The relationship we have with ourselves sets the tone we have with others and is the manner in which we conduct ourselves. We don’t look at how we are, or how our past shapes us. Instead, we base our relationships on our experiences and look outside of ourselves for blame.
The Neglected go on to Neglect
Where we have been neglected, we can go on to unconsciously neglect others without understanding that's what we're doing. When we have been abused, we may continue to abuse others. How we initially set the tone, is how we will continue to set the tone. We should change our unconscious thinking, if we want to change our relationships.
What Relationships Should Include
All relationships should include, respect patience and tolerance. If you let a person get away with treating you less than you deserve, their treatment of you will continue. As we show respect, others need to also.
Set Personal Boundaries
We should set personal boundaries that help identify reasonable and permissible ways for others to behave towards us and how we respond when someone oversteps the mark. It's sad that the tone set in relationships is often below what it should be. We only have to look out into the world, through the media to understand. But in any case, we should want to set the bar higher.
This was the discussion I was having with a friend as to how it is that we allow others to treat us so poorly, when we deserve so much better.
I have always allowed myself to be treated poorly in relationships from the beginning, so it's no wonder that I kept ending up in the same type of relationships, just with different people.
It has taken me a long time to realize that people were treating me the way I was treating myself, without realizing it. This is something that I can definitely change since I don't have to tolerate being treated like a retarded slave, like I was raised to believe.
I can actually let people know that it isn't okay for me to be treated that way, rather than just putting up with it like I always did.
Thanks Randy. It's not something we consciously do, it's all done on an unconscious level. We tend to emulate what we've seen, through our parents and their parents before them. We accept what we know.
But we can change and we don't have to put up with bad behaviour. We must always set the tone with moral integrity.
We expect others to treat us the way we treat them but we are still surprised when that doesn't happen.
Why is it that our behaviour to one another falls short? We see inhumanity everywhere and yet we have the ability to change it but maybe not the will.
Yes, our behaviour falls short because we don't care enough. Stress isn't an excuse for bad behaviour. Stress is part of life and we must cope.
But where we have inhumanity, we must have humanity and must exchange anger, with empathy, tolerance, patience and compassion.