One of the most important parts of our lives is social interaction. Is the way we act and, most of the time, react to other people. And, from my personal experience, is the part which can create most of our bitterness and sadness, which can carve the deepest guilts and seeds the most ferocious fears in our life. And why is that? Because most of the time it’s about them. The others. Peoples who hurts us, who makes us suffer, who break our hearts and our wings.
Well, guess what? It’s not about them, it’s about you.
In this post I’ll share my personal experiences about social interactions. I’ll also try to synthesize some simple ways in which you can try to avoid all the negative manifestations that relationships can create.
The lesson
The first, the most important, and, to be honest, the only lesson I’ve learned from social interaction is: it’s not about them, it’s about you. It took me a lot of time to learn this and also some paynful experiences. I’ve been through a lot of denial and defensive attitudes, I’ve cast tons of guilt to other persons in my life and tried to escape all the abusive situations in which i’ve been put. But in the end, I learned that this is the only healthy way to deal with others. Understanding that you are the person responsible for everything is happenng to you it’s the cornerstone of a fulfilling social life.
Because you actually have the power to attract, maintain and seed all the positive interactions you need. But the reverse of this meddal is that you also have the power to attract all the negative, consuming or humiliating relationships into your life. Although is hard to accept that, this is the truth. You may think that you’re not responsible for the stinky job you have, for the broken marriage or for the complete emptiness of your life, but it’s true.
The only person who can live your life is yourself. Nobody else, just you. Blaming others for your current situation puts you in a surrendering situation. It actually takes your life out of your hands and put it in their hands. Making them responsible for your life actually empowers them. It’s like going to a person you don’t like and saying:
Please, make me miserable! I’m so bored and irresponsible that I need somebody to blame for that! Would you be my blaming mate? I’ll even call you my husband, my wife, my girlfriend, my parent or my kid? How about that? We can have a deal on that one? Coz I really, really need a blaming mate and I think you’d be perfect for that: you want to control everything, you’re insecure, dominating, my god, you got them all? So, can we get married now?
Although you smiled reading this, you did exactly that at least once in your life. We all did it. We put the blame for our broken marriage on our parents shoulders, on our so-called friends, on the dentist with whom she ran, on the stripper whit whom he quit, on her, on him, on the other guy, on everybody. On everybody except us. Why? Because it’s simpler. It’s easier and relieves the pain for the moment. We feel better, get over it for now, and try to have a life. Until next time, when we do exactly the same mistake, and blame exactly the same person.
You may ask now: but what’s the mistake? My situation was so special, I had a bad childhood, I grew up in a poor family, I had an abusive parent, I had a difficult time in school… In fact, although they seem different, all the situations comes to only one: the choice. You have the power to make a choice. And, despite your expectations, this is the easiest choice you can make: you can chose to react to the person, or you can chose to act. You can chose to stay happy when somebody is hurting you, or you can chose to be sad. You can chose to feel humiliation or you can choose to manifest power. You can control everything. You have the power to create whatever response you want in your interactions. Of course, you won’t be able to do this instantly. Or if you are able, I bet you stoped reading this post from the first paragraph, because you’re already past this, and you learned the most important, valuable, and, to be honest, the only lesson about relationships: it’s not about them, it’s about you.
But if you are still reading, that means you can use some advice. Let’s see how we can stop the process of reaction and start acting, moving the power flow towards us and harmonizing our social life.