Hi Portia:
Been reading your posts and thinking some more and here's my opinion:
Are they doing it intentionally to hurt you? Is it personally directed only to hurt you? No other motivation?
Whether a person acts to intentionally hurt or out of sheer selfishness means they choose to do so without regard for the harm they may cause and for me.......this is personal. It means they either didn't consider or ignored the fact that their actions might cause harm or chose to act regardless. I believe most people are not idiots and are quite capable of knowing the consequences of their behaviour. And.......we are all capable of acting selfishly or with intent to hurt.
If that’s so, then I would feel crap that my judgement and the trust I’d placed in them was incorrect. I would feel bad about myself. I would feel I was wrong to love them.
And what weight to do place on their behaviour? This seems as though you are the only one responsible for judging, trusting or loving. The other person gets to do as they like, regardless of your feelings?
There are some people who are expert at cheating, lying, duping others. They make a carreer of it. I see the point in trying to find clues to be aware of, signs, listen to our instincts, etc....but I don't think I want to kick myself when I'm already down. My judging, trusting and loving had no intention of hurting. If their behaviour obviously did, or selfishly ignored that possibility.......I take it personal.
Is that taking it personally? Or is that seeing my part in the relationship?
I can easily take my part in a relationship but when a relationship is treated without value by the other person, I think their actions are what take the cake. If I've made a poor choice of who to trust and love, that's one thing, but if they've chosen me, that's another eh?
If the person does something that hurts us indirectly, again, it’s motivation. Did they do it knowing that we would be hurt? If not………why do we take it personally?
We all make mistakes. When I make a mistake, I generally try to admit it, take responsibility for it, make up for it, if I am aware of it. If someone points it out I will likely do the same. Part of taking responsibility is admitting I chose to act (I'm not talking about stupid mistakes that just happen.....I'm talking about big stuff). I agree it's important to try to examine motivation. It's also important to remember that people do make choices and they are, for the most part, able to tell what could happen when they act. I take it personally when they either ignor that or choose to act anyway, regardless of how much they may hurt others.
“I crashed the car and killed our children” – taking it personally means the other person did it because of you. They did it because of you, to hurt you…etc.
Unless you did it to intentionally hurt me......that would be a mistake. An error. Unless you clearly did it to cause harm, I would assume it was not intentional and not take it personally.
Taking it personally is thinking that other people deliberately do things to affect us, with no other motivation.
Yes, or.......for selfish reasons.....without considering or in spite of considering others.
I think we all do things first and foremost for ourselves. Even altruism is good for us, so that’s not entirely altruistic!
Maybe so. Sometimes, people do stuff to intentionally hurt or because they don't care if it hurts anyone else. What do you think?
I don’t read these agreements as commandments or directives. I read them to see how I understand them and what they mean to me, what I don’t understand about them and why I agree or don’t agree. I see them as controversial, a talking point, words to make us THINK!
That's a great thing to do. I just wouldn't accept them as directives or advice on how to to make my life better. I think, the way I'm reading them thus far, I have a long way to go to where you are with them.
re my behaviour having an effect on my children:
If you go off on a wild binge, maybe your kids will think you’re in need of help? It won’t necessarily make them go off on wild binges. Otherwise we’d have a lot more child abusers, murderers etc etc. On the other hand, maybe they would go off on wild binges? Do children tend to do exactly what their parents do, or are they more likely to do the opposite? Or somewhere in the middle?
Ofcourse you're right. People do whatever they chose based on what they think, feel, and want. But I won't feel good about what I've done if I haven't at least tried to behave the way I'd like to see them behave. So wild binges are out, for me and I really do think it has a positive effect to on children when parents behave like parents, instead of like party animals. I know kids who grew up with parents like that and guess what they do now?
The same thing. Ofcourse, there are no guarantees but it just seems like the most reasonable course of action....to do one's best to behave well, as an example for one's children.
My parent told me recently “how did you get to be so intelligent? It must be from my genes.” I was so insulted. Until I thought – this isn’t about me, it’s about them. Gosh they must feel so ignorant. Why don’t they do something about it?
Is that me being numb and immune to their words? Or is it me refusing to believe my emotional reaction? (“I feel insulted, they think so little of me, they think I’m just an extension of them, I don’t exist, I might as well not exist”. Helpful feelings?)
There's an old saying: "Consider the source". Good advice, I think. Pay more attention to the words and actions of people you admire, respect, trust and love and less attention.....take less personally.......those of the rest. So ya......immune to the words/actions of idiots, jerks, mean people......might be a better way to put it, if you ask me.
It’s not about you. It’s about them. It says “nothing others do is because of you”. YOU don’t cause them to act and think the way they do.
I get it. In that case, I understand it to mean....don't blame yourself for their actions. My point exactly. As you can see, I didn't read it that way, at first. Not everyone will.
You can be affected BUT don’t think it’s them that’s affecting you. It’s you that’s affecting you.
If I lived on an island, alone, I would be the only one who could affect me. I can choose to quit focussing on their behaviour, to express my feelings about it and get those out, to move along and put whatever they did that hurt me out of my head, or least, in the back of my mind but I can't erase what I felt when their actions affected me and I believe.....those actions did affect me. The only possible way such actions could not affect me would be if I were numb or dead.
Example a young man knocks an elderly lady out of her wheel chair and steals her purse. She hits her head and breaks some bones. Her money is gone. True story.
Should she blame herself for wheeling along the sidewalk? For having $20 in her purse? Will she not feel hurt, afraid, angry, etc? Wouldn't anyone? The physical pain.......won't she feel it? Can she choose not to? Is she thinking she's allowing that physical pain to affect her? Or is it real physical pain that is actually affecting her?
The guy knocked her over and stole her money for selfish reasons (or worse.....for the sheer joy of it). He ignored the hurt he caused her or excused it or whatever he did with it but he sure as _____ didn't go and turn himself in, confess, repent, beg for her forgiveness, offer to make up for the harm he caused, or anything remotely close to that. She was and will continue to be affected by his actions which, as you say, may have had very little to do with her, because he chose not to see her or value her as a human or consider her or care at all about her, so yes, he acted selfishly, which is still a bold statement that she.......
.........is nothing. She's just a source of money for him. Nothing else.
“You make me feel X” is logical nonsense.
Agreed. When you knock me out of my wheel chair, terrify me, break my bones and steal my money, I'm gonna feel _______________ (fill in the blank). Without your actions, I would experience none of those feelings.
Well…….i can see that what you’re saying is because of the way you read and interpret the agreements! It has zero zip zilch to do with me. Yep, I don’t think you wrote what you wrote just to affect me! If I did…………..what would that make me???? How about a self-obsessed delusional idiot?
So much is based on how we interpret eh? My action of writing a post containing my opinion could be interpreted a number of ways, I guess. I don't think you would be a self-obsessed delusional idiot even if you did think I wrote it specifically to affect you. You might think it was a gift or just food for thought or whatnot.
I think you write for you and to share what you think, to test your reality, your interpretation, with others.
Ya. You too, I think. And sometimes....I write to release my feelings or with the specific intention of communicating something to someone.
I do believe that nobody does anything specifically only and because of me.
Why not? Aren't you worthy? Aren't you worth their effort?
We have to make assumptions in order to act upon the world. However if we know we’re making assumptions all the time, maybe we’ll think more about our lives and actions and take more care in what we do.
Good point. I agree entirely.
Mum wrote:
I try hard not to get wrapped up too much in symantics, and instead try to catch the germ of the idea and see where that makes sense to me.
That's a great way of looking at these agreements Mum! I think my point was that if we take these word for word, as some kind of directive, there could be trouble ahead.
Sela
