who is better part 3: stopping the bleeding

So if we have recognized that we all do stuff to each other that grates on the last nerve, and we've decided we might prefer improving our mutually shared environment, can we really make a difference? Here' are a few items for the emotional first-aid kit.

When someone hurts us we can make a mental decision to recognize that same thing when we are about to do it, so we can stop doing it. Memories of our bad encounters can serve to remind us how it feels on the receiving end of things. We can deliberately file them under "remind me if I ever start to do this to someone."

We can also become more carefully aware of the reactions of others to us, so we can detect when we've behaved badly. Even if we don't know what we did, we can recognize the non-verbal (or verbal!) cues that let us know we've just elbowed someone in their psychological diaphragm. Then, of course we've got to also tell our brain to shut up when it tries to excuse our behavior with: "but they shouldn't be so sensitive", or "well they're just over-reacting," or "it wasn't that big a deal, why should they mind," or any of the other thousand things we say to ourselves instead of just saying "sorry" to the other person.

Another habit we can consciously foster is to step outside our emotional self when we feel hurt by others, and remind ourselves that we all screw up. We can start making excuses for the other guy instead of for ourselves. All the many excuses we provide for ourselves after we've behaved badly, just open up that file and give them away to the other folks. When we do bad stuff to others we'd like for them to write it off and start over. We can start by giving that away to everyone else as well, mentally give them an excuse, write it off and start over.

In other words, we can't control others, but we can start to control our side of things better. What is happily surprising about this is that when we try to behave better toward others, we actually feel better ourselves! Letting go of the reactions of anger and resentment makes us happier.

Of course if someone regularly kicks you in the emotional shins, whether intentionally or unintentionally, you don't need to hang around with them. But we can distance ourselves from difficult people without sticking all sorts of nasty labels on them. And that means also not labeling them even in our minds. Like when you've got a favorite cat who sometimes jumps out from under the sofa and attacks your ankles like they are invading rabbits to be stalked. You just learn to see the warning signs and step out of the way ; you don't stop loving the cat.


see the next blog for a note of disclaimer