Be Proactive, Not Reactive

Are you hurt by what others say? 

Do you have relationship issues at work or at home?

Do you take offence to what another person says or does? Maybe they have been defensive with you, and you respond back defensively. This is guaranteed to result in conflict and the situation getting worse. An example of this may be my announcing to family “I got a great new job!” If the response coming back is “You are moving again! You never stick at anything!” I may feel under attack, the standard reaction is to defend oneself and reply “You are never happy with anything I do!”

Listen but do not personalise

If I hear what the other person says as being about me, I respond defensively (“You are never happy with anything I do!”) and the situation deteriorates. If instead, I hear what the other says as being about them, I stay separate to their response and I hear it as being about them and not about me. Maybe I can speak inwardly to myself saying ‘This is about them, not about me’. What I am looking to them for – Approval? Is what I need to offer more of to myself?

Take Action for Self – not against the other

In that moment, when I hear the criticism, I may be inclined to take an action against them with a defensive response. Instead, Take an Action for Yourself – ‘I need to go now, there are some things I need to do’, and depart taking some deep abdominal breaths to self-calm and sit in stillness for a moment or two in the car to ground yourself.

Strengthen your boundaries around yourself

Working with clients, I use the example of a hula hoop as the boundary we need around you. Within this boundary, we need to treat ourselves well and take care of ourselves. The boundary (hula hoop) is the line that you draw around yourself and your worth and your dignity.

“No one disrespects me, unless I allow them to”

The importance of Boundaries

From outside our personal boundary, we need to decide what to let in or what to keep out.

Therefore, if someone at work is treating us disrespectfully; our response needs to be
“If you have something to say; please do so in private”.
If I value myself, I value my time
Perhaps we meet someone who is late on a regular basis. We feel annoyed hanging around fifteen or twenty minutes and know we are not holding our boundary with this person. What do we do?

“I’d love to have had the time with you; but I had to go ahead” shows we respect ourselves and do not allow others to treat us in a way that is disrespectful. When we say this we feel empowered. How the other person responds is about them, however you may find the subsequent time if they are running late that you receive a text ‘running 15 minutes late – is that okay?’

If you value yourself, you value your time. This means you will not allow others to sabotage your time. Leaving work is another example. If work finishes at 4pm, but I do not leave on time, you will find as you disrespect yourself (by staying late) they disrespect you leaving work on your desk at the last minute. If you leave on time, you will find they respect you more and may say ‘Mary leaves at 4pm sharp, I need to get thisto her before lunch’.

The more you respect yourself, the more others treat you with respect!