The grass is just as green on my side!

Does it happen to you that someone you want to be friends with snubs you then later wants to befriend you but now you find them uninteresting and wonder why you were soo into them in the first place?

I have been there before where I felt something was wrong with me because so and so didn't want to be my friend but hey it gets better on that road because as I got older and such friends eventually had a change of heart, they either turned out to be jerks or I turned out not liking them and was even surprised at my disenchantment- "is this it?"

I have had friends who picked on me when we were growing up, friends I liked who didn't like me around, only to grow up and have them warm up to me and I discovered they had traits I would rather live without or they rubbed me the wrong way and I would rather love them from a distance.

Then I would think what was I thinking feeling sorry that this person didn't like me or want to be my friend! I don't like them either!

Also I have seen how someone I admired from afar and wished I was associated with turned out to be just as flawed and human as the rest of us- with baggage I didn't even want to touch or was rather surprised that they had.

Up close I realise that they are just as human and I am just as divine. Not above and not beneath.

I remember stepping out countless times to events and admiring how someone looked and in offering them praise they would often turn back to me and say you look lovely too; and I would counter and say you look lovely, I wish I looked like you and they will say then who will look like you?

I quickly realised I wasn't seeing myself at all. I would get dressed, enjoy my swag and forget it once I stepped into a room of equally well dressed people but I learnt to say you look good and keep in mind I wasn't looking bad either- they couldn't look like me!

So no the grass isn't greener on the other side. And if someone doesn't like you for you, they really aren't worth it.

Celebrate yourself, you are more than you see!

I need space!

The first time I was on the receiving end of this statement, I almost slapped the brown off the face of my best friend who offered uttered them without further explanation for her intentional scarcity. Oh I wanted to rub her face in the concrete, "What effrontery!" I thought at her approach.

Typically I carried the same pained resentment for the unavailable loved one, stand offish acquaintance or feuding friend who didn't have my time until I made a few hide-thickening discoveries of my own.

I felt I needed space too but was too "nice" to say.

The relationship might have gotten too tense or stale for me too and I noticed the constant friction or bored communication too but was trying too hard to fix it when the best option was to take a break from trying and just let things take a natural course till we found each other again.

I could use the space too.

If only just to rub my bruised ego.

In the scenario of a disagreement, the natural reaction is to withdraw when our person feels slighted but sometimes we are pushed too close into the same space to get away or that needed comeback is out of reach so we stay in the hurt, but mentally if not physically we can shift from the source of the offense to the cause of it; asking ourselves loving what hurt us about the incident and offering ourselves understanding.

Stepping into the arena of resolution immediately can cause more grief sometimes, especially if the culprit isn't ready to admit their fault or if we don't get the understanding we expect, so taking a step back to resolve internally is allowed.

I could say I needed space too.

If they can say it, I can say it too without feeling guilty when I do need space. I could give myself permission to say I needed space too when I wasn't being treated right, wasn't getting my needs met, needed to get away or just needed to be with me.

I could let go.

It was okay.  It wasn't about me.  They probably were going through something they needed time sorting out and I could totally understand that because it happens with me too. They would be back when they felt okay.

I was fine without them.

It would be awkward in the beginning but life would move on; I would find new friends and toys in the big playground of life.

I didn't have to fix it.

I'm the fixer who wants to cross the distance after a disagreement and mend broken bridges of communication but occasionally when the other party is not conciliatory I have found comfort in the self respecting distance given to an unapologetic offending friend.

I have also found that the peace in staying on my own while consuming bite sized pieces of a misbehaving loved one only when I fancied the taste for them, was as equally satisfying as the seasons when we 'zinged'!

When we connect with people it's such an emotionally satisfying feeling-one we always want to have so no wonder we try to hold on when it feels we should let go.

Now dealing with those rude and not so gentle demands for space aren't as difficult now.

I don't mind much anymore because I know I can give as good as I get!

Taming Nunu

 

By Martha Beck

Photo: Ann Cutting

                                                 

If Nu Nu had been bigger than a doorknob, someone would have shot him. He was like a tiny chain saw with fur, a snarling, fang-baring nightmare of a Chihuahua who viciously attacked anyone brave enough or crazy enough to go near him. Tina Madden, Nu Nu's owner, was as saintly as he was diabolical. She never sank to Nu Nu's level by reprimanding, much less punishing, him. She simply showered him with love and tenderness, believing that taking the high road would eventually dissolve Nu Nu's wrath.

I've had clients who took a similar "high road" approach with difficult people in their lives. For example, Yvette stayed politely silent when a co-worker, Fred, brazenly stole her ideas. Janae cleaned up pizza boxes and drinking glasses left by her college-age daughter, Emily, as uncomplainingly as she'd once changed Emily's dirty diapers. And Cynthia and Rob's romance was based on lots of give and take: Cynthia gave—back rubs, compliments, gifts—and Rob took full advantage without ever reciprocating.

All these women were as long-suffering as Tina Madden, and the people around them responded just as Nu Nu did: by exploiting the living hell out of them.

The problem is that trying to change unfair behaviour with submissive niceness is like trying to smother a fire with gunpowder. It isn't the high road; it's the grim, well-trod path that leads from aggressive to passive, through long, horrible stretches of passive-aggressive. The real high road requires something quite different: the courage to know and follow your own truth. If anyone in your life is exploiting your courtesy and goodwill, it's time you learned how all of this works.

 
First let's look at the dynamics of an unbalanced relationship like Nu Nu and Tina's. Though Tina's endless tolerance appeared to stem from a deep and abiding love, it was based more on fear: fear of anger, of conflict, of losing control, of emotional abandonment. It was the passive response to an aggressive attack—both behaviours that fall into a category I call ORC. Here, ORC stands not for those gnarly dudes who, as we all know, would destroy Middle-earth if given half a chance, but for behaviour that is opaque, reactive, and closed.

By describing behaviour as opaque, I mean that we hide—even from ourselves—the actual motives that drive it. For example, when Fred stole Yvette's ideas, her silence didn't come from inner peace but from an unacknowledged fear that speaking up would ruin her reputation as a "team player." Janae didn't realize that her real reason for catering to her daughter was to keep Emily from wanting to move out—and tamp down her own dread of living in an empty nest. Likewise, Cynthia was unconscious of her terror that Rob would leave her unless she constantly fulfilled his every wish.

When opaque behaviour disengages us from our inner truth, we stop acting on our own desires and become purely reactive instead, focused not on what we want but on what others will think, say, or do. We never express negative feelings about the relationship—which means that it becomes, in the words of organizational behaviour expert Chris Argyris, "self-sealed" against learning. Opaque, reactive, and closed: in a word, ORC.

Of course, it's not always easy to know if you're in ORC territory. This very day, you may perform completely ORC-ish acts without even realizing it. Luckily, there are two red flags that will always tell you when you're on the ORC road. Red flag number one: a tendency among the people around you to become increasingly selfish, exploitative, and unfair. Red flag number two: a growing disconnect between your own feelings and your actions—directly proportional to how badly you're being treated and how far you've managed to stray from your truth.

Here's a guide to ORC signals:

Feeling: Disturbed
You easily brush aside your feelings and continue your nice, polite behaviour.

Feeling: Displaced
You appear cooperative around the offender, still pushing away resistant feelings but now fussing grumpily to yourself or to others.

Feeling: Hurt
You may actually increase niceness to hide the fact that you're feeling seriously wronged. Anger seeps out passive-aggressively—a snippy question, a slammed drawer.

Feeling: Resentful
The offender's misdeeds begin to occupy more and more of your attention. Kvetching about her becomes a daily pastime; you begin to shoot her angry looks while claiming that absolutely nothing is wrong.

Feeling: Seething
The offender's bad behaviour becomes a central feature of your thinking. You complain constantly to others, and despite continued "niceness," try to undermine her with passive-aggressive strategies like the silent treatment, backhanded compliments, and gossip.

Feeling: Homicidal
You daydream about thrashing the offender in a cage fight. You have knots in your stomach and can't sleep. You're irritable or depressed. You may occasionally lash out at loved ones in what appears to be irrational rage. Toward the offender, however, you still act "nice" and "polite."

If you see yourself anywhere on the ORC chart, don't despair. Many people who wind up here believe the only alternative to grovelling niceness is aggressive dominance. But there's another path, one that never needs to intersect with the ORC road. I call it TAO, which is Chinese for "the way," and also stands for transparent, authentic, and open.

This way of relating, which I teach all my clients, is based on honestly assessing what's happening both around us and within us, expressing our truth as authentically as possible, and staying open to feedback without abandoning our own perspective. And it happens to be exactly what Tina was able to achieve with Nu Nu—thanks to dog behaviourist Cesar Millan. Tina and Nu Nu were featured in the original episode of Millan's TV show, Dog Whisperer. (I keep a DVD of the episode to show people like Yvette, Janae, and Cynthia.) Here's how it went down: As the episode begins, Millan learns that despite Tina's desire to live a normal life with normal human contact, whenever anyone comes near Tina, Nu Nu does his level best to kill them. So Millan sits next to Tina, puts his arm around her shoulders, and calmly lets Nu Nu go ballistic. Tina tenses up as though she may spontaneously implode, but Millan simply holds Nu Nu so he can't attack and waits for the fit to pass. Which it does.

Astonishingly, that's all it takes to move from the nightmarish ORC road to the TAO of healthy relationships. Three steps: 1. Figure out what you really want to do. 2. Do it. 3. If someone pulls a Nu Nu, wait it out.

Now, if Nu Nu had been a Rottweiler, or Tony Soprano, it would have taken more than Cesar Millan to hold him while he raged. If you think moving into TAO behaviour will cause someone you know to become truly dangerous, you need to take appropriate measures. But if all you have to fear is snootiness or angry backlash, you can handle it.

For example, Yvette asked for a meeting with her supervisor and her unethical co-worker, Fred. She calmly described how Fred had co-opted her ideas and produced an e-mail trail to back up her claims. Fred threw a fit, accusing Yvette of being dishonest and uncooperative. Yvette stayed transparent, authentic, and open, matter-of-factly restating her point and asking him to show evidence of his position. Having no truth to turn to, Fred ran out of gas. In fact, Yvette's behavior scared him so badly, he started stealing from other people instead.

Janae realized that while she was afraid to let her daughter leave home, she also resented Emily for not growing up. I asked her to explain exactly this to Emily. Janae did—then braced for a Nu Nu. To her surprise, Emily thought for a moment, then said, "That sounds fair, but you'll have to remind me to clean up—I'm sort of a slob." Later Janae jubilantly told me, "She wanted to be TAO all along!"

Cynthia's story wasn't such a fairy tale. When she asked Rob to be as kind and supportive toward her as she was toward him, he went into a rant about why this was impossible and irrational. She held her ground. "Well," said Rob, "I guess we'd better call the whole thing off." This move was meant to frighten Cynthia into obedience. Instead it showed her that Rob wasn't the gallant prince she'd pretended he was. As she continued to be transparent, authentic, and open, Rob's Nu Nu fits grew so wearying that Cynthia broke off the engagement herself. 

Years after watching Nu Nu and Tina model ORC behaviour, then move to the TAO of genuine connection, I saw another episode of Dog Whisperer in which Tina was working at Cesar Millan's Dog Psychology Center. When a muscular pit bull began to tangle with another dog, Tina calmly stepped in, pulled away the pit bull (which nearly outweighed her), and held it gently but firmly until it exhausted itself and relaxed. Then she continued walking with the pit bull and several other dogs. As for Nu Nu, he had become as affectionate and joyful as he'd once been demonic. Dog and human walked the high road together, showing the rest of us how it's done.

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/spirit/How-to-Stand-Up-for-Yourself-Martha-Becks-Advice#ixzz3QfXJ1WJ5