Why People Don't Like Each Other - Letting Go of Us/Them

It's logical to think that when someone treats us badly, we like them less.

But that's not true. It's actually the other way around.

When we treat others badly, we like them less. 

It can take a long time for someone treating us badly for us to finally get the message that our love and affection is better spent elsewhere. Why would we put up with years of abuse, or let a "friend" bully us, or keep going back to partners who talk down to us if people treating us badly makes us like them less?

Whereas, when we treat others badly, we are less likely to want to be around them, to like them, or to give them future affection or love. When we treat others badly, we significantly increase the chance that we will spend our affection elsewhere.

Why is this? It stems from cognitive dissonance. Deep down, we all want to think of ourselves as good people. We wouldn't hurt anyone, or do anything bad. Well, unless, the other person deserved it. In order to maintain that we are good people, when we hurt someone or treat another person badly, we have to create a story in our mind that the other person deserved it. It was something bad about the other person that makes us treat them badly. It's their fault we behave the way we do, so we like them less.

With this understanding, we can see that treating people well isn't effective at getting them to like us better. Treating people well helps us like others more. Treating other people well cultivates a continuation of being compassionate to others and of continuing to treat them well - no matter how they treat us.

That's the key to this meditation - if we treat other people with respect, integrity, and compassion, we will like other people more, be happier, and even like ourselves more. When we like other people more, and we treat others well, we will feel more loved, and feel like we have more friends in the world. The concrete number of people who we can count as friends makes little difference. Our feeling of support and love comes from the feeling of how often we treat people well (not how often they treat us well). Think about this again. Our feeling of love and support doesn't come from how others treat us, but from how we treat others, and why we treat others that way.

If we understand this, when other people treat us badly, we will see not that this other person is a bad person or anything is wrong with them, but that they are simply treating us badly. It's when we treat others badly that we think they are bad people. If we want to get out of the "us/them" paradigm, the key is simply to treat others well. Treating others well isn't for them, but for us. How much they like us won't stem a whole lot from what we do. They will base their feelings for us much more on how they treat us.

So it's fruitless to treat others well to try and manipulate people into liking us. That not only doesn't work, but it sets up the scene to feel unappreciated and used. Instead, what works better is setting our boundaries and not allowing others to treat us badly. If they continue to treat us badly even after setting our boundaries, then it's not about us. If they treat us better after we set our boundaries, then we've made a potential friend based not on us trying to appease them or do what we think they want to make them happy, but based on two people who are treating each other well because they like themselves.

This teaching made an impact on me, because it allows me to continue to treat people well for my own reasons, rather than trying to be a peace maker or trying to "get" people to like or appreciate me. I treat people well for me, because I like other people, because I like me, because it's who I am, and because it's good for me and then, consequently, others. All of us are are responsible for our own feelings and behaviors. And if someone treats me badly, and they don't like me, I understand now that it's not me they don't like, but their own cognitive dissonance, and stories they create in their head. I do it, too. It's human. It's not personal. And that makes people's difficult behavior a lot easier to deal with emotionally.

Emotional Blackmail - Difficult People

In a previous post, I was struggling with dealing with passive aggressive people. I've since learned a lot about this, through websites, books, and talking with friends.

Passive aggressive people usually use other tools, too, which are just as hurtful and difficult to navigate: blaming, accusations, martyrdom, labeling, enemy/good guy storytelling (and usually it's them or someone who they are currently putting on a pedestal who is the "good guy"), threats, bringing in other people to gang up on the target, discounting people's value, punishing, expecting mind reading, and many other behaviors that are anything than healthy.

It's no wonder that P/A's are so hard to deal with. They aren't fighting fair.

They also pick their targets carefully. They may not realize they do this, but they manipulate situations and people so that they can craft a reality that does not involve them having to look at themselves, take responsibility, or change. To do this, there are targets who they can make the "other" and there are "friends" who agree with them.

If any of this sounds familiar to you, and if you've been the target of these kinds of bully behaviors, I recommend a book called Emotional Blackmail by Susan Forward. She goes one by one through the different kinds of emotional blackmail, why people use these tactics, what it looks like when they do, how we let them do it to us, and how it gets to the point of making us crazy. Then, she gives us concrete tools on how to deal with people who try to use emotional blackmail on us.

We cannot change people. But we teach them how to treat us by allowing behavior. Emotional blackmail is not fair, and it's not right. We know it, but few of us understand how to recognize it and then how to stand up to it. Most of us use tools that only make it worse - begging, arguing, explaining, staying silent, waiting for things to cool off, trying to give them what they want, or pretending like everything is OK. None of these things work.

Many of us will use emotional blackmail ourselves. Not because we're bad people, but because we are backed in a corner, and what they are doing to us works, so why wouldn't it work back at them? Fight fire with fire. There are no alternatives left.

But when we do use emotional blackmail ourselves, we know it is not who we are, and it goes against our own integrity. There's got to be a better way, but without having seen it in action, having experienced it, or having any clue what other ways there are, how can we do anything different?

I am seeing there are other ways, but it takes being brave, changing my own internal habits and thoughts, and instead of trying to fix the other person, to hold on to who I am, my own integrity, create and defend boundaries, and not be dependent on the other person's approval and love to define my success and self-worth. It's a tough road to take, but it's the only way to stop spinning when dealing with people who do everything they can to keep the spinning going.

Excitement Vs. Happiness

Speaking of Zen Buddhism... I'm reading a book called The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. In it, Yongey Mingyur describes the basic tenet of Zen Buddhism through the parallels it has to quantum physics.

I love this approach. It's part of what I love about Zen. I've made the connection between science (in particular quantum science) and Zen before in my own mind. But thought that my inexperience in both realms didn't give me any credibility to talk about it.

It was a joy to see someone "official" talk about many things that I'd been thinking. It kind of reminds me of some of Deepak Chopra's writing.

Anyway, on a completely different tangent, Mingyur takes some time to talk about happiness and Western culture. This ties into a post I wrote a while ago about excitement. Here's a snippet of what he said:

The more widely I traveled, the clearer it became to me that people living in societies characterized by technological and material achievements were just as likely to feel pain, anxiety, loneliness, isolation, and despair as people who lived in comparatively less-developed areas. ...I began to see that when the pace of external of material progress exceeded the development of inner knowledge, people seemed to suffer deep emotional conflicts without any internal method of dealing with them. An abundance of material items provides such a variety of external distractions that peolpe lose the connection ito their inner lives.

Just think, for example, about the number of people who desperately look for a sense of excitement by going to a new restaurant, starting a new relationship, or moving to a different job. For a while the newness does seem to provide some sense of stimulation. But eventually th excitement dies down; the new sensations, new friends, or new responsibilities become commonplace. whatever happiness they originally felt dissolves.

... The trouble with all these solutions is that they are, by nature, temporary. All phenomena are the results of the coming together of causes and conditions, and therefore inevitably undergo some type of change. When the underlying causes that produced and perpetuated an experience of happiness change, most people end up blaming either external conditions (other people, a place, the weather, etc.) or themselves ("I should have said something nicer or smarter," "I should have gone somewhere else"). However, because it reflects a loss of confidence in oneself, or in the things we're taught to believe should bring us happiness, blame only makes the search of happiness more difficult."

The more problematic is that most people don't have a very clear idea of what happiness is, and consequently find themselves creating conditions that lead them back to the dissatisfaction they so desperately seek to eliminate.

Alone and Together

My husband and I have an integrated relationship. We influence each other heavily when we are together a lot. When we are apart, we revert back to another state of who we are without each other.

I suppose that I'm a different person with everyone. Every individual I mean brings out a different part of me. The people who bring out the parts of me I like, I tend to hang around with more. The people who push my buttons or bring out a side of me that I don't like, I tend to avoid.

I probably shouldn't avoid them, since the fact that some people bring out an angry, or frustrated or insincere side of me is a sign that I need to work on something. Or perhaps, it's a sign of my deep judgements and expectations. Instead, I take the easy way out and shy away from those people.

My husband brings out parts of me that rarely get to see the light of day. Parts of me that I would love to show, but can't without putting too much of myself out there for criticism. My hubby gives me a safe place to be me in a way that I can't be me anywhere else.

Generally, I don't believe that other people make us happy. We make ourselves happy. So I like to think that I make myself happy by making the choice of being with my hubby and keeping our relationship strong. I haven't met anyone like him. I'm very glad that ended up with each other 15 years ago.

I miss him. It will be two weeks before I see him again. Until then, I'm on my own. Focusing on my relationship with myself and with my kids. It sure will be nice to have him around again though.

Seeking Excitement Does Not Create Happiness

This article about excitement made something go "click" in my brain.

Laughing From the Belly

When was the last time you belly laughed? I mean fully free, unrestrained laughter? The kind of laughter that makes other people laugh even when they have no idea what you're laughing about?

This kind of laughter is the soul smiling. I am lucky to be "a laugher". Sometimes, it makes people uncomfortable. Especially when I'm in a group of women. I love being around my girlfriends, but women can be very judgemental. Especially in groups. Especially if someone seems to be truly happy.

I laugh from my belly. It feels good. It may be in appropriate or loud or even obnoxious. I can't care. I can't restrain it. Restraining the laugh of my soul is like keeping myself down, hidden.

I love to laugh. I invite you to laugh with me. And to hell with people who want us to keep it down and be a little more socialized.

To Be Happy

Are you happy?

If not, why not?

I used to be "faux" happy. Pretending that everything was just dandy and that part of what made me happy was being miserable.

But, I was wrong. I was miserable being miserable. I made myself unhappy by the choices that I made, my expectations of the world around me and with my inner dialog. But mostly, I made myself unhappy because I thought that in order to be happy, someone or something else had to give it to me.

I figured out that only I can give myself the gift of happiness. Even after I figured it out, it took me years to actually live my life that way.

Now, I'm happy. That's not to say that my life is without drama, or pain, or unhappy moments. But overall, I like my life, because I've made choices to create the life I want. And I have decided to look at the world in a way that jives with who I am, while giving the world permission to be the way it wants to be.

Tobeme at the Naked Soul talks about happiness. In fact, this blog talks about a lot of interesting "quality of life" topics. I added it to my blog roll. Take a gander.

Missing the Religious Point

What's more important, being happy or doing "well" in life?

As if it's a choice between the two!

But Gina Gorlin seems to thinks so. Her perspective - if you choose to be happy, your life will fall apart and you'll end up on the street with a glass of sour lemonade and no life.

Imagine that a Harvard freshman, inspired by Ben-Shahar’s course, accepts the Buddhist doctrine in practice. Instead of cramming all night to pass the upcoming biology exam, he will close his textbook once the stress ensues and instead take a meditative stroll around campus. When he fails his exam, he will tell himself it doesn’t really matter; external factors cannot interfere with his sense of inner worth. After he fails the semester, and his parents refuse to fund his education further unless he improves his grades, he lets himself express his anger—giving himself “permission to be human,” as Shahar puts it. So he sleeps in the next morning to give himself time to “cool off”—perhaps missing his interview for a summer internship that would bolster his career prospects (and pay for rent). When he is out of money and his academic merits are shot, and his job at Wal-Mart starts to bore him silly, he will try to “cope” with his feeling of ineptness and his waning eagerness to act; but alas, such “negative feelings” will only mount. Life will not squeeze itself into his lemonade glass, no matter how “positive” his mindset. Faced with the painful consequences of his actions on his life and goals, his mindset, too, will deteriorate.

Practiced consistently, this “mind-over-matter” philosophy derived from Eastern mysticism cannot serve as a guide to happiness, but only as an excuse for inaction. Reality is not “in the mind of the perceiver”: no matter how hard one focuses inward, one cannot cure a toothache or build an airplane by meditation. To change the external circumstances of your life, you must take external actions.

Uhm. No. First of all, which parts of this is Shahar's actual words, and what is the author's fantasy of what happens when you respect yourself and make choices for happiness?

Secondly, she totally doesn't get the "mind-over-matter" thing. It doesn't take the pain away. Meditation doesn't make things happen.

There was a great article in Spirituality and Health magazine this month about hope. People who are happy, have hope. Hope and happiness give people permission to try difficult tasks, because they aren't afraid. The perspective of happiness gives us MORE reason to go out and live and do things, not less. Happiness means we DON'T just sit on the couch and do nothing. When people are happy, they are out in the world, doing things. Engaging. Doing what they love. And being fully alive.

Perhaps it's all psychobabble. But certainly, if meditation and respecting one's own's needs makes us happy, and makes us feel good about who we are, won't it allow us to make better choices about what we do in life? And make us WANT to do well in school, in relationships, at our jobs, in our life? Why would anyone who is happy shirk their responsibilities? Why would anyone who is truly happy not study? Why would anyone who likes who they are and have lots of hope allow themselves to fail out of inaction?

It doesn't make sense.

I think that "happiness" gets confused with "brainless moving forth doing things that feel good." That's not happiness. That's hedonism. Happiness is a state of being, and it's involves a lot of pain and suffering - but because we're happy and we're hopeful, the pain and suffering isn't the end of the world. And if it is the end of the world, why make it worse by being unhappy and spiteful?