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i need to learn to stand up for myself

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  • September 14, 2015 at 8:28 am #83315
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Sann:

    I like your insight. You have an excellent grasp on what is really happening. Indeed you are nice and helpful and you are working on setting boundaries with people who don’t play fair, like this woman. I do not like it at all that she yells at you- how very, very rude. She finds it effective obviously. You said “whatever” and she yelled for you to say “bye” – so you said “bye”. Well, it is a good thing that as a result of her yelling you did not apologize for having said “whatever.” I have the image in my mind right now of her yelling and you responding by standing straight, facing her, looking in her eyes and saying again, slowly, clearly: “whatever.” And that being your last word. That would be a good exercise, wouldn’t it?

    As we work to change our behavior, we have to be very gentle and patient with ourselves, otherwise changing will not happen. It is necessary, not optional, to be gentle and patient with oneself. So if you think that it was PROGRESS that you didn’t apologize for saying “whatever”- then progress is all you can hope for and it is very positive – and- it may be almost exciting, could it not, to take another step forward next time: stand straight, look into her eyes, and say confidently (no matter how fast your heart is beating): WHATEVER.

    anita

    September 14, 2015 at 12:20 pm #83323
    jock
    Participant

    May i ask you, did it take you long to learn that? Was it a long time of trying and error, or how did you go about it?
    I know that might be a kind of question that is difficult to answer, but perhaps you have some advice on how you changed that

    You make it sound like I’m an expert when I’m just like you, still learning.
    My main problems are at work. I can relax more with people outside a work situation.
    For some reason, I find the workplace a tough jungle to survive in. You can’t afford to show weakness, it seems to me, which is such a shame in my view.

    September 14, 2015 at 1:45 pm #83332
    Sann
    Participant

    Dear Anita,
    Thank you for your kind words. Yes i didn’t realise, but it is indeed VERY effective for her: all she has to do is to yell and i’ll say what she wants to hear. All she has to do is stand in my place and i’ll run away and let her do my nice task. All she has to do is saying A to me and then B to me and she knows i’ll be doubting myself.
    Yes i like your idea, thank you so much. I’m so caught in it myself that i can’t even think about it. But i will keep it in mind for next time. I am so afraid to say anything to her because i’m afraid that she’ll go to other people and tell them that i was rude to her and make me look bad – and that i won’t even know it because they wouldn’t tell me. But i have to stop thinking so much and trusting a bit more that there is not a whole army of enemies waiting to hear about my first mistake to all turn their backs on me.

    Yes you are right, we need to be very compassionate and patient with ourselves, and in a consistent way, if we want te make change. Thank you for the reminder, it’s easy to forget sometimes.

    Quite likely i will update her later on how it went.

    Hi Jack,

    Ok i see. It sounded to me that you were further in it because of the way you wrote it, but i understand, these things take a long process in order to change them. Good that you have taken the step already to look at it. I find that often the hardest part, being honest with myself about something that i want to change, and making the honest intention to learn to act differently.
    I find work also difficult, even though my workplace is quite nice. But there seems to be more involved – i personally am always anxious to lose my job if i make the slightest mistake, and that other people will make my life miserable there. Even though it doesn’t go that hard it seems. But i tend to get quite paranoid anyway, so at work i have this in a high degree.

    Good luck with practicing on it.

    September 14, 2015 at 4:40 pm #83334
    jock
    Participant

    i personally am always anxious to lose my job if i make the slightest mistake, and that other people will make my life miserable there. Even though it doesn’t go that hard it seems. But i tend to get quite paranoid anyway, so at work i have this in a high degree.

    Yes I also have a fear of making a mistake and can be extremely anxious if someone such as a boss is watching and critiquing my efforts.
    Our behaviour may act as a magnet for further ill-treatment I believe. We lack confidence and therefore others feel a need to walk all over us. It’s like an animal instinct. They smell fear and some are especially adept at taking advantage of the situation to suit their “often evil” agenda. yet there are nice people too who don’t take advantage, but they are in the minority it seems to me anyway.

    September 15, 2015 at 9:47 am #83380
    Sann
    Participant

    Yes that seems like it – not everybody though. And then there are people who seem (or pretend) to be nice, but still underneath seem to have a hidden agenda. I am terrible at seeing that, i am too trusting.
    I don’t know if those nice people are in the minority or not. That probably depends on who you are lucky or unlucky to have around you. Perhaps we can also learn to change that, to start to appreciate the nice people more, and maybe they will stay around us easier?
    (but that’s maybe just me, i tend to push the nice people away and stay close to the ill-meaning ones)

    I don’t know about animal instinct.. Perhaps.. People who do that probably are also just not secure in themselves… just like us. And try to cover it up in that way.

    What you say about the magnet.. the good thing is that we can learn to change it. We learn to act differently with more self-regard and people will treat us differently. Easier to write than to do, but people have done it before us, so we’ll manage as well. One day 🙂

    September 15, 2015 at 2:09 pm #83391
    jock
    Participant

    thanks sann
    you are a good person, better than me I fear

    September 16, 2015 at 10:50 am #83453
    Sann
    Participant

    Hi Jack,
    What makes you say that – that i am a better person than you?
    You don’t know me, i don’t think i’m such a good person, but that’s not my point, i think i read some self-doubt in your remark, as if you’re not finding yourself very good. And i wonder why?
    Because i get a different impression when reading your posts here..

    September 24, 2015 at 9:15 am #84012
    Sann
    Participant

    I assumed that i was going to come back here, to write how it goes.

    I am a big avoider. This morning i had difficulty again with her, with the way she told me she will do that task, again. Even though, i was already doing an other task the past weeks, so perhaps it is me who is making a problem where there is none. But this morning i was doing the task already, so i was shocked that she made me go out it, and the way in which she told it.
    I was so upset, i couldn’t manage to maintain friendly. So an other colluague was also not very friendly with me – don’t know if that was because of me, she is quite new and doesn’t come across as the most friendly person anyway, and perhaps quite insecure as well.

    It bothers me a lot her behavior towards me, and perhaps it would be helpful to let go. But still, her attitude towards me is not nice and i have contributed to that a lot by never standing up for myself or responding to it – i let her do it, so she feels quickly that she doesn’t need to respect me.

    Now it is making me sick and exhausted.
    Right now, the way i feel, i think it can go 2 ways.
    1. I do nothing and it can keep making me unhappy. That is not a good prospect, and i don’t think i deserve that, after all my efforts to help others at work, and to create some better contacts (the second thing was actually a big effort for me, i’m not very good at talking).
    And i wonder, will it lead to me eventually losing or leaving my job…?
    2. I can do something about it. Right now, what i mainly see as an option, is to talk with the boss. Because talking with her doesn’t seem to help, and standing up for myself, i don’t seem to manage.
    But talking with the boss, is so incredibly scary for me and it feels wrong. It feels like a litle toddler who goes to the teacher complaining about an others behavior.

    A long way to go, it seems…

    I asked a nice, young colleague this morning: what would you do if you had a problem with somebody else at work? He guessed quickly who it was, but i didn’t want to admit it. He advised me to go to the boss, and told me which boss would be the best, and reassured me that he would listen and be serious. But still, it doesn’t feel like an option for me.

    I think it might take me a number of lives, before the thought might enter my head, that i can stand up for myself…

    September 24, 2015 at 10:21 am #84019
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Sann:

    Changing such things is so very difficult, so impossibly difficult, so you stay put, where you are because it is less difficult, more practiced- and that is the key: you are practiced at not standing up for yourself so it is easier. It is causing you PAIN but the idea of standing up for yourself causes you FEAR and…

    Pain is easier to endure than fear. Fear is the most powerful emotion I know.

    So, you are likely to remain in pain so to not face your fear.

    anita

    September 26, 2015 at 10:13 am #84155
    Sann
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    Thank you for your reply.
    At first, i wonder if you were being sarcastic: that i will not manage to change it because i’m not brave enough to face the fear with new behavior. But that is me (=my habit), i always think that people are making fun of me and putting me down.
    The way that i know you here on this forum, i don’t think that that intention even enters your mind.
    I think you just want to point out to me, what it is about.

    And to be honest, sometimes i wonder, where you got all that insight. I know you’ve gone through a lot of processes and work yourself, but i am impressed that you know to give so many insights in people’s situations. To me it seems that you have come very far with that.

    Yes, fear…
    And when i look, what am i afraid of?
    1. losing my job – which i don’t think is a realistic fear. And if so, it would be sad, cause i like it there and it’s getting comfortable, but ok, i would find an other job, and losing my job because i tried to stand up for myself, would be a win i think.
    2. Guilt feelings. These are much worse, and much harder to tackle.
    (3. I don’t know – perhaps a hurt ego)
    (4. Just the unpredictableness. Not knowing if she’s gonna shout even more at me, when i try to say something)

    Anyway. Today i went to the boss after work. It was not the plan. But she let me do many things myself, and started to do our main work immediately (cleaning the rooms in the hotel). So i started much later, because i had to clean other things and she didn’t bother helping me. So she does the half of the rooms and then heads of. Which means that i can tidy some of her mess afterwards because she never does that.
    That is ok for me, we get paid by the hour.
    But i am afraid since a while of how it will look for the boss: she often finishes earlier than me (she also chooses the easiest rooms, the ones where people are staying, or where she can, the ones that have only one bed instead of 2), and i am afraid that the bosses are going to think that i am much slower. So i told him, i am starting to think that i have to defend myself, and told him she does 5 rooms and heads off. He explained me that i am there longer than her, so i am the senior in relation to her, so that they like to give me more hours. That is nice. I told him i am afraid that they will think that i am slow or lazy – in the beginning i worked there i was very slow, but i’m much better now. He assured me that i don’t have to be afraid of that, that they don’t think that.
    Of course i feel terrified now.

    Anyway, i didn’t tell him anything about her behavior towards me, which is getting worse everyday now.
    I only said that part, and it reassured me a bit, that he told me no need to worry.
    So i try to be compassionate with myself, i didn’t *really* stand up for myself, but it was a little step towards showing and expressing something towards my boss what is bothering me.

    Hopefully it gives me a bit more confidence to put up with her behavior, which i’m slowly starting to call bullying.
    Perhaps i will get there one day.

    September 26, 2015 at 10:28 am #84158
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Sann:

    Thank you and indeed it did not enter my mind to try to hurt you in any way when I wrote the last post to you or any of the others. I expressed there my appreciation to how powerful fear is. I am very well acquainted with fear. I felt it this very morning: a cold, freezing sensations, painful here and there, across my chest, very cold and enduring, staying there on and on. Normally I’d go to my head and think scary thoughts but I stayed with the body (recommended in therapy). Instead of thinking I paid attention to how it feels in the body.

    Fear has an incredible paralyzing affect and again and again I wasn’t able to do a thing when scared, frozen in place. I still couldn’t do certain things scared. Fear is indeed very powerful.

    You wrote above that you told a boss that you are afraid they will think you are slow and lazy and after he told you that this is not what they think, then you felt terrified. You probably think that you introduced the thought they didn’t have- and now have- that you are slow and lazy, correct?

    So there is a voice in you calling you slow and lazy and now you are afraid THEY heard it too?

    This is an exercise in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT): you state a thought: I AM SLOW AND LAZY. Then you write evidence to support this thought and then evidence to refute this thought, like a speech a prosecuting attorney would give and then a defense attorney in a court of law. Then you evaluate both arguments and come to some conclusion…

    Will you try that? You can try it here, if you’d like.
    anita

    September 26, 2015 at 1:18 pm #84168
    Sann
    Participant

    Dear Anita,

    Thank you for your reply.
    I don’t know if i should have written that, about my first reaction.
    But it’s quite positive towards you, because these thoughts in me are so strong, but i didn’t doubt about your intention because i am confident that you wouldn’t think like that. It’s not often that somebody can make me lose this kind of doubt, because they are so obvious kind people.
    Pffff, i don’t know if i’m making it clear what i’m writing.
    I’ll reply to this later, too tired right now.

    September 26, 2015 at 2:27 pm #84175
    jock
    Participant

    Hey Sann
    I can relate to the harassment you receive from your boss. I’m getting too old for disrespect like that and in fact quit a job recently because of it. it seems like people who have some power over you (in unskilled jobs), seem to think it is their right to speak rudely to you. Rudeness is rife in low-skilled jobs. it is like a trade off for being unhappy there for them.

    September 26, 2015 at 7:15 pm #84192
    Anonymous
    Guest

    Dear Sann:

    It is very fine with me that you wrote about your first reaction to my post before last: I like and invite your honesty, anyone’s honesty. There is nothing abusive about honesty- if it is uncomfortable I can handle it. I appreciate it because I am looking for honest feedback, so anytime Sann- you can practice with me, writing to me whatever is on your mind and I will not be rude to you for doing so, not at all. And about the exercise I mentioned- your choice, anytime, really is up to you. Take care, sweet Sann!
    anita

    September 28, 2015 at 4:51 am #84268
    Mike
    Participant

    I have found that sometimes being nice to others is seen by some as being weak, a reason to be taken advantage of. A lot of times us nice know what is going on and we leave feeling like suckers, but we want the others to be big enough to rise to our niceness and reciprocate. Sorry, that isn’t going to happen. Especially in our world of eat or be eaten. Its sad the way our world is, the nice people are always the ones to suffer most while it is those who are the most cutthroat and maybe even evil, at least mean are the ones who prosper (in most cases). Why should nice people suffer for being nice? They shouldn’t.

    Now while I don’t know your coworker, almost always in these types of situations there is a motive. She is trying to undermine you for a reason, is it to feed her ego? Get herself higher in the company? Or move you out? if that is the case then it really is beneficial for YOU to take charge of the situation in a way that not only makes you look professional, but also don’t let it turn into chaos because she is probably counting the times she has “Successfully” given you help and she will may use your handling of the situation against you.
    In the book “Opening the door of your heart” Ajahn Brahm tells a story about a snake who has a bad reputation among the people for being mean, he had no problem biting. As he got older though he wanted to settle down so went to the local temple to learn the ways of Buddhism. He gave up his mean ways and just meditated, he didn’t even hiss anymore. People would walk by with out a reaction from the snake and they thought he was dead or dying. Eventually some kids started throwing rocks at him and he ended up all bruised so he went up to the temple and told the buddhist monk off. The monk saw him coming, [“what happened to you?” The snake exclaimed back, [“Its your fault I knew this meditation, Buddhist stuff was garbage”] The monk shook his head, [I told you not to bite, I didn’t tell you to stop hissing.”] The moral of the story is mean people will beat you up (not always physically, but maybe) if you don’t at least act like you will bite.
    Hope I could help you

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