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Protecting Yourself From Other People’s Garbage

Thursday, July 26th, 2007

Last week I was driving in my car and reflecting on how great life is. I have a thing about aiming to stay in the moment, so I was busy paying attention to what a perfect moment it was.

I enjoy driving. It’s one of those times I’m able to stop rushing around trying to do 100 things at once which allows me to be that little bit more present to the experience of living. I suspect you’re wondering what on earth this has to do with you and your relationship! But I managed to come up with a great metaphor that finally clarified for me exactly how your protective boundary should be working. So if you want the ability to be able to deflect other people’s garbage, read on.

Back to me in the car, I’ve got my music on, the windows are down because it’s one of those lovely English summer days and I’m enjoying being out on my own in the world. Then I noticed something interesting. In London lots of our streets are so congested that pulling into a space, in order to let a car on the other side past, is very common. There’s an accepted etiquette to this. In most peoples mind it’s expected that if you’re driving past someone who’s stopped to let you through then you thank them. You’d do this by flashing your lights, waving or throwing money through their open window. (OK the last one only happens in my perfect world).

On this particular day though I appeared to have become invisible. Being in a great mood I was pulling over and giving way more than I generally would rather than just dashing to my destination. For whatever reason though, absolutely no one was waving to thank me or even acknowledging my presence. The first couple of times I just let it go as I was busy feeling great but by car number four I could feel myself getting pi**ed off about how rude people were being.

The great thing about this day though was that I managed to catch myself doing it. I noticed myself getting stressed and a little angry about their behaviour, I noticed myself, talking to my self about how rude, outrageous and dare I say it, disrespectful people were. In a matter of minutes I got myself to the point where I wanted to give people ‘the finger’ before they even passed me on the off chance they were going to be rude too. It occurred to me that this is exactly how I get myself into a bit of a tangle in my intimate relationships.

I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the most important, if not the most important things you need to master in order to have a great relationship is ‘boundaries’. This trip out in the car gave me a lesson I couldn’t ignore. In my car I’m very well protected. The fact that I was getting upset was clearly of my own creation and for the first time I recognised I really had a choice about how other peoples’ behaviour affected me. In fact I’d go as far as to say I had a responsibility to not allow whatever was going on for them to ruin my mood.

So if we come back to the car, they have windscreens for a reason. It’s to stop crap hitting you in the chest as you drive along. So let’s say the car is your little psychological bubble that protects your emotional centre. If you’ve got high self esteem then you’re going to have a strong windscreen that’s more than able to protect you. Negative comments or behaviour thrown by people around you can just get scraped off with the wipers. Unfortunately a considerable percentage of the population are making their way around the world with the emotional equivalent of a windscreen that a fly would come crashing through.

There is one very simple question you need to ask yourself in order to clarify whether you’re going to let something through that windscreen and into your heart or not. The question is ‘Is this true for me or not?’ I know it appears too simple but let me show you how it works.

In the car I’d begun to imagine (which means I was making up the message) that the other drivers didn’t think me worthy of acknowledgement which on some level began to make me doubt my own worth. So I ask myself ‘Is it true for me or not that I’m not worthy of acknowledgement?’ To which the obvious answer is no, that’s not true. So I metaphorically turn on the wipers and turn my attention inward in order to remind myself that I am worthy because my self esteem was clearly not as high as I needed it to be.

So, let’s test your ability to use your psychological windshield. I’m going to ask you to pretend I’m making these statements about you, and your job is to either let them into your heart or not. Remember, your goal is to keep your windshield up and only let it in or have a feeling about it if it’s true.

Now, there are three possible responses to the statements above.

    1. The statement bounced right off and you carry on unaffected.
    2. You realised it was either partly or totally true and you have some work to do.
    3. One of the statements went crashing into a piece of shame you carry about yourself and you now feel terrible. Leading to you either getting angry due to your defensiveness or crying your heart out lost in toxic shame.

The funny thing is that in the case of our more intimate relationships response three happens a lot more than we’d ever want. There’s a whole article about shame that I’d love to write, but you need to know that if you’re having a huge emotional reaction to something, it’s probably triggered shame in you. This is why it’s really important to have a great windshield up to protect yourself, especially in your intimate relationships. Remember I’m talking about a boundary here, not a wall. Take a look at this article for an explanation of the difference.

When you get a really good boundary in place your mood is no longer affected by the mood of those around you. So if people want to be rude or obnoxious as they drive by it’s really no concern of yours. It’s a challenge for some of us to stop taking everything quite so personally, but if you start to understand this point your life and relationships will improve immeasurably.

Good luck.

Michael

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