Unfortunately, we do it to each other all the time
and we treat each other very badly. How do you recover though when someone
that you really love treats you badly? We'll go over a few steps.
I think we have to start with the reality of the situation.
It hurts. -Right. -We're not going to deny that at all. When someone treats you
badly, it's supposed to hurt. -Yeah. -Especially if
it's somebody that you love. -Yeah. -Right? So, step one is to
probably just acknowledge that. That, "Yes, I'm supposed to feel badly when when i
get hurt." But then, you take some steps to start
calming your own body's fight-or-flight response.
-Yeah. A lot of the times you can't really process what happened while your body is
in that fight or flight. Because we've talked on other
shows about what happens physiologically. And your blood supply is not in the
place it needs to be to really really process
or think things through. So, you can get calmed down then you have a
better chance of being able to process and handle in a more
choice and kind of from an empowered position. -Right, exactly. So, the quickest
way I know to do this is breathing. Slow, deliberate,
focused breathing. Acknowledgement, breathing doesn't solve anything. -No. -Okay?
-But it calms. -Well, yeah. Like you were saying, Vicki. It
changes the blood flow. -Right. -We have brain scan studies that prove
this. When the fighter fight part of your brain is active, there's a
decrease in blood flow to the prefrontal part of
your brain. That's the part we need for the other steps. -Right, right.
-So, even though breathing is not going to solve it,
it puts you in position. -So you can now do something about it.
-Exactly. So, breathe. -Now that you've calmed
down just a little bit and got your brain ready to process,
be willing to take the step to look at what happened
and to refrain the experience a little bit. A lot of the times whatever
happened it's just the situation, right? You got to be able to look at what was
the situation. What did somebody say? What did somebody
do? And kind of pull that separate from the
thoughts that you had, "Oh, he did x, y ,z. That must mean he hates me.
He's rude to me. He doesn't value me." And all of a sudden those are your
thoughts. And so, I think you've got to take time to
just look at, "Okay, what happened? What was the circumstance? What was the
event?" -And it's neutral. -Right. It's just a neutral event and you've got to
be able to kind of see what it is. -Now, that's easy for us to say
sitting here at Live On Purpose central and talking to you on YouTube.
-Yeah. When you're at home and somebody
has looked at you the wrong way or they didn't answer you when you asked them,
just recognize that there's there's a neutral event and your
thoughts... -Are separate. -Yeah. They've assigned meaning or thought,
whatever. -Right. So, in this step, Vicki, as we look at
reframing the experience, think about it like a picture,
okay? And the picture has this frame around it.
And the frame says, "This is all about me." That's how we take it personally. And
there's a personal and an impersonal component to everything. The
personal part is it's you. That is personal.
It happened to you. But the impersonal part is
it doesn't matter that it's you. It could have been anyone
in the same situation that would have experienced it.
And that's the impersonal part. So, reframing it means we're going to take
this big frame from off the picture that says this is all about me.
And we're going to put a little tiny frame around it that says,
"It's not really about me. This is about somebody else's
choice." -Or it even might just be this is what happened.
That's your frame. It's not good. Sometimes our frame is this was good,
this was bad, this was mean. But those are all kind of thoughts that we're having
about the... You know in fact, "That man cut me off."
-Neutral. -Yeah. Neutral frame. And then what we do
with it. So, but with a loved one of course it's a little harder because we
have a lot more emotions invested into this. And so, when your
loved one slams the door while you were talking to him. Okay, that
could be really hurtful, right? But just just the frame is, "My husband
slammed the door." -Or just neutral. "Door slammed." -"door
slammed." -Or door closed with a loud noise.
How can we make it more neutral? When we say that it's neutral, you're going to
have some natural resistance to that because in your mind, it's not neutral.
And in my mind, it's not neutral. When it's me because I'm taking it personally.
That's why we started with the other step to breathe.
-Right. -Calm your fight or flight response. See that this is a neutral
event and that you are creating some meaning around that and that's
causing the feelings. That's important to know because as we
get into the next steps, we're going to use that.
The next step is psychologically a little challenging.
But stay with me for a minute because this is really important.
Take full responsibility for how you feel. Notice i'm not saying take full
responsibility for the offense or what happened or what that person's behavior
was. I'm talking about your feelings now.
Vicki, you pointed out earlier this is a neutral event.
It becomes less neutral when we take it inside.
And we start to feel some things about it. You're never wrong about how you
feel. How you feel is 100% consistent with the way your own mind
is processing the event and assigning meaning to it.
That's the part you get to take responsibility for. -So,
you kind of i'm not wrong about feeling hurt.
-Right. -Okay? But I recognize I need to take a chance and go, "Okay."
Going back to the slam door. The slam door I interpret as him saying,
"I'm not talking to you anymore. I don't want to be with you right now.
And I feel hurt by that." So, you just.. I don't have any idea
what really it is. But if you're taking responsibility, you're saying, "Oh, the
reason i'm feeling hurt is because I've interpreted this action to mean he
doesn't like me, he doesn't want to talk to me,
he's mad at me." But just recognize that that's your thought process. It's not
because he yelled it at you or said it. But your thought process has
brought you to that feeling. And that's what taking responsibility.
It's not that i'm wrong. I'm maybe completely and totally. I'm
justified in feeling hurt because my thoughts are telling me the x, y, z. So,
in.. Before you... Until you can... You can't even change
your feelings really until you take responsibility for them. And recognize
that your feelings are directly tied with your thoughts. -Do
you remember that special we watched on Netflix with Brene
Brown? And she gave a tool that I thought was
so helpful here. It's a thought process where you can
take responsibility for how you feel by saying,
"Okay, the story i'm telling myself about this
is..." -Yeah. -Do you remember that? -I do. -And that's kind of another tool is
when you're ready to have the conversation
with your the person who's hurt you. That's a really great way to go at is.
When this happened, the story I began telling
myself is that, "You no longer wanted to talk to me. You
didn't..." Whatever. Whatever your story is. Until you look at
the what caused you to get those feelings, what
thoughts you were going through, you can hardly even address it with somebody
else. -It's not even accessible to you until
you go to this level of responsibility. Until you get
there, you're still blaming that other person. If you're
blaming the other person, they're naturally going to be very
defensive or resistant when you... When you or if you
ever approach them about it. And I think, Vicki, that's an important
point too because you may or may not choose to address
that person. I think if it's an important key
relationship to you then probably at some point you're going to need to
address it. Most of the tools we've shared with you
are internal. -Right. -There are things you can do with
or without the participation of that other person.
It's all about getting more clear or aware about what's going on inside
your own head. Relationships can be tricky. But you're
not alone in this. I don't know if you're even aware of some of the resources that
are available to you at Live On Purpose Central. -There's a
link down in our description. That is go.liveonpurposecentral.com.
There are so many options and resources
available to you there. -We'll see you inside.
inside