Assertiveness - Is it Needed?
I got speaking to someone recently. Someone I knew well from my past.
His condition of worth (or self-label) is one of 'politeness'. He is always ridiculously over-polite. This is an irritating behaviour. It is suffocating. As you are probably aware extremes of any behaviour (the word 'extremes' gives this away) are often unbalanced and harmful in some way, either to the giver or recipient of said behaviour.
Due to being over-polite he tends to not be assertive with his needs. He then feels like his needs aren't being met, and his inner-self feels neglected, and a bit irritated at being ignored at the expense of another (again).
What I noticed with his behaviour is that he has cycles of apparent peacefulness and thoughtfulness followed by passive-aggressive behaviours (sometimes just very angry and resentful). It should be obvious what is happening here. Due to trying to be polite all the time, he suppresses his needs and in turn bottles up more and more anger that his needs aren't being met. Eventually this anger explodes in to the 'angry / resentful' cycle.
He also becomes jealous of others successes, whether that is jealousy of their relationships or financial success. However he doesn't like being jealous so he even tries to suppress that. What happens is that underneath there is a sense of a seething mess of anger and resentment, interspersed with faux-politeness. Not good.
Anyway I got talking to him (in one of his more mellow phases - note he doesn't seem to have bipolar, these cycles are not of a depressive or manic nature) and he said he was reading a book. I asked him what it was about and he seemed a bit embarrassed to tell me the title but did anyway (brave I thought). He said the book was called something like 'How to Look After Number One!'.
I feel this is a great first step to him learning to be assertive. Sometimes he IS assertive, but it often has a huge undertone of anger just beneath the surface which is highly unpleasant to experience.
This seems great right? Well it IS. But I feel he is now setting himself up for a fight against the 'polite' condition of worth and this new 'assertive' way of being.
The reality is that if he started living with full authenticity he wouldn't need the book. He would throw away the self-label of 'politeness' and the new attempt to be 'assertive'. Instead he would sense his unconscious needs and would feel naturally driven to get them met, so he would NATURALLY look after number one, and in a balanced way he would be there for his friends in family in near perfect balance, as he would also feel those needs that relate to friendship and love.
The problem with the new 'assertive' way of being, is that it isn't a refined way of fulfilling his needs in a harmonious balanced way. Instead he will be fighting to sides of himself, namely the 'polite' side and the new 'assertive' side. This will be a fight that will take a lot of energy and will add extra complexities in the mix which will then need 'fixing' with another self-help method!
So again in short, learning to get rid of our conditions of worth (self-lived-labels) and to learn to be fully authentic will get him where he needs to be. As I've previously mentioned that method will be rocky at first but it will settle down in to a more balanced and harmonious way of living later on.
His condition of worth (or self-label) is one of 'politeness'. He is always ridiculously over-polite. This is an irritating behaviour. It is suffocating. As you are probably aware extremes of any behaviour (the word 'extremes' gives this away) are often unbalanced and harmful in some way, either to the giver or recipient of said behaviour.
Due to being over-polite he tends to not be assertive with his needs. He then feels like his needs aren't being met, and his inner-self feels neglected, and a bit irritated at being ignored at the expense of another (again).
What I noticed with his behaviour is that he has cycles of apparent peacefulness and thoughtfulness followed by passive-aggressive behaviours (sometimes just very angry and resentful). It should be obvious what is happening here. Due to trying to be polite all the time, he suppresses his needs and in turn bottles up more and more anger that his needs aren't being met. Eventually this anger explodes in to the 'angry / resentful' cycle.
He also becomes jealous of others successes, whether that is jealousy of their relationships or financial success. However he doesn't like being jealous so he even tries to suppress that. What happens is that underneath there is a sense of a seething mess of anger and resentment, interspersed with faux-politeness. Not good.
Anyway I got talking to him (in one of his more mellow phases - note he doesn't seem to have bipolar, these cycles are not of a depressive or manic nature) and he said he was reading a book. I asked him what it was about and he seemed a bit embarrassed to tell me the title but did anyway (brave I thought). He said the book was called something like 'How to Look After Number One!'.
I feel this is a great first step to him learning to be assertive. Sometimes he IS assertive, but it often has a huge undertone of anger just beneath the surface which is highly unpleasant to experience.
This seems great right? Well it IS. But I feel he is now setting himself up for a fight against the 'polite' condition of worth and this new 'assertive' way of being.
The reality is that if he started living with full authenticity he wouldn't need the book. He would throw away the self-label of 'politeness' and the new attempt to be 'assertive'. Instead he would sense his unconscious needs and would feel naturally driven to get them met, so he would NATURALLY look after number one, and in a balanced way he would be there for his friends in family in near perfect balance, as he would also feel those needs that relate to friendship and love.
The problem with the new 'assertive' way of being, is that it isn't a refined way of fulfilling his needs in a harmonious balanced way. Instead he will be fighting to sides of himself, namely the 'polite' side and the new 'assertive' side. This will be a fight that will take a lot of energy and will add extra complexities in the mix which will then need 'fixing' with another self-help method!
So again in short, learning to get rid of our conditions of worth (self-lived-labels) and to learn to be fully authentic will get him where he needs to be. As I've previously mentioned that method will be rocky at first but it will settle down in to a more balanced and harmonious way of living later on.
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