Are You Mad at Me?: How to Stop Focusing on What Others Think and Start Living for You

by Meg Josephson

You may expect other people to just know what you’re feeling and what you’re thinking, and you may be upset because you have the ability to do that.

The more friends I had, the more people I could upset and disappoint.

As we heal the fawn response, we see that not all conflict is worth getting wrapped up in—that sometimes there’s nothing for us to do.

so much of conflict prevention is an attempt to control the narrative and to deter someone from possibly thinking you’re anything other than good.

Go back to the moment of tension or disconnection and acknowledge what happened. 2. Take responsibility. 3. Share what you learned from the rupture and what you’re practicing for next time.

Repair, on the other hand, opens up an opportunity for conversation and connection. It’s an invitation to understand each other.

When a parent goes from being safe to being scary, or silent, or emotionally absent, the child yearns to find a sense of safety again, to return to a feeling that everything is okay.

deep longing for acknowledgment from the parent that what they’re feeling is real and seen.

When we feel something unsaid lingering in the air, sometimes acknowledgment is all we’re craving. Think of any sort of rupture in a relationship, then, as an opportunity for more closeness.

on the other side of a rupture in the relationship is an opportunity to know each other better, to understand each other’s needs more intimately.

Because Sam was more avoidant, he’d find himself pulling away during conflict and craving space, which triggered Alicia’s anxiety even more: she feared that he was going to leave or that the relationship was ruined forever.

someone being in a bad mood = I’m alone, and that feels horrible.

their first sharing what was going on internally for both of them and then understanding the ways in which each of them had witnessed conflict growing up and what conflict meant to them.

The worst-case scenario is clarity. Or rather, more realistically, it’s discomfort and clarity.

The discomfort of having direct conversations is temporary, but resentment festers and keeps us stuck in endless conflict with ourselves.

the success of the conversation is solely based on you communicating what is on your mind.

When the conversation is just for you and your desire to express what you’re feeling, you may decide it’s not worth having and record a voice memo of what you want to say, or write a letter you don’t send.

Even if you don’t have the uncomfortable conversation, at the very least you can acknowledge to yourself the anger, the resentment, the betrayal that you feel. If the other person won’t validate your emotions, give yourself the gift of validating yourself.

1. WHAT AM I FEELING RIGHT NOW? Angry? Unheard? Frustrated?

2. WHAT IS MY INTENTION IN BRINGING THIS UP? Do I just want to be heard, or am I hoping for something from the other person, like a response or change? There’s no right or wrong here—it’s just helpful to understand what you’re expecting.

3. WHAT DO I WANT TO SAY TO THIS PERSON? Communicate from a place of “I.” Resist the urge to speak for them or to make black-and-white ...

4. WHAT DO I NEED FROM THIS PERSON AND/OR MYSELF? What, if anything, are you asking from the other person? If they don’t give you the response you’re looking for, what will you need to be okay? If they don’t give you ...

My inability to say no was rooted in not wanting to be left behind, not wanting to be abandoned.

If I say yes, I can’t disappoint anyone. If I say yes, I won’t “fall behind” in my closeness to this person, and I’ll still be relevant to them, and then maybe they won’t forget about me. If I neglect myself, maybe I won’t be neglected by them.

I feared that setting boundaries meant I would be harsh, closed off, selfish.

I have more capacity to show up for the people who feel like chosen family to me, and I want to show up for them because I have the energy to give.

And when I don’t have the energy to give, I trust myself to get the rest and recovery that I need to replenish myself.

A boundary means knowing ourselves and our needs. Every healthy relationship has some sort of boundary, because in a healthy relationship, each person is able to be themself.

Having boundaries doesn’t mean turning into a flaky, unreliable friend. It’s striking a balance between showing up for the people you want in your life and for yourself.

Boundaries are bridges, not walls, and they create space for sustainable connections to thrive. Boundaries aren’t attempts to change the other person but ways to feel rooted in yourself while being in relationship to others.

grow tired and resentful but also saw how they took a certain pride in what they were doing: giving and giving and giving, and being seen giving, even if this endless effort drained their emotional energy.

if you weren’t suffering from overextension, you weren’t doing enough, and there were consequences for that.

in order to receive love, we have to do more, give more.

people who often fear being seen as bad, healing the fawn response feels like dangerous territory.

Compassion isn’t about being liked; it’s about being connected to ourselves, because we can’t be compassionate to others if we’re not also being compassionate to ourselves. We’re not being compassionate if we’re abandoning ourselves in the process.

We tend to fawn as a way to avoid our own discomfort and manage other people’s emotions, but that behavior actually creates more long-term suffering within ourselves and in the relationship.

white lies create so much more tension and unhappiness within us. Clear, direct communication reduces long-term suffering, even if it brings about short-term discomfort, because it cuts through and addresses the situation that’s right in front of us.

Ask yourself: Do I really mean what I’m about to say? Am I saying something I don’t mean to try to appease the other person?

In healing the fawn response, we’re strengthening our ability to discern: Is this emotion mine? Or am I holding it for someone else?

Fawning enmeshes us with our environment, with the people around us: suddenly their anger becomes our anger, and their anxiety becomes our anxiety.

When we’re in a crisis, whether it’s our own or we’re supporting someone else through theirs, we probably won’t have time to pause, look inward, and assess our needs.

Crises naturally disconnect us from ourselves because they send us into necessary survival mode.

Stacy’s been the responsible one in her family. No one offers to help because they expect her to handle it, and so she does, and the cycle continues, and she’s exhausted. She can’t take on this role anymore, at least not alone.

that she’s given him what she is able to, that it is enough.

changing her own behavior feels exhausting at first, because she has to constantly resist the urge to do what she’s always done.

she must sit with the discomfort of doing less, of doing nothing, of not knowing the outcome, of taking a new path that has historically felt dangerous.

We can understand why someone is acting the way they are and have empathy for the pain and trauma they’ve been through while not tolerating it.

Empathy doesn’t mean overextending ourselves; it means acting out of sustainable compassion.

Notice when you start having fake arguments in your head.

you can use NICER to notice it, invite it to stay, get curious about it, and embrace it by allowing what’s there to be there.