This content was created by Connor Beaton. This content was uploaded by Connor Beaton. This is a YouTube video titled "Do You Expect Others To Change So You Feel Better" featuring Connor Beaton discussing the psychological tendency to project desired changes onto others in relationships and the importance of self-awareness and responsibility. The content was created on January 22, 2020.
One of the second sort of pillars of why we don't change. We don't change because we expect other people to change so that we can feel better.
Right? And this is the biggest problem in relationships is that we project onto others the change that we wish we could see in ourselves. It's like, oh, you suck. Right? I did that in my relationship too, right? That's what led me to infidelity. The, you know, whatever. A decade ago, however long it was, it was exactly that I rationalized wanting the other person to change to the degree where it was like, okay.
This is now the thing that is going to give me permission, right? Because we rationalize to a certain degree where we have permission to go and do something that's out of integrity, right? We rationalize to a certain degree where we give ourselves permission to go and do something that we know is going to leave us feeling a sense of toxic shame later or a sense of disappointment, right? Like, how many times have you guys felt sad or angry or upset and rationalized drinking, smoking weed or jerking off and watching porn?
Countless times, probably. Probably all the time. But that's what happens is the rational mind kicks in and it's like, you should go fucking jerk off. I don't want to feel that. I don't want to be present to this. I just want to numb out. Yep, cool. That sounds great. Good job. Rational mind and the intuition is like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We know how to deal with this differently, right? We know how to deal with this differently. Like, maybe sit and meditate, maybe sit and breathe. Maybe sit and ask yourself, why is the rational mind trying to convince me of this? What's going on?
Does that land?
I think I would summarize that by saying, I'm sure you guys have heard this before, but hopefully it lands a little bit more deep or deeply. Not too sure how to say that. For some reason, there's a great saying, let me just pull it together here. We see the world not as it is, but we see the world as we are.
So we project ourselves onto the world and then hope that the world will change so that we feel better about it rather than taking full ownership and responsibility.
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