Tag Archives: arguments

The Only Person That I Can Ever Change Is Me

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Milepost .... (or half a mile post)

Milepost .... (or half a mile post)

 
My prescription for peace within myself and within the world is simply that: Focus on the only thing that we can ever change: ourselves.

Yesterday, I listened to a friend telling me what a horrible day she had one day this week and that’s all I could think of the while she told the story: The only person I can ever change is me. She told me how horrible this person had treated her and how wrong it was for anyone to act that way and how that person will never learn if someone doesn’t tell them they can’t behave that way. So she proceeded to file a complaint with her boss to prove to her how wrong she was. The lady was horrified for being turned in and to get back at my friend, she returned her Christmas present the next day. My friend was very proud of herself for standing up for herself and for what was right.

As I listened I realized that the hurt in this case was caused not by the lady who was mean, but by my friend who turned the lady’s actions into hurt inside her own heart. This “mean lady” did not take that hurt and place it inside of my friend’s heart, soul or mind. My friend made her own hurt and then was proud of what she had done.

In looking at this situation from the outside, it was easy to see the mistakes that my friend had made. It is not so easy when it is my own life that I am talking about with my own arguments and my own “nasty people” to deal with. The truth is still the same however. I cannot change the behavior or attitudes of anyone around me. I can only change how I react to others. I can only choose to change myself and not anyone else. I can take responsibility for my own emotions and my own happiness and my own life. For this I am grateful.

The quandary here however is how to tell my friend that I think she is wrong and that she is setting herself up for more hurt and more pain. Am I not trying to change my friend by telling her that I think she is wrong?

Arguments and Panic Attacks

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Happy Sad Faces

Happy Sad Faces

When I started this blog, I wanted it to be brutally honest and deeply personal. It is hard to do that when I am really upset and things look really bleak in my life. I know that to really help others however I need to share the tough times as well as the good.

I often panic when I have a bad argument with someone I love. I can only describe these incidences as panic attacks because that’s how they feel. When I reach that level, I feel like I am totally out of control. I cannot stop crying and I feel experience an ever increasing, growing and rising sense of anxiety and chaos. In these times it feels like everything is hopeless and blowing apart inside of me.

What I learned today since my panic attack last night is this:

On my spiritual journey, I have to stay focused on changing and improving me – not my loved ones. I cannot drive them away from me with constant nagging and criticism. Here’s a great article on “What You Can Do to Improve Your Marriage”.

I still have a lot to learn about listening. I found a great post by Filipina Mom Blogger about listening to a husband that loves to rant.

About Panic Attacks I found this resource on Negative Self Talk. It is actually about panic attacks that occur when you take a test, but the phenomenon is the same regardless of what causes the behavior.

Sometimes You Just Need To Say It

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Black and White and Rust Abstract

Black and White and Rust Abstract

There is no handbook for relationships and sometimes I just don’t know when I should shut up or when I should just say what I have to say. There are no hard fast rules on these things and deciding what to do, when to speak up seems like an impossible task.

Recently I learned that I went through all sorts of emotional traumas simply because I withheld what I really needed to say when the other person really needed to hear my opinion. Sometimes when we hold in our feelings all we do is make for a really messy argument later on.

I am glad that I am learning to think before I “blast off” and upset someones feelings, but at the same time I still need to learn to speak the truth without judging the other person and to speak the truth in love. It is not easy. I am grateful that I am learning to be honest, gracious, loving and gentle in stating my mind.

Neat Little Packages: Emotional Perfectionism

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Neat Little Packages with Bows

Neat Little Packages with Bows

On my walk the other day I was thinking and meditating about an argument that I had with a friend a few days earlier and I was trying to figure out what the problem was or what had gone wrong, and for the life of me, I could not come up with anything that had caused the problem that morning. I could not see what I or they had done wrong. All I came up with was an image of a tiny little package tied with a bow. At that point, it made no sense and I gave up on trying to understand it’s significance, and just kept on walking.

When I turned around at my two and a half mile marker, it hit me. I always seem to want to tie up “all my packages” with neat little bows. This can be an emotional package, a relationship package, a conversational package, a work package or any number of things that I might encounter or experience as part of my life. Life in all of it’s glory is not easily packaged in a neat little box. Friendships and intimate relationships certainly can never be neatly contained and perfectly wrapped. I guess this is part of my perfectionism that I need to learn to release. I cannot expect any relationship to not have a certain amount of dynamic tension or mystery in it. I have to learn to be comfortable with letting things be unresolved sometimes. I have to more trusting that the answers will come to me over time if I am patient.

I am grateful for the things that I am learning. I am grateful to be able to release the need for neat little packages. I am grateful to be able to embrace a larger and more powerful truth. I am grateful that I can enlarge my perspective on life. I am grateful that God and truth are bigger than my neat little packages. I am grateful to release more of my perfectionism to be able to embrace life as it is.