Wondering why the guy you’re seeing doesn’t seem to respect you? You might be surprised by the reason . . .
If your tendency is toward anxiety, you’ll go to great lengths just to restore the peace and get things “back to normal” as quickly as possible.
If any of this sounds familiar, you will not want to miss the 3 tips I share in today’s video.
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Do you say sorry too much in your relationships? I think a good indicator of whether you do say sorry too much is whether you feel taken for granted where you feel like the other person doesn’t respect you. When I say “Do you say sorry too much?” what I mean is do you find yourself always saying whatever needs to be said in order to keep the peace?
It’s always going to be the case that when we have a standard it will inevitably at certain points mean pointing out something that somebody else did that we didn’t like and of course when we do that there’s a natural friction or attention that gets created.
Many of us aren’t comfortable with that tension. For many of us tension in a relationship means anxiety and for people that struggle with anxiety in relationships they’re always looking for peace. They have a very low tolerance for tension.
Now the danger is that if you have a low tolerance for tension and somebody else has a high tolerance for tension or a different way of putting that is there’s nothing more important than their pride or there’s nothing more important than winning an argument. This person may gladly freeze you out or withdraw love as a result of them feeling bruised, wounded, insecure, unhappy with something you said. And if you find yourself in a relationship with someone like that, then in a game of chicken where it’s who moves first, you’re always going to move first. They’re always going to win because they’re happy to sit there and endure this tension. Whereas you are not. You will do anything to keep the peace. Even if it means apologizing for somebody else’s mistakes because your apologies essentially become code for I don’t want to fight anymore. I just want to move past this with you. I just want us to be back where we were. And apologizing I want to say is a good thing in situations where we need to take ownership. The ability to apologize is a wonderful sign of someone who takes ownership. But apologies can’t be at the expense of having a standard.
And when we apologize in order to just keep the peace because we want to move on, we enable the very behaviors in somebody else that have upset us in the first place. Not only do we enable them but we rob the other person of the opportunity to feel the consequences of breaking our standards in that area.
So what they begin to learn is that in any argument, you will always be the one to blink first and they never actually have to change. And when someone realizes they never have to change, consciously or unconsciously, they begin to feel like they can walk all over you. They begin to feel like you’re always be the one who remolds yourself to the situation and then they start to lose respect for you and it’s clear when someone starts to lose respect for us if we say we want more or less of something they just ignore it. They’ll do things with us that you know, they wouldn’t do with somebody else that they respect more.
We begin to feel truly taken for granted and we feel like our good nature is stretched to its limits.
Now the next time you’re in a situation like this, I want you to be aware of something. Firstly, are you even pointing out something that’s upset you? Or do you find that you’re afraid to even bring it up? Because you know, there may be consequences and those consequences we can label as tension.
Or if you do bring something up are you capable of sitting back and saying I’ve brought up something I’m not happy with, now it’s their move? Or do you bring up something you’re not happy with do you try to assert a standard and then because the tension that follows from that, is so untenable for you, do you go, “Oh, it’s my move again.”
The person who’s anxious will start making all the moves while the other person just stands still.
There are three things you can do when you feel the tension and it creates anxiety.
Number one: Have a breaker switch.
I always think it’s important to, if you trend towards anxiety to have an ultimate breaker switch that says if I really need to I can lose this person and I’ll be OK.
Because what is, at that anxiety that we feel at tension, what is it at its core?
It’s a profound fear of losing someone and it’s attached to this idea that we won’t be OK. If we lose them now, I won’t be able to bear it. That being abandoned would be the worst possible thing.
But we should remind ourselves that we have lost people in the past and somehow we survived that and that regardless of how close to us someone is, if we have to we can lose this person and we will be OK.
So always have that breaker switch that says I can lose this person because if you do not have that you do not have power when you go to the negotiating table.
You always have to be prepared to walk away.
Number two a great way to make that breaker switch more accessible to yourself, is to remind yourself that if this relationship can’t meet your fundamental standards for self-respect and dignity, and what creates peace for you, then it’s not a relationship worth having. And if you bringing up your standards and the things that you aren’t happy about is something that is met with fury or disdain or indifference or someone threatening to leave. Then you don’t have a relationship in the sense that you want one. You have an emotional hostage situation because that’s what that is when you’re afraid to talk to someone you’re a hostage. Now, you can’t always blame that on the other person because sometimes we’re a hostage of our own making. Because we’re afraid of losing someone we make ourselves a hostage to that person and their desires their wants. What we have to do is break free of that by saying the only way for me to truly know what I have with somebody, which might surprise me in the best possible way, by the way, but the only way to know what I have is to speak up about what’s important to me and to see whether the relationship can handle it.
If it can’t then I will never find peace in this relationship and that’s good to know and I can look for that piece elsewhere.
If it can handle it, then we’ll realize that we haven’t been giving this relationship enough credit all along.
Number three: Go do something else. If you’re feeling the anxiety of someone being off with you or being at odds with somebody, go do something else. Go work out, go see a friend. Go have a meeting about a project that’s important to you. Because when you put your focus on something else the world gets bigger again. And when the world gets bigger you realize, OK, I’ve been telling myself that this is everything, but it’s not.
Your anxiety wants you to laser in on this thing that you’re afraid of and make it everything.
It wants you to curl up in a ball in bed and wait until it gets better but not just wait and ruminate the whole time about the situation until it’s resolved.
That’s what your anxiety wants you to do and you have to rebel against that instinct. You have to say I’m not gonna give this my focus all day every day. Yes, there’s tension with this person right now. Yes, we’re at odds right now. I’ve said my peace. I’ve said what I need, it’s their move. I’m not gonna make a move out of anxiety and I’m also not going to sit back and just ruminate about this and obsess over it in a way that tortures me until it’s better.
I am going to go and lose myself in something else that’s important in my life. And when I do that I’m reminded about how rich life is and that’s a pressure valve for this thing that I’m anxious about in the first place. And when you have that pressure valve when you breathe differently, when you go back to that situation, you have a completely different level of power.
Because you’re not coming from a place of scarcity, you’re coming from a place of abundance.
None of this by the way is about playing some kind of game with somebody. You have to ask yourself, am I seeking appeasement or am I seeking peace? If you seek appeasement you’ll do anything to appease this person in the present.
You’ll create peace at any cost. Even if it means losing your boundaries, your standards, losing your own dignity. If it means losing someone else’s respect for you because you’re always willing to bend for whatever they need or want.
But if you want long-term, peace, you’ll actually be willing to endure tension in the present so that you can have peace later. Because if someone understands that this is important to you, and you’re coming from a kind place you’re coming from a compassionate place, but this thing is important to you and you’re not going to make a move when it’s their move, then one of two thing will happen. They will either start to raise their game in the relationship or you will discover that they’re not capable of doing that and you’ll go find peace elsewhere. Sacrifice short-term appeasement for long-term peace.
Let me know what you think about this in the comments. Don’t forget to like subscribe and hit the notification bell so you don’t miss the next video.
I also want to tell you that from the 11th to the 13th of November I’m running my Virtual Retreat.
If you’re listening to this video and you’re realizing this is the deepest stuff that I need. these patterns are always affecting me in my life. I need more than dating tips. I need to look at the way that I am wired and how it is hurting me, the VirtualRetreat is where we do that much much deeper work, and let’s face it, it’s the most important work we could do. What could be more important than looking at the patterns that lead us constantly down a path of pain and could if we reorient them to more healthy wiring lead us to so much peace and so much happiness in the future?
I hope you come and join us. The link is MHVirtualRetreat.com. Come check it out and spend three days of immersive coaching with me and my team. I’ll see you over there.
Fionnuala Mckenna
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