The other day, someone signed up for Summer Camp and said “I can’t wait to work on how to deal with a really nasty person in my life. Every time I’m with this person, she attacks me.”
Perfect.
The festering and the disturbance is present. Maybe it’s been there for years, or maybe you notice it only in that one troubling person in your life, even if you don’t see them much.
Someone is mean, cruel, shouting, a leech, a stalker.
They show up….again. And again.
The new Summer Camper said she had a co-worker who she only saw once a month who seemed to hate her. She always tried to be kind, nice, to diffuse the intensity directed at her. Yet she felt exhausted after their meetings. And anxious, of course, before any meeting ever happened.
It’s a jolting dilemma when you feel dismissed or rejected or blatantly attacked by someone out there, and you’re surprised, sad, shocked, and wounded.
I know exactly what it’s like to feel this, and immediately act really super over-the-top nice, almost as a counter-reaction to the surprise and hurt.
But even if you have a great “spiritual” response to someone who cusses at you….and you’ve learned well to turn the other cheek….
….inside in the privacy of your own mind, you’ve already decided that person is very scary. If only they were different.
Your impulse is to change their incorrect thoughts about you in order to get to safety and have these interactions not repeat themselves.
Make them realize you’re a NICE person, not someone who deserves what they’re dishing out!
Aiy. There’s the rub, as Shakespeare would say.
If you think you need to show them how wonderful, kind, compassionate and loving you are….
….and they aren’t buying it….
….you might want to stop.
Maybe what’s being called for is something entirely different.
Maybe you’re supposed to say “no”.
Maybe the way out of this type of exchange is to look that person in the eye and say “I hear what you’re saying. Now, I need a break. Goodbye.”
If someone hits you, do you think taking the higher road is to stay with them and tell them everything will be OK and you love them anyway, and to stick around until the next blow?
This all may be TRUE (except for the sticking around to the next blow part) but the smart, wise, kind, loving thing to do FOR YOU BOTH is to exit the scene.
I used to have an Angel Complex.
Seriously….I was quiet, non-confronting, hardly said a mean thing to anyone, very polite, very respectful (in my outer actions).
The people really, really close to me knew otherwise. I would tell them about how horrible so-and-so was to me at work, or how rotten that person treated me when I was ten, and I’d list the faults of those rude people.
When someone scared me, like my boss, or teacher, or someone in authority, or a man….
….I’d withdraw as quietly and smartly as possible.
Not a bad strategy.
But then inside my head I’d be furious at someone scaring me so much, being so aggressive and rude, so demanding or critical.
The truth is, I believed this person was dangerous, even if only emotionally, and one of my primary unconscious strategies was to correct their thinking by showing them how awesome, kind and angelic I was.
Naturally they’d realize they were wrong when they saw I have a heart of gold, am generous, willing and good.
That’s what I’m calling the Angel Complex.
Who would you be without the need to soften someone’s impression of you by acting like an Angel?
What if they’re just doing what they’re doing, being themselves, and they’ve somehow bumped into you as they’re living their life….and this is the way of it? What if you don’t have to show them you’re special in any way? What if you only have to act in accordance with what is genuinely true for you?
What if your job is to stay in your own business, not even step for a second into theirs, and say or do what feels right, true, powerful, joyful, passionate, and real?
Who would you be, how would you feel, how would you act, without the need to convince anyone of anything, or correct anyone’s impression of you in any way?
Turning this very stressful strategy for dealing with difficult people around:
I do NOT need to act like an angel or get them to see me correctly. They already see me correctly. I need to see them correctly and notice they might not be acting in accordance with what’s genuinely true for them. I need to correct MY thinking, not theirs. There is no danger, especially if I move away from them, or stop having a “fight” attitude on the inside with them.
I need to not act all nicey-angel with myself, to try to prove to myself I’m good. I need to see myself as I am, fears and warts and humanness and all, and relax with it and not try to always correct it. I need to walk away from people who are triggered by me, if they’re deeply disturbed in my presence. I need to say “no” if this helps stop a violent cycle in the mind, or physically.
One of my favorite stories of learning early on was when Byron Katie said a good friend made a dinner date with her. She arrived at the restaurant. She waited. Then she ordered a meal, and ate it. An hour passed before her friend arrived. She enjoyed staying while he ate his meal, and they talked.
But the next time he asked if she’d meet him for dinner, she said “no, honey, but I’ll talk with you right now on the phone”.
Simple awareness. No bitterness. No resentment. No tolerating. No trying to convince anyone they’re wrong, or they made a mistake the last dinner.
What if the universe was showing you perfectly, in just the right way, the direction to move? Without judgment? Without any “right” or “wrong”?
“We have to be what we are, so we don’t have to present a false image. If you love me the way I am, “Okay, take me.” If you don’t love me the way I am, “Okay, bye-bye. Find someone else.” It may sound harsh, but this kind of communication means the personal agreements we make with others are clear and impeccable.” ~ Don Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements
Sometimes, what I notice happens when doing The Work and questioning my beliefs about someone, especially when they’ve said things or done things that don’t feel so great….
….is I move away from them.
Perhaps I speak up clearly. I’m not compelled to communicate, or not communicate. Instead I do and say what feels free, clear, courageous, and true. Not so someone thinks well of me, but so someone hears me.
Not the false Angel Complex all mired in acting “good”.
Just the facts, ma’am. The truth.
Keeping it simple.
Much love,
Grace