Hi Guys, thanks for being here with me In The Good Guy Corner.
I have a teenage son who’s been learning to drive. He’s been taking the classes and learning all the rules and he absolutely loves pointing out the flaws in my driving. Now let me say that I’m a really good, safe driver. But sometimes I don’t turn on my blinker when I’m turning and there aren’t any cars around. And sometimes…ok most of the time…I don’t stop for the full 3 seconds at a stop sign. And he calls me out…as often as he can. Ok. I deserve it. He’s right. And I am glad that he’s being technical about the rules even if it is at my expense.
But then I also have a car that likes to tell me when I’m “wrong.” If I get too close to the painted lines it will beep at me. Most of the times I deserve that too. But sometimes I don’t. Sometimes the car sees a crack in the road and thinks it’s the painted line and it will give me that warning beep. And I do not deserve that! And I can get a little peeved at that. I mean I already have a son who‘s anxiously looking for opportunities to correct me and then I’ve got this car dishing out more than I deserve.
And sometimes life is like that, right? Sometimes we are given something that we didn’t deserve. This especially happens in our relationships. I’m sure you’ve been in situations where someone in your life overreacts or misunderstands you and you’re dished out something that you didn’t deserve. It happens. It would be great if it didn’t, but it does.
Sometimes we can find a reasonable explanation for why someone treats us poorly; maybe they’re sick, maybe they just got some really bad news, maybe they have lots of stressors. Sometimes we know and we can cut them some slack. And other times it comes out of the blue and really affects us.
Here’s what I see happening too often with my clients when they’re given something they didn’t deserve. They start asking themselves, “What did I do wrong to deserve that?” Too many people are making the quick assumption that they did something to cause the other person’s behavior.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with taking a look and being curious if there was something you did that you want to learn from or apologize for. That’s wise in relationships. But it’s not helpful for you to just assume it’s you and to start beating yourself up with self-talk like, “It must be me, I can never do anything right.” That is not useful. There is no growth and no gaining understanding with that perspective.
Another side that I often see is guys going immediately to the defensive place. His wife might complain about something and he immediately goes to, “I don’t deserve that!” “I do so much for you and you don’t even appreciate it!”
Again there is no growth and no gaining understanding with this kind of response. Both of these responses shut down awareness and curiosity. They don’t offer the opportunity to have a conversation and learn about the other person and what’s going on with them. No opportunity for connection.
And situations like these, when you’re dished out something you don’t deserve, this is why your relationship with yourself matters. This is why knowing yourself and knowing your intentions matters. When you know yourself and that you have good intentions then you are much better able to handle the stuff that you don’t deserve and to not disconnect from the conversation by either taking on too much blame that isn’t yours or dishing out blame that isn’t useful.
It’s funny because I’m experiencing some of this right now as I’m preparing for this episode. If you follow me on FaceBook you know that I generally put out 3 posts a day with simple one-liners that are intended to empower people and help them gain some new, powerful awareness for their life and relationships. It’s good stuff that I’m really proud of and it’s helping lots of people.
Well, I create those posts in big batches at a time and then schedule them to come out two or three weeks later. And depending on what’s going on with my clients at the time, their challenges often inspire the posts I create. So a few weeks ago I was working with some clients who were so focused on always needing to be happy that they were missing some important work that was needed in their relationships. The attitude was to just brush things under the rug and pretend like the issues weren’t there so they could just pretend to be happy. Well, I’m all for people being happy but in my line of work I often see where the focus to be happy creates a lot of problems down the road. So I created several posts about that, about happiness being the wrong goal and that if you’re focused on being happy all the time your life is going to be out of balance. Good stuff for the context I was helping these people with.
Well today several of those posts came out and I received some comments about how negative I am and how wrong I am about the importance of happiness. Ugh! I’m feeling quite misunderstood and after all the good stuff I put out for people I definitely don’t think I deserve those comments.
So there’s my experience, happening in real time. AND if I didn’t have a good relationship with myself, if I wasn’t clear on my intention with my posts and how passionate I am about helping people have less suffering in their relationships, I could definitely be struggling with those responses today. I could go to those two places I just mentioned, either beating myself up for doing something “wrong” or I could be defending myself and writing reactionary responses to the comments. But I’m not doing either of those things. Instead I’m being intentional about how I want to show up and what I want to learn from this. It’s all good.
And this is what I want to offer for you too. Know yourself. Spend time thinking about your intentions in your relationships. Show up as the person you’re wanting to be. And then have your own back when people dish out something you don’t deserve. It’s going to happen. That’s just life with humans. And how you show up is going to totally depend on the status of your relationship with yourself. Make it a good one.
That’s what I have for you today. I’ll be here next time In The Good Guy Corner.