile, I would feel rotten inside. I pat myself on the back for taking the high road most of my life, but those suppressed pains are what built up inside you and begin to release as those fears mentioned above. That was my ego trying to keep a reputation of sorts. I suppose I could spit sweetened venom. That's what I am working toward because we cannot go around punching people. I let my words do the work.
There is a liberation in not liking people and I do not mean based on some sort of superficial reason, like the ridiculous separatism we create based on hate. It is okay as a reformed people pleaser that I can have a distaste for someone and not harp on trying to release it. When you can not like someone and become detached from the negative association of that and eventually the mental anguish of the experience dissipates, you can resort to the basal energy of love that allows the neutrality to kick in and you can walk around the world with confidence and appreciation for the differences of people. You can understand they may have hurt you because of their pain patterns too. You just happened to intersect to learn from one another.