Those We Resist Teach Us The Most

Written on September 29, 2009 by in Dealing With Life Stress, Relationship & Family Dynamics, The Emotional Body

JoA in an argument
Creative Commons License photo credit: Anders V

It’s the peo­ple we resist most that are our real teach­ers. They teach us all about our rela­tion­ship w/ ourselves.

I’ve noticed that the things we most resist about oth­ers, the things we judge and resent them for, are most often the very same things we’ve judged as unac­cept­able about our­selves and denied.

For instance, let’s say I’m think­ing, “She/he is so judg­men­tal.” When I turn that sen­tence around, putting my name in place of theirs, the truth is clearly revealed; “I am so judg­men­tal.” Yeah, like, for instance, I’m being judg­men­tal of them right now, for being so judgmental!

We project our neg­a­tive qual­i­ties onto oth­ers and then judge them for what we can­not see or accept about ourselves.

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4 Responses to Those We Resist Teach Us The Most
  1. Tracy
    October 1, 2009 | 2:42 am

    I have come to see that what i resist/condemn in oth­ers is also a pro­jec­tion of my neg­a­tive beliefs about the world and myself..
    My chal­lenge at the moment is with regards to finances and as men­tioned in an ear­lier post i see so many Stray cats.…i see peo­ple and talk to peo­ple with huge finan­cial oblig­a­tions and i feel over­whelmed by their demands and i con­demn them and myself for not com­ing up with solu­tions that can help them.…
    I see this now as a belief that the uni­verse and these peo­ple are inca­pable of tak­ing care of their finances…I see this now as a belief that the uni­verse throws at me sit­u­a­tions that i am inca­pable of han­dling or rather cir­cum­stances that i did not wish to have…
    The resis­tance and anger i feel is really the neg­a­tive belief i hold about the sit­u­a­tion and not the per­son pre­sent­ing a dif­fi­cult situation…I am really try­ing to put this in my mind because “in the moment” i feel con­vinced that the per­son is in error and i feel vic­tim­ized and i want to cor­rect them”

    Reply
  2. Lynne
    October 1, 2009 | 5:25 am

    Hi Tracy,
    The good news is that you do not have to ‘get rid of’ these lim­it­ing beliefs. You only need to make them con­scious, stand back from them and explore them. Are they true? Do you know it absolutely?
    Remem­ber when we believe some­thing, we auto­mat­i­cally feel and act accord­ingly. How do you act/feel when you believe, “I (they) can­not han­dle life cir­cum­stances?” What results when I act in those ways? What would be dif­fer­ent if I did not believe that thought?
    Explore your belief on paper, don’t expect to feel imme­di­ately dif­fer­ent. The magic comes from sim­ply plant­ing a seed of doubt between you and that belief. Doing that frees you from hav­ing to act as if it is true. A totally dif­fer­ent out­come is then pos­si­ble.
    Bless­ings, Lynne
    Have you read any of Byron Katie’s books? I highly rec­om­mend any­thing she has written.

    Reply
  3. Michele
    October 11, 2009 | 11:28 pm

    How do you start back dat­ing after a bad rela­tion­ship lit­er­ally makes you ques­tion your own judge­ment on every guy you meet?

    Reply
  4. Lynne
    October 12, 2009 | 2:24 pm

    Hi Michelle,
    The num­ber one thing you can do to heal after hav­ing had a painful rela­tion­ship is to ques­tion your beliefs about that rela­tion­ship!
    Are your doubts caused from hav­ing had what you term “a bad rela­tion­ship” or is what makes you ques­tion your judg­ment about your choice in men caused more from what you tell your­self it means that means? Can you hear the dif­fer­ence?
    For instance, how dif­fer­ent might you be feel­ing towards dat­ing if, instead of telling your­self that you failed in your choice of a mate, you were telling your­self the fol­low­ing: “I have learned so much about what I want (and don’t want) from my recent rela­tion­ship. I have grown and am more mature for hav­ing gone through this expe­ri­ence. I am bet­ter pre­pared to make a health­ier choice as a result of this expe­ri­ence?“
    Can you feel the qual­i­ta­tive dif­fer­ence in that thought line?

    Our rela­tion­ships are not what causes us to feel trust­ful or dis­trust­ful, but what we tell our­selves about our rela­tion­ships is. When we decide we can’t trust our choices, we feel and act accord­ingly which often leads to MORE poor choices. It is our own unfor­giv­ing judg­ment towards our­selves for mak­ing the choices we make that causes us to dis­trust, not the choice itself.

    Here are some things to remem­ber towards self for­give­ness.
    1. The peo­ple we choose are in our lives to teach us about our rela­tion­ship with our­selves. That is their pur­pose. That means that who we choose was per­fect for us — no mat­ter how painful the rela­tion­ship was — because their job was to show us how we feel about our­selves.
    2. The way oth­ers treat us is always a reflec­tion of the way we feel towards and treat our­selves.
    3. Oth­ers act as Uni­ver­sal mes­sen­gers for us to show us where we are in need of a more lov­ing approach towards our­selves.
    4. As we grow in self-acceptance and self-forgiveness we will nat­u­rally attract a mate who will reflect that for­give­ness & accep­tance by being kind and lov­ing towards us.
    5. There­fore it is not about hav­ing bet­ter judg­ment in the mates we select, but about being less judg­men­tal towards our­selves that will prompt hap­pier choices in a mate.

    Trust your­self and trust the mate you select to be exactly what you need him to be for your own grow­ing con­scious­ness.
    Hope this helps.

    Reply
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