Clearing Relationship Gunk — we aren’t taught how to let go. To observe. We’re taught to blame.

---

Somehow, people who are beginning to ‘get’ what I’ve been writing about (and by ‘get’ I mean understand, and want to put it in place) still have trouble enacting these ideas in their relationships.

There’s noth­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly com­pli­cat­ed about my “Zen-ish” approach—other than in the appli­ca­tion.

Three Choices

I was just tex­ting with a friend, and we were dis­cussing this very issue. I wrote:

Let’s see how this fits in.

Flaws in Self-Examination

Many peo­ple use self-exam­i­na­tion as a tool for judg­ing oth­ers. This hap­pened all the time in rela­tion­ship coun­selling, but it also shows up in work or friend­ship situations. 

Let me first describe the ‘gotchas,’
and then the ideal. 

Let’s cre­ate a work sce­nario. Upset boss, mak­ing demands; in each exam­ple below, a dif­fer­ent approach

Notice that the common ideas are:

Other Loathing Behaviour (# 1, above)

“My boss came in, and she was upset and angry over a project.
I imme­di­ate­ly got defen­sive, told her that her behav­iour was unac­cept­able, that she was mak­ing me uncom­fort­able, and that I could­n’t work under these con­di­tions.
I then remind­ed her of how she ought to be behav­ing, which seemed to upset her more, but I don’t care, because she’s just so inap­pro­pri­ate, and keeps me from being ‘me.’ 
I then asked my boss specif­i­cal­ly what she need­ed, and then I got it for her.
I went back to what I was doing, but all the peo­ple at work make me was mis­er­able by hold­ing me back from being me.”

The speak­er still end­ed up doing her work (she could have quit over this, but did­n’t, because… blam­ing is her thing) but wast­ed time and ener­gy demo­niz­ing ‘the boss.’

Self-Loathing Behaviour (# 2, above)

If the per­son was into self-loathing:

“My boss came in, and she was upset and angry over a project.
This always hap­pens to me. No one loves, me, no one ever treats me right. I must be a ter­ri­ble per­son.
I got sad and depressed, and wept and sulked and blamed my upbring­ing.
Then, I asked my boss specif­i­cal­ly what she need­ed, and I got it for her.
I went back to what I was doing, gave myself a headache, and went home to my emp­ty house and mean­ing­less life.”

Again, the work got done (it always gets done…) but the dra­ma of self-loathing is added to the pile of stuff this per­son carts around.

The rest of it is non-present, unnec­es­sary, self-cre­at­ed drama.

---

Self-Responsible Behaviour (# 3, above)

Here is a self-respon­si­ble comment.

“My boss came in, and she appeared to be upset­ting and anger­ing her­self over a project.
She demand­ed that I fix things.
I was not clear on what was hap­pen­ing, so I asked my boss specif­i­cal­ly what she need­ed, and then I got it for her.
I then went back to what I was doing.”

The self-respon­si­ble per­son did what she was paid to do. Noth­ing more, noth­ing less. Her boss’ dra­ma is irrel­e­vant to the sought out­come, and the sought out­come is, “get­ting the work done.”

---

The Intimate Relationship Two-Step

In inti­mate rela­tion­ships, the same three pos­si­bil­i­ties apply.

Other-Loathing

Most peo­ple who are in rela­tion­ship trou­ble, say 85%, use the ‘oth­er-loathing’ side of things. 

I am end­less­ly impressed with how good they are at mak­ing the oth­er the guilty par­ty, while they remain the ‘injured party.’ 

This fits with our con­di­tion­ing, which caus­es us, first and fore­most, to look out­side our­selves for who we are, what we should do, and also to locate the ‘ene­my at our gate.’ 

This approach, however, can have but one outcome—isolation, guardedness, and misery.

(If you want to get past this, read my book, Liv­ing Life in Grow­ing Orbits.)

Fin­ger point­ing and blam­ing leads to… you guessed it, fin­ger point­ing and blam­ing, as well as defen­sive­ness. Get­ting hooked on one’s part­ner’s provo­ca­tion leads to fights. Pure and simple.

Now, this is where peo­ple say, “But if I don’t stand up for myself, he’ll walk all over me.” 

Stand­ing up for your­self always leads to fights, the silent treat­ment, and a worse relationship.

Solution 1 — Non-Biting

Instead, say, “Wow. That was a good one. Nor­mal­ly, I’d have bit­ten on that, but this time, I’m just watch­ing my reac­tion, let­ting it go, and get­ting back to the top­ic at hand. Nice try, though.”

This is not wimp­ing out. This is stand­ing forth clear­ly and open­ly (by say­ing what went on for me) while at the same time, tak­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for chang­ing my behav­iour to some­thing that might actu­al­ly work, regard­less of what my part­ner is doing.

What I am try­ing to ‘sell’ here is the idea that all you can do is all you can do. It is nev­er your job to point out what your part­ner is doing wrong (who do you think you are, their mom­my or daddy?????) 

Figuring themselves out is your partner’s job. 

If your part­ner has no inter­est in this job, then you have to choose whether to stay. But, before you run away (again!) turn your atten­tion to your own behav­iour, and ask your­self this: “Is my cur­rent behav­iour impeccable—is it designed to deep­en my side of the relationship?”

Peo­ple tell me they want more inti­ma­cy and hon­esty, and then they give me list of rea­sons why their part­ner’s behav­iour pre­cludes their being hon­est and inti­mate. So, it becomes the part­ner’s fault that they can­not be hon­est. This is such crap.

No one stops you from being how you want to be in rela­tion­ship, except you. This is a 100% rule. If what you are doing is not bring­ing you clos­er to your part­ner, do some­thing else.

---

Self-Loathing

Self-loathing is prac­ticed by the oth­er 15% of dys­func­tion­al com­mu­ni­ca­tors. In this one, the per­son end­less­ly blames him/herself for all the prob­lems, with the resul­tant behav­iour of apol­o­giz­ing, sulk­ing… and again, noth­ing changes.

Our approach is sim­ple in con­cept. No mat­ter what sit­u­a­tion I am in, the only part of it I can do any­thing about is my part. 

I have nev­er been able to see how blam­ing one­self accom­plish­es any­thing. Of course, it does­n’t. This con­di­tioned behav­iour worked when the per­son was a child.

A par­ent blamed, and added the twist — “You’re use­less, help­less, and always to blame.” Chil­dren bite on this because par­ents seem to know everything.

I once had a client who was real­ly into self-loathing. Her dad con­tin­ued to put her down. She made a fee­ble attempt to change.

She enrolled in nurs­ing school. Got straight As. Dad kept telling her it was only a mat­ter of time until she screwed up.

One night she was dri­ving home from school and came upon a bad acci­dent. The dri­ver was dead, the per­son in the (crushed) back seat bare­ly alive.

She grabbed her med bag, wedged her­self into the back seat, and kept the guy alive until the ambu­lance arrived.

She called me. I con­grat­u­lat­ed her on her excel­lent per­for­mance. She put me on hold. Dad was calling.

When she came back, she told me that her dad was apoplec­tic. You’ll get sued! You don’t know any­thing! You’re too stupid…!

I con­grat­u­lat­ed her on ignor­ing dad. 

She said, “He’s right. I should nev­er have done that. I’m too stu­pid to be a nurse.” The next day she quit nurs­ing school, and can­celled therapy.

The only “plus” to self-loathing is that some­times peo­ple feel sor­ry for you, and step in t res­cue. Such rela­tion­ships nev­er last.

Solution 2 — Self-ownership

The way out is the way in. You get past this dys­func­tion by own­ing it. In the nurse’s case, that would have sound­ed like

“I almost bit. I’ve let dad and oth­ers treat me as if I’m bro­ken and stu­pid, and I want­ed to go there with dad. But I told him that he was enti­tled to any opin­ion he want­ed. They just don’t mat­ter to me any more.
I’m sad and angry, and I’m going to have to go home and cry and beat a pil­low, but falling for that rou­tine? One step at a time, but nev­er again.”

---

Self-responsible behaviour

Real­ly, every­thing I write is about self-respon­si­bil­i­ty. It’s tak­ing the time to exam­ine the pat­terns you engage in. When some­thing goes “wrong,” do you blame oth­ers? Blame yourself?

Do you lock into old ways of respond­ing — lash­ing out or crum­bling? Do you expect peo­ple to treat you dif­fer­ent­ly, and then get bummed when “mom and dad” treat you exact­ly the way they’ve always treat­ed you?

Hint: That’s their issue — that’s them run­ning on autopi­lot. You can’t change anoth­er. So, notice, breathe, and react differently.

See what hap­pens if you deal with your­self and only yourself—by doing more of what works and less of what doesn’t. 

Remind your­self of what you are doing by nam­ing your game: “Blam­ing, blam­ing,” or “Beat­ing up on myself…” Then, let go of the judge­ment, have a breath, and choose differently.

Actually do it! Be how you choose to be.

Your life is always and only about how you see it, judge it, and enact it. Until you get this, and actu­al­ly live it, you are doomed to repeat yourself.

Get this, and every­thing changes, because you have changed the only thing that matters—your per­cep­tions and behaviours.

---