Standing tall - taking the power back
Just recently, I went through this experience of being told “who I am” I will admit it hurt and I can honestly say I began to believe their “truth”. How many people go through a similar experience? How often do we fall into believing what others say about us? How often do we find ourselves barraged by a judgement or criticism? Our heart hurts and our thoughts race as we rush to defend ourselves against this threat. We all know the feeling when someone insults us, criticises us or ignores us in some way. We feel hurt, angry or even devastated. Unfortunately, most of the time, it’s someone we know—a family member, colleague or friend – and we immediately fall into emotional turmoil and self doubt. Could it be true? we begin to ask ourselves and become defensive.
A friend who calls us selfish, a boss who thinks you are not good enough for the promotion, a parent who does not trust our independent decisions, or a spouse who criticises us. We feel the emotional pain and the physical tremulousness of self doubt or even self hatred.
What if you had another choice— what if you took a pause and dealt with your own emotions and what this situation brings to us as important life lessons to learn?
Why do we lean towards drama? We react emotionally because we believe the other person. “They must know something about me that I do not. They know our truth.” We give them the power to judge us. But, what if we are operating from an irrational idea – a system of thought –that has been fed into us from our childhood. We are told to rely on others (we are not good enough to decide our worth by ourselves), We are told that what matters is what others think of you and how they evaluate you. We are even given a checklist of items that matters to others – our social status, our appearance, where we went to school, our career success and who we marry. This is a natural outgrowth of growing up in a society. At heart we may be social beings and feeling connected to others is crucial to not just our growth but also our survival. If you are in a place where others are hurting you with their behaviour, you are probably reacting from a conditioned idea— practiced at caring what others think of you.
So, when someone hurts us – we either become victims ( by believing them) or we dump back on them or we take it out on some other unsuspecting victim.
What if you could stand in your own heartfelt truth about who you are? And anchor ourselves in our own authority and self -mastery. Allow some space to develop …the proverbial Count to 10. Once we get detached and unemotional about our own reactions, we make wise decisions. Emotional Intelligence is responding with wisdom and not letting our emotions rule our behaviour. I am not saying – be non responsive—this is— don’t do anything. It’s important to refute the other person respectfully and say “ I see you feel this way about me or this situation. I have a different point of view. We do not have to agree but lets at least communicate where we are both coming from.” This allows us to accommodate other’s point of view and respecting our differences. We are able to carve a path of mutual understanding and love .Or part ways.
Then, we are no longer anchored to other’s in an unhealthy way. I remember attending my NLP practitioner course and my trainer pointed out to me that I use the “you” word constantly and to be careful about what message I attach to that. So, these days, in my coaching conversations, I start any direct communication with “I see that…” letting the other person know they can always refute what I say. I do not impose my view on them nor behave like I am an expert on their life. The real truth is- we can never really know another person. And likewise, when I receive feedback from others, I take a moment to decide for myself if there is any validity to their point of view.
In today’s world we live much of our life in the public domain. I remember a friend telling me—whenever she goes out with her friends, they post group photos on Facebook, without even asking her if thats Ok with her. As a result, within minutes, someone halfway across the world has developed an idea of who she is only via her Facebook feed. Over time, she has learnt to shrug off others opinion of her based on a few photographs on her Facebook feed.
So, its even more imperative to let go of this archaic idea that what others think of us matters. We don’t really know where their opinions are coming from —their past, social media, their own reactivity—We can set our own standards and be comfortable in our own judgement and knowledge of ourselves. And this is STANDING TALL in your true personal power