If ya never say "OUCH!" how does anyone know they've hurt you?

Don't be a doormat. Learn how to confront when someone steps on your toes!

Hopefully, this post will help you realize how your passivity harms not only You, but others as well. The word “confrontation” has accrued such a strongly negative connotation, that we may be unwilling to take care of ourselves when someone in our life behaves in ways that feel thoughtless, neglectful or abusive.

Confrontation is NOT a “bad” thing. It merely involves being willing to openly state what’s on our mind or in our heart, rather than retreating, licking our wounds and/or seething internally for weeks, with resentment and anger (a BIG health risk, because what we now know about cancer, is it’s spawned by long-held feelings of resentment and repressed anger and rage).

Your liver is the storehouse for unexpressed anger, according to Chinese medicine. Ask any acupuncturist to confirm this. If you routinely wake up to urinate between around 3 - 4:00 in the morning when your liver is busily ridding your body of toxins, you’ve got some long-stored anger we wanna help you discharge (think of this as being “pissed-off,” even if you aren’t consciously registering that you’re angry at someone).

Stuffing our anger leads to roadblocks in the body’s highway. Energy flow is interrupted, and these ‘freeway bottlenecks’ cause us pain or discomfort. They contribute to a litany of diseases, like auto-immune issues, obesity, hearing loss, compromised eyesight, joint pain, slow recovery from injuries or viruses, etc.

Holding a mirror up to someone and expressing how they’ve trampled on our feelings may mean the end of a long-term friendship, but if your history with that “friend” has included numerous wounds, invalidations, incidents of discord you couldn’t resolve no matter how hard you tried, perhaps they’re not someone who’s worthy of hanging onto.

Narcissism prevents people from owning their mistakes and offering a heartfelt apology~ even when they can’t recognize or acknowledge how they’ve hurt you. A Narcissist will say things like, “well, if the tables were turned, I’d understand and not be upset by that,” rather than, saying “I’m so sorry my actions felt hurtful to you, and I’ll try not to do it again!”

A longtime actor friend flatly refused to mend a small rupture, when I told him he’d hurt my feelings. There’d been a long history of little wounds I’d managed to somehow overlook, but I’d developed to an extent that I wasn’t willing to allow these incidents to keep happening. It’s called healthy self-esteem. After over 40 years of friendship, I lovingly severed that cord, because why leave myself open to any more assaults?!

I’ve taught my clients how to effectively and more comfortably confront another, when it’s called for. I use an ‘onion’ analogy, explaining that feelings have many layers to them, and rather than working up the steam to barge in like a Bull in a China Shop when we’re upset, sad or angry, we can get someone’s attention far more effectively when we initially speak to the first layer of our onion.

This first onion layer that protects all the juicy layers underneath, is the tough skin we need a serrated knife edge to pierce and slice through. It’s our vulnerable, scared, anxious, awkward feelings in the moment we must verbally express, which literally helps to diffuse them! [I train Borderlines to utilize this relationship skill, which can literally save an attachment bond.]

When we speak of our first layer of feelings about approaching a difficult subject with another, not only does it help diffuse those feelings for us, it gets their full attention! In addition, whether they want to or not, they can access a bit of empathy for us~ ‘cause who can’t relate to how difficult, scary, awkward or uncomfortable it is to confront another (about anything!) ?!

Childhood programming always sets the tone of who we grow into being as adults. There’s just no way around this, folks. If you dared speak your mind as an upset child, punishment or abandonment surely followed. THIS is why you dare not ‘confront,’ when someone inspires your sadness or anger. You presume the relationship bond will die if you even try~ but this is merely a pavlovian response to years and years of learning to bury genuine feelings, instead of expressing ‘em! The more someone matters to us, the more reluctant and scared we (understandably) are to rock the boat.

When we fail to honor our own feelings and needs, it’s a betrayal to the Self. We emotionally constrict and shrink smaller and smaller, until no sense of Self can continue to exist. YOU can relate, can’t ya?

I had an emotional breakdown at age 20, because my teenage years were spent under the strict rule of two adults who knew nothing about adolescent development, and effectively squelched my spirit at a juncture when it should have been emerging. I became suicidally depressed, and landed (by the grace of God) in the home office of a really good psychiatrist who helped me save my life. His work with me has strongly influenced mine with others.

When you are too fearful to confront (talk about) your feelings with another, you are literally depriving them of the opportunity to grow and evolve. Someone who is clueless about how they harm others, will continue to do so. In truth, the only introspection Narcissists do, catalyzes incessant self-flagellation, which is never self-constructive, only self-destructive. I don’t recommend this.

Borderline Personalities are incredibly hard on themselves, as well. Part of their intense interest in being in a relationship, is to have a distraction from beating up on themselves. When they have a whipping post (a partner willing to tolerate it) on which to take out their rage toward themselves, life feels a bit less painful to ‘em.

Add to this, anger is a very enlivening, activating, energizing and passionate emotion! Borderlines literally thrive on anger and rage, because it breaks thru their non-feeling bubble, and helps them feel a sense of aliveness. This of course, is the downside of emotional dissociation, which started for these poor souls around the age of two, so they could endure the daily pain in their little bodies they couldn’t escape in any other way.

While emotional dissociation from painful feelings kept most of us alive during childhood and contributed greatly to our ability to survive ongoing trauma, it works against us as adults. Think of it this way: If you’ve learned to dissociate from and bury your difficult feelings as a toddler, how in the world can you identify with or relate to those in another?? You cannot.

You may have a real capacity for sympathy, when you see a hurt animal or human, but emotional dissociation has made it quite impossible for you to empathize with them, and I can tell ya first hand, one’s inability to empathize with my pain, has catalyzed the demise of a few long-standing, beloved friendships.

Someone who really loves you, will not keep nipping at your achilles heel. They’ll exercise caution with respect to their communications and behaviors, once you inform them of these vulnerabilities, and respect you enough to steer clear of ‘em!

PS: There are individuals who will absolutely refuse to grow. Their Narcissism demands they see themselves as infallible and without flaw. These are people who will likely keep injuring you, because when you make them aware of your sensitive or painful spots, they don’t care enough to remember not to bump up against ‘em.