When you consider the amount of time that some of us have spent judging and punishing ourselves for a mistake or ‘wrongdoing’ on our part or even that of others, it’s safe to say that we can end up serving prison sentences that are far longer than what some people serve for serious crimes. Think about it: if you’ve been giving you a hard time since you were a child and are still informing your opinion of you with judgments based on a perspective gained during childhood and let’s say you’re in your thirties, forties, fifties or beyond, you’ve possibly served a longer and very painful unnecessary sentence than say someone who was given a life sentence and got out on parole.
If you’re still judging you as inadequate due to the inadequacies of your parents/caregivers and/or the mistreatment of bullies or mistakes that you’ve made, it’s not your criticism you need – it’s the extending of some self-compassion.
Why be so hard on you? If others have deserved your forgiveness, why don’t you? Do you really think that you deserve what you’re thinking and doing? When does the longstanding punishment end? Until it does, you’re effectively frozen in time while life continues on around you and you’re prevented from growing.
I’m all too familiar with the ‘beating’ that seems to go on and on because it’s what I used to do to me. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to just keep holding onto stuff and rubbing my face in mine and everyone else’s screw ups.
Until you’re truly empathetic and compassionate with you, you’re not being anywhere near as empathetic and compassionate with others as you think and are instead engaging in over-empathy while marginalising your own needs, expectations and wishes.
Empathising with the ‘me’ that I’ve been at different stages of my life and in specific situations where I’d been incredibly judgmental towards me has been pivotal in changing what has previously been a super-critical relationship with me. I dragged my experiences wherever I went and used them to inform my opinion of me and my options – I basically considered me to be a numpty and a failure who invited harassment and abuse. I was not allowed to move on from my past, any mistakes and Other People’s Shady Behaviour.
Let me tell you now – I haven’t and would never speak about or regard another person in the inhumane manner in which I have done to myself.
When my body literally broke down and I was faced with making major changes in my life, finally having some compassion and empathy for me helped me see why I was doing what I was. It was like using the head I used for others on myself.
Having some self-compassion and empathy is recognising that you’ve erred, what contributed to that position and loving you through it anyway.
Unpicking my past and my pain and seeing these experiences from a different perspective, helped me to understand who I was at that time and to gradually learn to like the very person who I used to hate. I saw a little girl masquerading as a woman that needed some help growing up. Having my daughters has been a constant reminder that I can’t just decide to turf me out every time I so much as put a foot wrong.
Withdrawing basic love, care, trust and respect is not empathy or self-compassion and is more akin to torture. It’s a stripping of dignity.
When you consider what you may have been punished for as a child, sure it deserved natural consequences such as being grounded, no pocket money, more chores, a telling off, withdrawal of privileges and of course emphasising what has happened and why the punishment was happening but withdrawal of love, care, trust and respect? No bloody way!
Each time you choose to continue holding on instead of working on letting go you’re saying, “I don’t deserve my compassion or empathy. I don’t deserve to move on from this. Until such time as I feel that I have learned my lesson, I want me to get out of my sight and I’m going to withhold love, care, trust and respect.” You may follow it up with name calling, berating and even physical harming of the self. You do not deserve this.
Often the reason why self-forgiveness via compassion and empathy is so hard is because it’s perceived as ‘letting you off the hook’. It’s this sense that you don’t think you’ve spent enough time in purgatory to justify getting the keys back to your life.
It’s putting you in a prison of your own thoughts which is no doubt compounded if you’re also inadvertently agreeing with the mistreatment you’ve experienced from others.
Practicing self-compassion isn’t about engaging in copious amounts of pity and finding quick-fix justifications for why you may have done something to somebody – “I was having a bad day” – because it’s of no benefit to you or anyone else if every time you cross boundaries, you put it down to a “day day” because actually, it’s not a “bad day”; it’s a bad habit of you experiencing X and reacting with Y where you do a series of things that affect others that brings about Z where you and those affected experience consequences as a result of that.
Compassion takes empathy and you can only empathise with a position that you’re willing to do the work to recognise what that position was in the first place.
Similarly, if the first and only real overriding conclusion that you can draw from your various experiences is “I’m not good enough”, “I’m a failure” and other such self-esteem depleting beliefs, you haven’t truly empathised with who you were at that time and before and understood how you came to be in that position.
In fact, when you blame you for what others do, not only do you strip them of their responsibility and accountability, but you’re effectively over-empathising with these people and saying, “Yeah, I can see why you do what you do. I’m not good enough and that’s why you __________.” This is bullshit of the highest order that will seriously derail your sense of self and quality of life.
I knew that what a harasser did was wrong but I ignored this because I decided that he felt safe to do it because I ‘provoked’ it with my worth. Of course this logic came crumbling down when he was sacked for sexually harassing other staff after I’d left… I had personalised what he did as if I got a ‘custom-made’ version of him just for me. When it happened again in another job, I handled the situation better but I still gave me a hard time over it because in there lurked this fundamental belief that if I were a “better” more “loveable” person, nothing bad would ever happen to me. Again this logic was flawed because I didn’t believe that bad things happened to unworthy people but unhealthy beliefs work so well because they’re often irrational and unchallenged so just automatically treated as truth.
Empathising with my younger self has helped me to forgive me and these experiences no longer have any power over me.
Moving on is not about doing something to somebody or making a mistake and being over it in a hot minute but it’s safe to say that you don’t need to run into years and decades and you could actually live out the consequences of the mistake, learn from it and empathise at the same time – writing Baggage Reclaim for the best part of eight years is part of my journey of self-compassion and empathy. Sure I chose to move on and let things go, but I’ve had to support that choice and still be open to learning more about me as I’ve gone on. Some days, some months even (like last year with the ‘breakup’ with my father) have been harder than others but the net result is I have my own back, I’m never down for too long and I’m learning and living. You can too – they’re not mutually exclusive.
Forgiveness is a decision. Make the decision to forgive you and see the commitment through.
Your thoughts?
It’s painful when the realisation hits you, that when it comes to a certain someone or even certain people in your life, nothing, and I do literally mean nothing is ever enough. You could literally walk over hot coals, limbo under a bar held 5cm off the ground with spikes on it, have fireworks shooting out of your bum, agree with everything that they say and do everything they’ve requested to the letter of their criteria, and they’ll do the equivalent of, “You missed a spot…”
Nothing is ever enough with The Unpleasables and if you try to do ‘everything’ you will only bust the hell out of your boundaries – they’re just not that special!
The first Unpleasable in your life tends to be that exacting and critical parent or caregiver and if your perspective on their behaviour and how you respond to it hasn’t changed in adulthood, you’re likely to have felt tormented by a similar boss, ‘friend’ or romantic partner.
It will feel like the most natural thing in the world to be a people pleaser because it’s all you know and you equate happiness and worthiness with pleasing somebody all of the time and associate other people’s displeasure with this sense of you being inadequate and ‘provoking’ their behaviour with it. It’s easy to put what happened in childhood together with what is happening now and form the conclusion that it ‘must’ be you.
You can’t please everyone all of the time but also these shenanigans aren’t about you, your worth and your ‘inadequacies’.
It’s also easy to trick yourself into believing that ‘other people’ are able to satisfy an Unpleasable but not only is this bullshit used to personalise their behaviour to you but you’re actually signing on to their sense of entitlement that you and these people are just here to serve their ego.
I’ve been on a few trips with people where one or both of us have suggested that we ‘go with the flow’ instead of making firm plans. I found that we were either on the same page and had a great time or… it turned out to be a clash of ideals because one of us had firm ideas about what they did or didn’t want to do which reared their ugly head while ‘flowing’. Since then, I know not to take the easy route of suggesting ‘the flow’ if it’s not my true want, especially because it paves the way for an honest conversation about what we both want to get out of the trip.
Similarly in relationships, if you’re both travelling in the same direction (similar outlook, needs, wants, expectations etc), it’s easy to ‘go with the flow’ organically, especially when you’re both willing to have an open dialogue in the interests of going with that flow. Where it becomes problematic is when one of you is doing your best to stall the flow or to steer down a different path, possibly while still claiming that you’re ‘going with the flow’.
In dating and relationships, the suggestion of ‘going with the flow’ can create unease if it crops up in a conversation where you are essentially seeking clarification about the other person’s position and/or the status of your relationship.
Time and again I’ve heard people express how the moment they heard this, it was the start of a slide down a slippery slope of self-doubt (Am I being needy/uptight?) and not listening to their own needs, expectations and wishes to ensure that they tallied up with the ‘flow’ that was being suggested.
Over the years of writing BR, I’ve covered the issue of what to consider when someone is saying that they’ve changed and like all subjects I cover, I’m always looking for new ways to bring clarity to the situations and decisions that perplex us. Deciding to re-engage requires us to ‘take a punt’ because regardless of what is said right now, the truth of change is really only going to show up in the future where you get to see whether what is said and done now continues to consistently show up moving forward.
It’s not about expecting a person to never put a foot wrong ever again – they can’t promise to never hurt or disappoint you and you can’t expect that – but it is about growth.
How do you know if someone has changed? It’s really simple – you get a true sense of whether someone has changed when they’re faced with the typical situations and issues that have created the friction in the areas where the growth needs to come from.
For example, if the primary issue was how conflict situations were handled, you will see whether they’ve really changed when faced with the next and subsequent conflicts. If it was about being unable to commit, you’ll see whether commitment shows up in them following through and being able to deal with small, medium and large decisions. You’ll see if they’ve changed the next time things don’t go their way.
It’s very easy to claim change on day 0 but people who haven’t changed but claimed that they have or would, tend to either conveniently forget to talk about it and follow up with the actions (and you feel uncomfortable bringing it up for fear of looking like you’re on their case) or… they just talk about it and think that words are enough.
If someone has changed, their habits have changed which means that if they really have changed, they will not respond to previous cues (a signal that’s responded to in a particular way) and triggers (an event or thing that causes something to happen while also prompting a response) in the same way.
This is why it’s pivotal to be aware of what the issues were so that you are cognizant of what the typical cues and triggers are that prompt the responses which they’re now saying have changed.
I’ve very recently had the highly disconcerting experience of someone pulling a ‘switcheroo’ in a situation where they were in the wrong, but by the time they were finished with their crazy-making attempts, they had positioned themselves as the victim. I know that I’m not alone in this experience because I’ve heard from so many people who have been left wondering:
- Am I going crazy?
- Did I say/do/mean what I’ve been accused of?
- Was I being ‘oversensitive’?
- Did I imagine that they were the one to cross my boundaries?
I’ve said many times that life is a journey and it’s not a case of building up your self-esteem and then case closed. Life will throw things your way that put what you’ve been learning to the test and that ultimately remind you of who you are and valuable lessons that you’ve previously learned. Because I hear from so many of you who are still disorientated after having someone effectively pull a switcheroo and project their shadiness onto you, I wanted to share what I’ve learned…
You see, when a person shows up already positioned as a victim or ready to become the victim, it means that you (or whoever they’re engaging with) are already positioned as the assailant or that you will become one in the blink of an eye if you trigger their victim role reflexes.
Regardless of whether you want to be the victim or not, in their mind, there is only one victim and one ego. When you express feelings, thoughts, and opinions that don’t chime with their agenda or you don’t do things ‘their way’, they feel under threat and will cut you down and do whatever they need to in order to reestablish their status quo.
Get Notified When There’s A New Post
Natalie’s Books
I'm also on Google+.
