Tag Archives: self-awareness

It’s Not You… It’s Me.

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And this time, it’s true – At least according to Carl Jung (one of the grandfathers of modern psychotherapy). His theory suggests that we project the disowned (read: unappealing) aspects of ourselves onto others. Jung referred to this as our shadow archetype… don’t worry I’m not going to go all psycho babble on you now. Basically, though, what he said is that the unfavourable qualities we react negatively to in others are really just our own issues that we do not identify with or recognize, but possess nonetheless.

In other words: The things that bother, irritate, get under our skin, and drive us crazy about other people are more often than not, our own disowned, unacknowledged, or rejected issues. This is a tough one to swallow and might even sound a little hooey.

Before you reject his theory of trait rejection all together, have you ever wondered why something will drive you absolutely nuts about someone, but your friends may not even notice it, let alone be even mildly irritated by it? Why are we irritated or put off by some things other people do or say, and not others? And why isn’t everyone put off by the same things? Something to think about…

I’m not sure if this theory applies to every situation and I was pretty sceptical when I learned about this concept, but once I started paying attention to it in myself, good goodness, it was true more often than I am comfortable admitting.

The up side in all of this though, is that we can use our reactions toward other people to indirectly (or maybe quite directly) show us what we might be struggling with and need to address and work through.

Free insight? I’ll take that.

In The Name of Love.

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There’s an acronym in addiction treatment that people use to prevent relapse, but I think it’s an acronym everyone should know. HALT. It stands for Hungry Angry Lonely Tired. And it’s used as a self check-in when one is dealing with an urge or a craving to drink or use. The point is to ask oneself at that moment, “What am I really feeling? And what major need is not being met right now?” If we address and tend to this need, it’s almost certain that the craving will go away, and we will also likely feel happier, more balanced, and more relaxed. A pretty good trade off.

There’s no reason why HALT-ing can’t be done in any type of situation when we feel the urge to do or say something that is likely to result in no good. And, the bonuses are that we’ll both get to know ourselves better by becoming tuned in to our needs, and we’ll probably avoid causing unnecessary damage to either ourselves, our loved ones, or even perfect strangers.

Did I remember to say it’s usually advisable to HALT before the no good happens? Probably good to take note of that part…

Taming the Beast.

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Anger is quite a powerful little 5 letter word that means very different things to different people. For some it is an emotion that is rejected or avoided at all cost and understood as evil, bad, or unacceptable. For others it is all too present and readily available to use to hurt, damage, or destroy – sometimes irreparably so.

Anger, like most emotions, is not a bad or shameful emotion in and of itself. It can even be very appropriate and useful at times. Without anger as a motivator for action we might feel less compelled to fight against injustice, oppression, and discrimination with the same degree of will and determination.

Anger can also give us a very clear sign that something is wrong. Anger feelings directed toward another provide us with a clear indication that someone has done something to threaten or injure something vulnerable inside of us. Further to this, anger is often referred to as a secondary emotion – an overt reaction serving to protect something internal. So what does all this mean Julia? Anger can be an absolutely invaluable resource if we learn how to use it to our advantage. When we notice ourselves getting angry at someone, we can stop and take a second to check in and ask ourselves “What is this anger protecting? If I take a closer look, what am I feeling beneath the anger?” and this will give us some insight into what’s really going on. More often than not the anger is going to be protecting feelings of hurt, or sadness, or fear. By choosing not to react and assault our (often unaware) perpetrator with the anger, (which will likely not only injure the relationship but will also leave us to deal with the aftermath of our own guilt and shame) we give ourselves the opportunity to take a step back, do a check in, figure out what’s really going on and decide if we can express ourselves immediately in a non-aggressive way, or if we need some time to cool off before we can communicate that vulnerable primary emotion. Often, in my experience, the latter works much better.

Easy to say, difficult to do, but like most things worth anything it takes patience, practice, and persistence.