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By Dr. Margaret Paul October 26, 2020 Discover what healing needs to occur within you before you can stop being reactive to others’ unloving behavior. One of our greatest challenges in relationships is to not get triggered into self-abandonment when others are unloving – to stay connected with ourselves rather than getting . . . → Read More: Staying Loving In The Face Of Others’ Unloving Behavior When someone’s behavior is affecting you, what can you do, other than blame them? We Are Not Separate Some authors suggest that, when we are healthy enough, we will not be affected by others‘ unloving verbal behavior. We will rise above it and not take their words personally – that “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me.” I strongly disagree. Of course we are affected by others. Even a mean look can shoot through you like a poison dart. This is because on the soul level, we are not separate. On the soul level, we are One. Continue reading “When Someone’s Behavior Affects Me, What Can I Do?”       Discover when compromise is healthy and when it’s self-abandoning. Compromise! What does this word conjure up for you? Is it is a positive or negative word for you? Does it bring up a sense of loving resolution, or a sense of losing yourself and losing your integrity? When you think about compromising, what are . . . → Read More: When To Compromise…And When Not To Compromise What’s really happening when someone blames and shames you? If you stopped taking it personally, what would you be feeling?
What do you generally do when someone blames you for his or her feelings? Do you find yourself taking it personally and blaming yourself? This is what Melinda struggles with:
“How do I take loving care of myself when my partner is acting out with jealousy that he is not acknowledging? I feel blamed and shamed. It somehow feels like there’s something wrong with me, or something I’m doing even though there isn’t. What do I do with the shame? How do I love myself through it? His reaction can last a few hours or even a few days.” Melinda, your partner’s blaming and shaming of you are his ways of avoiding responsibility for his own feelings. But the real question is, why are you taking on the blame and shame? Why are you taking his behavior personally? Continue reading “Why Do I Feel Shame When I’m Being Blamed?” Discover what a boundary is and what it isn’t. Merilee wrote the following question to me in one of my relationship webinars:
“Hi Dr. Paul — One of my biggest struggles is being open to giving and receiving love, but also setting boundaries. I want to be loving, not controlling, but I don’t want people to say or treat me in ways that I don’t like. How to reconcile?” Merilee, of course you don’t want people to treat you in ways that you don’t like. Who would want that? It’s painful when people treat us in unloving ways. However, the real issue is to come to terms with what you can and can’t control. I get the feeling from your question that, while you don’t want to be controlling, you believe that setting boundaries gives you control over whether or not others treat you in ways you don’t like. Continue reading The Art of Setting Boundaries I grew up with a very angry mother who would attack me out of the blue. As a highly sensitive only child, the fear and heartbreak of being treated so unlovingly was unbearable. So rather than feel the hurt, I numbed it out by learning to stay in my head rather than being present in my body, and by focusing on caretaking others’ feelings. The only way I could survive was to not know that I was being so hurt. I had so deeply shut out knowing about my own pain that when I had children, I thought nothing about yelling at them. One day, as I was yelling at my son Josh, who was about 2 ½, he looked up at me with tears running down his cheeks and said, “Mommy, when you yell at me, I feel like I’m gonna die.” Continue reading When You Feel Hurt By Your Partner |
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