“As soon as you concern yourself with the “good” and “bad” of your fellows, you create an opening in your heart for maliciousness to enter. Testing, competing with, and criticizing others weaken and defeat you”……Morihei Ueshiba
We live in a complex world with over 6 billion other people, many of whom see things, value things and do things very differently from you. If others do things that upset us, it is natural to tell ourselves they are “stupid,” “wrong,” “bad,” “crazy,” or to make other judgments about them which may or may not be true or accurate.
A better way to talk to yourself is to remember that perhaps they are not 100% of the problem. Remind yourself that, as they say, it takes two to tango. That is, upsetting anger occurs as a result both of what they do and how you react or respond to it. Someone else may see the exact same behavior exhibited by the person upsetting you, but yet not become angry or bothered by it.
No offense, but in some situations you may be part of the problem. If so, perhaps you need to develop more tolerance, empathy, or understanding. When someone does something that upsets you, another way to interpret your being upset with them is that you lack coping skills at that moment to successfully deal with the situation.
Rather than angrily blaming the other for their behavior, focus instead on developing personal skills to better cope with it. For instance, have a teacher you don’t like who irritates you? Rather an becoming angry or refusing to learn in that class, ask yourself how you can learn to better cope with him or her. Trust that this may be a growth experience that will help you learn to better cope with difficult people in your future.
