Tim Arrigo explains how to recognize that when people speak negatively, they're expressing pain, vulnerability, or shame, not attacking you. He covers projection and dysfunctional relationships, and how refusing to engage in confrontation lets you keep your power.
Stop focusing on what people are saying and start focusing on why they're saying it. Because oftentimes we hear what people are saying, but we're not hearing the reasons, the motivations behind why they're saying it. And when we understand someone's motives, we can understand that most of the negative things that people say are actually cries for help, are actually— it's their powerlessness coming through in hurtful words. Because nobody who loves their life is happy and has high self-esteem and feels peace, joy, gratitude. Nobody who's in that state is ever gonna need to speak negatively or harshly to somebody else. How do we not see this? We hear what people say, we immediately take it personal instead of really seeing where it's coming from, that it's coming from a place of pain. And in no way, shape, or form am I justifying or rationalizing anything that anyone says. But what I am saying is that what people say to you is not a reflection of you. What people say to you, how they say it, the reasons they say it, have nothing to do with you. And when we understand this, we stop looking at people's negativity from a place of, oh, they're criticizing me, or, man, they just think everything they do is right, or they just think that they're perfect. And we start realizing that it's the exact opposite. That behavior never lies. That somebody would never have the need to behave that way if that wasn't the case. If they weren't truly dealing with secret feelings of vulnerability, hurt, fear, shame, insecurity, feelings of inadequacy, inferiority. So when people project onto you, understand it has nothing to do with you. Now, there might be something that you've done that might have antagonized them in some type of way because they took it personal and they reacted. But you don't need to feed someone's ego by getting in an argument with them, taking what they've done personally, allowing that to define who you are, and and then engaging in dysfunction with them. Remember, in order to have a dysfunctional relationship, you have to be dysfunctional. Doesn't matter which party is mainly at fault. You have to be dysfunctional to be in a dysfunctional relationship. And your power move, when you reclaim your power and you activate your new identity, is when you stop engaging in dysfunction because you realize that you don't have to.
