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April 21 - April 24, 2022
When dealing with bullies, the most important step to take is to interrupt the pattern.
interrupt the pattern. Come back with more energy and intensity than the bully is expecting. Put your hand up just as he begins to speak and say in a loud, clear, commanding tone, “Excuse me, Darren, the adults are talking. I’m not in the mood for your high school jokes.”
Each time you leave a situation feeling like the bully got the best of you, instead of getting stuck in what you should have done, or how it’s not fair, or feeling helpless, stand up.
Practice it again and again until you wire it into your nervous system. Until it comes out so fast the next time you’re with him that you didn’t even consciously choose to speak up. It just happened.
I have seen why asking often triggered our parents’ disapproval. Because kids ask for anything and everything all the time. And depending on their age and development, “ask” is a favorable way to say it. It’s more like demand. Or screech. And so, despite being a patient and loving dad, there are times when the rapid-fire demands and unpleasant situations mount to threshold capacity. Then I get annoyed. Instead of responding playfully when my son Zaim demands, “Daddy! Tell me a story!” for the fortieth time, I sigh, look tired and exasperated and say, “No. I don’t want to.” No redirection, no
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Perhaps your parents were often exasperated by the demands of parenting and didn’t have much patience. Maybe they got even angrier and told you to knock it off, shut up, and get away from them. Whether it was subtle or overt, most people got the message that asking is bad. It’s too much, puts people out, and you’re bad and unlovable for doing it.
Asking is an essential part of connecting with other humans, and is actually the most effective way to meet our needs in relationships. We misinterpreted our parent’s frustration and personalized it, thinking it was our fault. We did not understand how demanding life was for our parents and how Jedi-Zen master they would have to be to not get upset with us sometimes.
In almost all cases, guilt around asking comes down to poor boundaries. It starts with the idea that we shouldn't want so much and that other people's needs are more important than our own.
Then, we imagine that our request will put undue strain or burden on someone else. And we imagine they have poor boundaries as well and don't have the right to decide for themselves if they want to say yes or no. We fear they’ll feel pressured to say yes and be upset with us, resenting our demanding, selfish nature.
So, we either don't ask and try to do it all ourselves, all the while piling up frustration, and repressed resentment. Or we consider asking, and feel guilty and bad, making the whole process painful and unpleasant. Even if we do muster the will to ask, and the other person says yes, we feel uneasy, wondering if they’re upset with us or secretly resent us. We have a hard time letting it in and accepting what they’re giving us. This can lead to apologizing or over thanking, neither of which makes anyone feel good.
The ideal that you are striving for is noble–to be a giver, not a taker. In general, giving more than we take in life is a pattern that creates wealth, great relationships, and happiness. But giving does not mean only giving and never receiving. That turns an ideal into an extreme that is unattainable and unsustainable. If we only give and never get our needs met, we will soon feel burned out and resentful.
In order to truly be a giving, generous, and attentive person, we must be able to meet our needs and receive from others. The most effective way to meet our needs is to ask directly for what we want.
The key to granting yourself permission to ask for what you want is to realize the following core truths: 1. Your needs matter. 2. You must be the greatest advocate of your own needs (no one else can do that for you). 3. Others actually want to meet your needs.
Ask for what you want. The people around you care and want to support you, even if they complain and fight you on it sometimes. Stand up for yourself and ask for what you need, even if there's some initial friction.
You need to start advocating for yourself and asking for what you want because no one else will. No one is stopping you because you’re not a victim of circumstance. You’re the owner of your life, the captain of your ship, and the mastery of your destiny. You are the one who decides what is right and what is wrong for you. You can decide what it means to identify your own needs and ask for what you want.
The more you practice speaking up, the more you’ll realize it’s not as dangerous as you’d thought. You say things, people respond, and the world rotates. Once in a while, someone has a strong negative reaction, but it’s rare.
Post Speak-Up Freak-out. The PSF often occurs immediately after speaking up for yourself. In the moment itself, you may have been direct, powerful, and assertive. You may have actually enjoyed your newfound powers, and even gotten a positive response. But then, on your drive home… PSF. You start to review the scenario, playing it from different angles. You watch and re-watch scenes of the event, like a football coach who’s watching game footage to spot key errors. Soon, the high of breaking free and the peace of being your authentic self in the world starts to turn into unease, then doubt,
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Dates, meetings, conversations with your partner, sharing more of yourself with friends or family–nothing is safe from the PSF. It’s all fair game. In fact, it’s helpful to anticipate this so you know how to interpret it accurately.
speaking up boldly makes you feel more vital and fully engaged in life, but it also opens you up to rejection and other emotional pain. So, your Safety Police causes the Post Speak-Up Freak-out to try to push you back into line.
In order to develop your assertiveness and strength, it's essential to see the PSF as just a reaction to stepping outside your comfort zone. Give little to no attention to the replays and anxiety that follows. See it just as a part of you that is trying to get you back into your nice person comfort zone. Smile and thank it for trying to do its job, and then move on.
So, the next time you speak up for yourself, take bold action, and step outside your comfort zone, give yourself an internal high-five.
You’ve focused on the pain of taking action. But have you ever slowed down to focus on the pain of not taking action? How do you feel when you leave a meeting where you were totally silent, and not because you honestly wanted to be that way? Rather, you were held back by fear, intimidated, and assuming others would be upset or judge you for saying what you thought. What’s it like to hide how you really feel around your partner, because you don’t want to rock the boat? What does that do inside of you, day after day, to pretend? How about smiling and nodding at a party, agreeing and laughing at
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when we hold back, we feel less alive and less engaged. Life loses its color, excitement, and promise. It becomes repetitive, boring, confining, and depressing. Whenever you leave an interaction of any sort, be it in business or your personal life, notice how you feel. If you feel drained, down, fed up, frustrated, or otherwise upset, most likely you held back. You didn’t say what you wanted to say, ask what you wanted to ask, and act how you wanted to act. You can then ask yourself, “How did I hold back?” After you ponder that one for a moment or two, ask yourself, “What would I have done if
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The truth is there is such a thing as negative or destructive selfishness. This is callously going after what you want and not giving a damn about how others feel, or how it impacts them, all so you can have more pleasure for yourself. Sure, that’s not the best strategy for happiness or relationship success. And that’s not the kind of selfishness I’m encouraging here.
you’ll discover the surprising secret that being self-sacrificing doesn’t make you an altruistic, “good” person. It actually diminishes your energy over time, causes you pain, and thus hurts those close to you. If you are depleted and resentful, those you love receive less of you, even if you try to force yourself to show up and be nice. Ultimately, acting in your own healthy self-interest brings you back into balance, where you are taking care of your own needs, and not passively asking others to do that for you.
THE SELFISH SPECTRUM
On the left side of this spectrum, we have no right to our self-interest. We always put others and their needs and wants first. We feel horrible and guilty if we do otherwise. This can be called self-sacrificing or self-denying. The complete opposite end of this spectrum is the disconnected, self-absorbed person who mercilessly crushes all who oppose his or her will. They’ll get what they want or there will be hell to pay. The middle of the spectrum is known as healthy self-interest. This is where you can take care of yourself when you need to. You’re able to put your needs first at times, and
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Where do you tend to live? What number on the spectrum, between one and seven? Most nice people hover around two–You First, Then Me. They meet their needs only after they’re sure everyone else is covered. They ask for what they want only if they think others will want the same thing. Under stress they drop down to a 1 (Always You, Never Me) and completely forgo their own needs, wants, and desires. They’ll tell themselves something like this: How on earth could I ask for what I need when it’s obvious he’s struggling so much. Now is not the time. Sometimes, they’ll move up to level 3 (Sometimes
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More often than not, however, they won’t ask directly. Instead, some sort of physical condition, such as migraines, back pain, or neck pain, will become so intense that they force the person to slow down and take care of themselves.
Healthy self-interest exists in the range between level 4 and 5. That may surprise you. Perhaps you see four as a healthy place to be: Sometimes You, Sometimes Me. I mean, it seems fair after all. But level 5, Usually Me First, Then You, that just sounds terrible, doesn’t it? Way too selfish, bad, and wrong! Not necessarily. Because being able to identify what you want and prioritize meeting your needs in a skillful way allows you to be more loving, generous, and giving than ever before. The “Usually Me First” means you are frequently looking inwards to discover what you need and want, first.
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It began with me getting clear: I want to work out four times per week, no matter what. It started with a strong, healthy impulse of self-interest. Me first. I need to do this. I want this. I’m going to make this happen. Then, from that place, I began to explore how to make it work for our entire family. And that’s the key difference between healthy self-interest and callous selfishness: I consider how to meet my needs in the most skillful way possible that serves the greater good.
This is the real secret of being more selfish. It’s moving up the spectrum to the levels of healthy self-interest so you can most skillfully meet your needs. As you do so, you become a much happier, more loving and giving person.
One important note–if you’re a parent, especially of small children, self-sacrifice seems to be the name of the game. In many situations with my boys I’m operating at levels two and three—often putting them first—and that feels good for me to do right now. That means I make them meals and snacks, tell stories in the bathroom during dinner time, and wipe poopy butts whether I want to or not. I do this because I deeply love them and want to create a secure sense of attachment and healthy self-esteem. I know that the more they feel held, respected, and loved at this young age, the more it will
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Yet, the resentment formula still applies (you’ll discover what that is in just a moment). So here and there I say no to things I don’t want to do and offer alternatives, so I feel like I still have some autonomy. I also take time for myself to process and release any resentment that forms from giving in this way to prevent it from building up and causing problems. I take time for myself every morning
At first the pattern was subtle to her, almost invisible. But then she began to see just how pervasive the pattern was: in virtually every situation in her life, she was prioritizing others’ needs, wants, and feelings over her own. Her attention and energy was always focused outwards—What do they want here? What does he need? How does she feel about that? Will they be OK here?–and on and on.
You let the other person go first, give when it’s hard, act patiently with demanding people, support others through their hardships, and turn the other cheek. You act as a good person should. You appear loving, generous, altruistic, kind, and good to others. But what happens inside?
Resentment
Apmaudas pasipiktinimas
Giving + No Choice About the Matter = Resentment If we give too much, and feel like we do not have a choice about the giving, we will feel resentment (which is just another word for anger). The not having a choice part seems to be the key factor in the resentment formula.
The pressures are often internal and based on your own need to please others and be nice. More specifically, the pressure comes from that convincing voice in your held that commands you to carry out your nice-person conditioning.
All of these pressures to be nice and “do the right thing” eliminate a sense of autonomy, freedom, and choice. You’ve given up your sovereignty. You have to do these things. And this is what creates the resentment.
If you own your shadow and speak up for yourself, then you can speak about this challenge directly and work through it quickly in your relationships. If you do not, then it will manifest as passive aggressive behaviors, distancing or withdrawing from the other person, secretly judging them, being internally irritable or blaming them, or annoyed by minor things such as how they breathe through their nose or certain faces they make.
If anger is completely taboo for you, then even these signs of irritation will be blocked out of your awareness by more powerful defenses, such as feeling anxious or depressed, having panic attacks, developing chronic pain conditions such as back or neck pain, repetitive stress injuries, or a “frozen shoulder” (from sitting at a computer too much no doubt. This has nothing to do with my feelings. Nothing I say! It’s all structural, my doctor told me so).
It sucks away your happiness, peace, and joy in life and leaves you feeling angry and burnt-out, or sad, anxious, depleted, and depressed.
You are responsible for meeting your own needs. This means being able to uncover what you want and need in a situation, and then take effective steps to get it. If you want attention, you decide how you can skillfully ask for it and receive it. If you want safety or certainty, you protect yourself or ease your fears. If you want to be touched in a certain way by your partner, you explore what it is you really want and ask them for it.
It’s time to step up and take full responsibility. No one can care as much about your internal, moment-to-moment experience as you can. Because they’re not in it. They’re not in your body, in your mind, and in your heart, experiencing everything you are. They have their own internal experience to feel and navigate. You are responsible for you.
Many times per day, ask yourself the questions you’ve learned so far in this book: What do I want? What do I need? How can I take care of myself? Then, instead of dismissing the answers, pay attention to them. Come up with a plan of how to get what you want and meet your needs. With your newfound powers of bold assertion, you have a direct route to do exactly that in a skillful and effective manner.
You’re not responsible for other people’s feelings, wants, desires, and needs. You do not have to meet everyone’s needs. You don’t have to do everything that someone wants you to do. You don’t have to do anything that someone wants, if it is not right for you. You’re not responsible for meeting their needs–they are. You doing something for them is just one possible way for them to meet their needs. If you say no, then it’s their responsibility to find a different way.
You’re no longer controlled by the invisible forces of obligation and guilt. You reclaim your power and realize you always have choice.
Psychologically, his focal point was his partner, not himself. He was imagining all of his actions as they would be interpreted and felt by her. In short, he was missing from the equation. To bring him back, I re-oriented him to the complete opposite end of the spectrum. “Just as an experiment, let’s say you were going to operate from your own complete self-interest–where every choice was based entirely on what was easiest, most desirable, or best sounding to you, regardless of how she felt–what would you do?
In most cases trying to be nice and pleasing people are just self-focused ways to avoid fear and discomfort. They provide short-term relief for us, but long-term pain in others.
