When you get angry at someone who you used to like or even love, suspect that you have an integrity issue…
It seems, to you, that they did something wrong… took advantage of you, mistreated you, but the truth underneath it, more often than not, is that you did something to them…
It is often hard to find the thing you did, especially if you are an unconscious person… or if you are still more interested in justifying your anger than being happy, and loving. Especially because most of the things that you do live in thoughts or words… that change your attitude… and you never think of your words… as something you could be responsible for…
It happens to everyone, but it especially often happens to nice people. Because being nice is not natural. Being normal, being appropriate is natural, but being nice, you know that Southern nice… it is fake, it is a pretense, it is a style, and you will pay for it through your nose… with illness, anger, bad relationships, maybe even poverty.
Dumping
Being normal doesn’t mean dumping on people… dumping is being totally inconsiderate of the other person’s sensitivity. You pretend to give it to them the way it is, but you are lying. You are giving them a piece of your mind, meaning you are nasty with them.
Now, being normal means taking full responsibility for your point of view, AS a point of view, not as the truth.
Saying to someone that they are nasty, berating or insulting is a direct expression of NO responsibility.
Is it possible that they are nasty, berating and insulting? No. There is no nasty, berating, or insulting in reality. All those are your interpretations, and it doesn’t matter who agrees with you: there is no such thing in reality, so at best you are part of a planet-wide conspiracy to interact with unreality… and the longer you do that the longer you are going to be miserable.
How to take responsibility for your personal reality?
So how does someone express what is so, in the person’s case… It’s easy, you just need to go back and read it again: expressing your point of view AS a point of view.
Say: “I have a point of view, an opinion, an interpretation of what you are doing, and that opinion is that you are nasty, berating and insulting…” The moment you say that, you can HEAR that the source of your displeasure lies with you, not the other person. That there is nothing to justify… you feel the way you feel because you feel that way. When you are good and ready you’ll change your mind, or not.
The Number One out of integrity
This is the number one out of integrity that people deal with.
When you are unwilling to take responsibility for your opinion as your opinion, and NOT the truth, you are violating your own integrity, and YOU are eating the poison you prepared for the other.
I challenge you to find one person on the planet who has never fallen into this trap before: I have never met one.
The secret of peace of mind
But people who seem to be even keeled, happy, content, are masterful at taking responsibility: they consider it their job, just like you consider brushing your teeth… instead of blaming me that your mouth stinks… if and when it does.
The other thing one must be responsible is the effect their dumping has on another person. It is part of integrity. It may cause damage that cannot be repaired.
Just apologize…. NOT! It doesn’t come out in the wash!
People habitually apologize, but that is just buying a license to do it again.
It is an art to live in a way that you never have to apologize to another person. That is the way to be 100% responsible, and happy.
My goal is to always come from the best in me. Do I succeed? Mostly… did I always succeed? No. I used the be the biggest dumper of all… it’s taken all I got to change my habits.
Do I have the reaction in my head? Yes. Does it come out of my mouth? Rarely… if ever.
Before I open my mouth I take responsibility for my reaction AS a reaction.
Without taking my remedy, I would probably go nasty…
