Wake Up and Change Your Life by Andrew G. Marshall

Author:Andrew G. Marshall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Marshall Method Publishing
Published: 2015-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FIVE

Dealing with

Other People

Life is difficult. Just getting through the day, fulfilling our obligations and sorting out our own personal stuff can often take all our energy. That’s why many clients complain about being overwhelmed by demands from other people or feel that they could manage their life if only they weren’t constantly being blown off course by someone else.

FIFTH MAXIM

When your partner is upset, it’s likely that your first reaction will be: What have I done now? This is especially the case if you’re going through a crisis. However, more times than not, your partner’s upset might not be about you. It could be the pressure from a tough day ahead at work, a poor night’s sleep, annoyance with your son or daughter, or maybe his or her football team are selling their star player. So why is our first reaction about us?

You won’t be surprised to know, this goes right back to your childhood again. When you were small, you were the centre of the world. Babies’ brains are not developed enough for empathy and the imagination to step into other people’s shoes. If they are going to make sense of their surroundings, starting with themselves makes a lot of sense. So when you were a child, if someone didn’t pick you up when you cried, you didn’t think what’s wrong with my mother or father but what have I done wrong? At school, you met other children and slowly but surely you realised that you were not the centre of the world. However, if a teacher or a classmate didn’t like you, or you didn’t fit in, you would have concluded there was something unacceptable about you or your behaviour – not that the teacher had just qualified and was finding her feet, not that the boy at the next desk was being beaten up by his older brother and taking it out on you, not that the school’s ethos didn’t match your needs.

Fortunately, you are no longer a small child. You have the knowledge and experience in the world to realise that there are plenty of reasons for your partner – or family member, colleague etc. – to be upset. However, when stressed or distressed it’s easy to revert back to the standard default or, even worse, to misread your partner’s simple distress as something more dangerous – like anger or blame or punishment (which sets up an unpleasant row). That’s why my fifth maxim is:

It’s not all about me.

Of course, it’s possible that part of your partner’s upset is about you. For example, you’re not carrying your share of running the household, so the work pressure is greater, perhaps you snored and kept your partner awake, or didn’t back him or her up in the argument with the kids, or laughed when the star player was sold. That’s why my maxim is: It’s not ALL about me. The ‘all’ is incredibly important because it stops you focusing in on your small part of the upset

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