Communication Skills Training: A Practical Guide to Improving Your Social Intelligence, Presentation, Persuasion and Public Speaking

by Ian Tuhovsky

The behavior of another person which we didn't like is then a stimulus, that activates (indicates, reminds us of) a real cause (a thought that starts to haunt us again). When your partner does not call you for a long time, you can feel anger and accuse them that they don’t care about you. However, if you look deeply at the real cause of your anger, you could realize that you simply need more love signals from your partner. Subconsciously, you decided to treat the stimulus (no phone call) as the cause. This is how we transfer the responsibility for our bad emotions to the external world instead of taking a better look at ourselves, our emotions, thoughts, feelings and needs.