Sinner's Bingo
Trying to win in the game of respectable adults.
"What comes around, goes around. Remember that.”
I had just set my first hard boundary and was met with hurled insults, yelling, threats, and “channeled messages from God” telling me exactly how God was taking my “selfishness.”
But I felt nothing but pride in myself for choosing me.
There is NOTHING I’ve done in life that’s felt as empowering as setting that boundary and sticking to it.
And to get to that point was NOT easy!
Telling someone older than you “no” was unfathomable, but I did it. It may have seemed small, but I was sick of being short-changed (even if it was always under a dollar) when I’d help someone who didn’t trust the internet with their credit card.
It was a personal hassle to track change that didn’t need to be missing, and I felt like I wasn’t being respected when I’d say the total and get a different amount sent to me, so I really wanted it to stop no matter how scared I was.
I ended up taking some time to prepare for every single thing that could be thrown my way and ultimately, a lot of root chakra work helped me ground myself and innately know I was safe, protected, secure as I created and stuck to my very first hard boundary.
(As well as having a coaching friend tell me about a boundary situation she dealt with beforehand, and these two social media posts popping up all within the week.)
But now I wonder how I’d fair if I’d known about Sinner’s Bingo back then.
One day I was scrolling through Reddit and a post popped up in my notifications, perking my ears.
It was about an “insane religious mother” being disappointed in her daughter for moving in with her boyfriend. Her mom immediately texted her how disappointed she was in her (the Reddit poster), and to come get her things from the house.
And the daughter made an actual bingo card of (unfortunately) predictable reactions from her mom.
One being, “‘You’re living in sin.’” another says, “Something about being a whore.”
It made me wonder what I’d put on my own bingo card.
It’d probably say things like, “You’re letting the devil win” or “Oh I KNOW how you, and it/this won’t work. Everyone knows it, they just don’t wanna embarrass you.”
Or a personal fave: “you’re so naive and believe anything this world says instead of the only thing you need to believe: God’s word.”
(It’s so ironic to me that in a lot of Christian communities, it’s not considered narrow-minded to only listen to “one truth” and never question it or hear any other belief of human experiences outside of it.)
As I scrolled through the comments, I saw the Reddit poster (aka the ‘OP” in Reddit terms) respond to one of the comments:
“being a “disappointment” to her [mother] is honestly a compliment. I’d be ashamed if I ended up being the type of person she approved of.”
And it reminded me of how I never truly cared about disappointing my own parents.
You’ll have to let me know if you wanna hear more foundational information about Human Design, but just know there’s a diamond shape in the middle of your bodygraph when you pull it up called your identity center, and mine’s defined and lit up with a lot of gates (the numbers).
This means I have a lot of certainty around who I am.
Now in Human Design, anything externally influencing you to stray from aligning with how you’re designed to show up in the world is called conditioning. And wavering my certainty about who I am would be out of alignment with my design.
I always made thought-out and intentional choices for myself I genuinely wanted, and hurt no one in the process. Maybe that’s why hearing loved ones—or anyone for that matter—express disappointment in me never phased me.
By then, I knew it became a “you” problem if you were bothered by something that was making me genuinely happy.
Even so, back then I never knew the power I had over my life until I strayed from the constant advice to “just pray” and “just open up your Bible.”
Because of this, I knew who I wanted to show up in life as, but had no clue what steps I needed to take to take my first confident step toward it. Especially with diapporval in such close proximity to me.
I became the elephant chained to a stake.
But when you get sick of a situation enough, you’ll grasp at anything to get you out of such a dark and repetitive place.
And that’s exactly what I did.
Eventually, I broke free and over the past several years have searched, and found tools outside of the only three tools I was ever given to navigate life’s (major) ups and downs:
JUST prayer
ONLY the Bible
and motherly advice… *cough cough* aka usually PROJECTIONS *cough*).
Since then, I used root chakra work (how many Christians squrimed in their seats reading such “new age’ advice?) to stay grounded and feel safe when standing my ground as I set my first major boundary.
I finally got to get therapy (another thing withheld from me)! And my therapist recomended me a book that’s been gut-punch after gut-punch of examples and lessons that hit home about a relationship you may be dealing with in adulthood (this is an affiliate link to Bookshop.org, which supports local bookstores, but please check out reviews for this book. They’re wildly validating, painful, and helpful).
Shoot, I didn’t even learn what a boundary was until my late 20s. I realized no one in any part of my family ever really created boundaries for themselves.
No wonder I never even conceptualized what one was or what it’d look like in action.
(And even bringing it up to family now has them interpreting it as being selfish and rude and unneccessary. So interesting!)
Stepping away from the only way I was taught I was allowed to navigate this world has led me to learn self-awarness, which then led to healing, growing, and loving myself more than I ever did before that point.
You aren’t broken. You don’t need to be fixed. You just need the right tools that resonate best for your unique mind, life experiences, journey, and spirit, that’ll lead to mending and healing cycles that no longer or never served you.
Only then will you unlock your greatest potential: a life worth savouring, expression, and enjoying.
Thanks for reading!
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"By then, I knew it became a “you” problem if you were bothered by something that was making me genuinely happy." Oof. THIS. Resonates so deeply. Such an important, beautiful, honest post.
LOVE the 'Sinner's Bingo'! Hahaha! 'Something about being a whore' Hahaha! All so funny. Thanks for posting that.