Suze - I struggle with internalizing how people treat me, too. It's something I have been working on with sobriety as I am learning to accept myself for who I am and it's OK if someone isn't nice or doesn't like me. It's very difficult for a people pleaser like me to swallow that large pill but deep down I know it's true and I cannot continue to allow how others treat me to affect me. Likely they are just going on with their day, the buttheads that they are , with no mind to how they treated us!
I learned of a little exercise that can be very helpful when teaching ourselves to let go, it actually came from this board so maybe you remember seeing it!
I would start to isolate the situation, acknowledge the feelings of anger or frustration (insert relevant emotion here!) and then rather than focus on the perpetrator of the incident, I began to step back and analyze why it made me feel that way. By searching for the answer in my reaction rather than their behavior, I became a lot more introspective and actually learned a lot about myself and where my triggers come from! It takes time though, so it may not work at first - all I can say is give it a try, it really helped me! :-) After all, you can only control your own reactions, not others’ behavior.
I have done this quite a few times and it really does help, plus we begin to learn about our own insecurities which is beneficial as we figure out who our real selves are!
Hi bluesy, erratic, Dee, daisy. Hope you are all well
