How uncomfortable do you get with people being upset with you? How much do you feel like it’s your responsibility to “fix” the situation and make them happy? How often when someone is upset do you end up beating yourself up and feeling really bad about yourself because of it? And, on the flipside of this coin when someone gets upset with you how quickly do you go on defense trying to justify yourself? Do you get angry or defensive when people speak their truth and share why their upset?
I know for most of my life I avoided confrontation and upsetting people like the plague. I hated it. It was so uncomfortable and it would always end up one of two ways- either I would bend over backwards to fix it, worrying that they would hate me forever if I didn’t OR I would get defensive, “how dare they say,” feeling the need to protect and prove that I wasn’t a bad person.
Either way it went, I would feel like crap. I would ruminate about it for days and a heaviness would sit in my body as my nervous system struggled to let it go.
It sucked!
And, the truth is the reason why we either go on fix it mode or defense is because of our not enoughness. The belief that we’re not good enough. When someone gets upset at us it immediately triggers that deepest core belief that I believe 99% of us have that we’re not enough, we’re bad, somethings wrong with us. And so, we either try to fix it, make them happy, show that we are good, show that we are worthy because we can bend over backwards to make them happy again or we try and protect ourselves by judging them, making them bad, so as not to have to face that fact that our not enoughness has just been triggered.
But, what-if you didn’t have to do either? What if you loved yourself enough, knew your worth enough that you could hold space for someone else's feelings (even if they were projecting their own stuff onto you) without going down the spiral of self blame and protection? What if you could hear them out, own what was yours, apologize if appropriate, and then let it go? Walking away and not thinking about it again?
Doesn’t that sound amazing?
I knew I had hit a huge milestone of my self love and acceptance journey when I easily did just that.
Here’s what happened:
A friend reached out to me a few days after hanging out and let me know that something I had done had really upset her. She came across quite aggressively and was making a few accusations about me that weren’t true. I noticed that my nervous system immediately went on high alert and I wanted to go into defense to fight back against what she had assumed about me in this exchange. But, instead of reacting immediately, I was able to take a step back and look at the situation from a greater perspective. I was able to see that I had made a mistake and could sincerely apologize for that AND that I didn’t need to justify myself, defend myself, or take her interpretation of my intent as truth about me. I was able to separate her perception of the exchange and how she perceived me, and my intention with what was true in my heart and what I know about myself.
I didn’t need to start a fight with her to prove that my intentions weren’t malicious or bad. I didn’t need to point out her flaws or push the blame on her. I didn’t need to call up all my other friends and hash it out and get them to side with me to feel validated and prove I was likeable and a good person. I didn’t hold onto it for days going over the conversation over and over again and thinking of all the things I could have said, all the reasons why she’s not a good friend anyway. I didn’t go into judging her, and putting her down to make myself feel better. I didn’t text her over and over again to make sure she was okay, and did she still like me, were we good, is there anything else I could do to let her know how sorry I was. (I used to do all these things to try and make myself feel better)
Instead, I appreciated her for being honest with me about how she felt. I took responsibility for the mistake I made and I sincerely apologized. I didn’t hold onto the perceptions she had about me because they weren’t true. And, then I let the whole conversation go.
It was so simple. It was so easy.
When you love yourself, truly love yourself, you no longer feel the need to justify or defend yourself to prove your worth, you no longer need to bend over backwards to make someone else feel better because you’re afraid of not being liked.
You get to just be. You can hold space for other people’s feelings without attaching any story about what it means about you.
This is what a confident and self-loving woman looks like.
The opportunity here for you is to notice the next time someone gets upset at you, what your immediate response is.
Do you go on the defense?
Do you try and bend over backwards to fix it?
Does your nervous system go into overdrive?
Is it hard for you to let it go?
What are the stories you tell yourself about yourself when someone gets upset with you?
Get curious if you’re trying to prove or hustle for love and acceptance? Can you give yourself the love and acceptance you desire so you no longer go down the spiral of shame and beating yourself up when your “not enoughness” is triggered?
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