When People Show You Who They Are, Go With It
When it comes to relationships (of any kind), we tend to make the worst mistake of treating people based on how we wish they were rather than dealing with their true nature — or treating others based on our personality rather than theirs. And as such, we’re stuck to unnecessary engagements and unwarranted friendships.
I used to exercise this poor mentality as well. By thinking that everyone is/should be like me; trustworthy, considerate, empathetic, sensitive, emotional, and highly expressive (especially to the ones I love) — and so I followed them as such. I became easily trusting, relaxed, expectant, vulnerable, and always open respectively. Little did I know I’d been setting myself up for unexpected heartaches. I used to wish so much that people understand me, and be the way I wanted them to be so that we could flow well. Simply because I believed it was possible if the tables were turned. This affected many types of my relationships with others, including the romantic type. I presumed niceness and also showing my true characteristics meant I won’t be treated badly. The shocker!
But that’s not how it works. People are the way they are and there’s no influence from somebody else other than them that could change them. The heartache, frustration, uneasiness, and staunch pain in your guts you feel each time this happens can be mitigated if you stopped taking their actions too personally and be yourself.
You are the way you are, you have your unique experiences which have over time built your person. Imagine somebody else taking all of that away from you? You’d feel threatened. You’d feel robbed. Now, that’s how it feels when you expect others to act according to how you are or treat them.
The main issue is not just to do with the expectation part, but more so the acceptance part. The part where you get to understand how a person truly is and work with it. If they show you kindness, they are kind, likewise, if they display a mean-spirited attitude, believe it. If your boss now dislikes you, that’s what it is. If your parents love you conditionally, that’s what you have to work with, if your partner gets sick of you these days, that’s the truth. Check the pieces of evidence — emotionally and spiritually, even physically, and you will find.
Stop painting somebody else’s behavior with your way of being. Everybody is not the same as you and not everyone will treat you like you ‘deserve’. It is highly controlling and somewhat selfish to want others to be the way you want them to be. You are equally being in denial because the shock from their behavior is too much for your brain to process and your body to deal with. And that’s very fine. But it’s time to wake up, stop receiving the abuse and neglect, and fight for what you truly deserve — peace of mind, happiness, the goodness of life — in all ramifications.
Self-awareness, and lack of it, from the pain and suffering, are major ways you could detect when somebody’s behavior isn’t aligning with whom you thought they were.
How do you work with it?
My mindset has always been to stay and work through things when they are not going according to plan. This borrowed mindset from how I was raised made me stick through (mostly thin) and thick anomalous relationships — dealing with people and things my spirit would automatically reject in the first place. If this omen works for you, whereby you sit with insidious experiences and fight hard to change them, then that’s the pact you’ve made.
But another way could be walking away, saying NO, waving your head, and rejecting what is not meant for you. And if you’re spiritual enough, casting and binding it. Of course, these gestures cannot only be achieved by mere talking, it requires you to walk out literally, and have difficult conversations that may put an end to the whole thing if need be, anything that takes you away from that situation. For the fact, that your God-given guts tell you it’s a no-no.
Again, don’t continue to believe that you can work through something long dissolved.
For the sake of growth, evolution, positive change, and awesome impact on others you meet in the future, when people show you who they are, work with it. Stop avoiding or enabling their bad behavior by overcompensating with your good side. At some point, what you fight so hard against will reveal itself most unusually. You’d recognize that it was duly served if you’re being honest with yourself. But it does not mitigate the misery, emptiness, and hopelessness you might be feeling at that point. In which case, you’d wish you had absorbed and worked with all the red flags you encountered in the first place.
But there is still hope. People change; from either good to bad or vice-versa. You have to understand that it must be something they are willing to do for themselves — not by you or sometimes not with you. You must accept that truth and learn from it. If it spirals down to suffering from disobeying your intuition, at least you now know better. And you can use that experience and knowledge to teach other people. Like I’m doing right now.
Read the handwriting on the wall. It’s there. You can’t miss it.
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