How to effectively respond to a “jerk”!

Once upon a time, I met a very special person. He was so intelligent, loving and kind. He would show up time after time, expressed his fondness and admiration often and much, went out of his way to be supportive in good times and bad, was accountable for his own actions and made promises he would be here for me in this life and the next.

Except, when he experienced negative emotions: The story would suddenly change, as did his behavior!

One of the most destructive relational patterns of behavior involves behaving in an incongruent manner, changing our stance towards another from one moment to the next.

The psychology dictionary, defines incongruence as an inconsistent state of behavior, described as inconsistency between the goals, values, and attitudes projected and the actual behavior observed.

We tend to define someone who behaves in an inconsistent manner as a “jerk”!

Have you considered that anyone who employs unhealthy relational patterns just does not know how to regulate their emotions and simply has been accustomed to blaming (or punishing) others for their very own negative feelings?

A person who contradicts themselves, by their words and actions probably has significant attachment injuries. They most likely have a hard time letting go of the past and do not have experiences that involve the beauty of healthy relational patterns, or know how to soothe themselves in a healthy way when fears show up internally.

If you too have someone in your life that tells you one moment that you are the most important person in their life and then (when they are upset about something) they exclaim that your relationship has no value to them, do not despair!

Although the obvious stance against unhealthy behaviors is to walk away, there are circumstances where you may not have a choice.

Here are the most effective ways I have been able to effectively address another’s inability to relate to me in a healthy way, when they are incongruent with me:

  1. Ask powerful questions

Point out the inconsistency head on. If someone tells you how much they value you and then you find out you were excluded from an important event in their life, simply point out the contradiction and ask them to tell you more about it. Don’t allow your self to get emotionally involved or take the contradiction personally. New insights from neuroscience, reveal that people that were raised by parents that were not attuned to them, (or even worst, were raised by parents with mental illness or substance abuse), have significant issues with nervous system regulation and deficits in parts of their brain that are associated with relational abilities.

Therefore when our fellow human beings bearing attachment injuries feel the sweetness of connection and intimacy, often times without cognitive awareness they will employ “deactivating strategies” to rupture connection.

Asking questions, without being emotionally charged, breaks the spell of a deactivating strategy and may be the only way to awaken someone from a state, that quite frankly although has become automated, causes them a lot of trouble.

  1. Seek first to understand and then to be understood

Power is the ability to do something effectively.

As describe in Stephen Coveys “7 habits of highly effective people”, seeking to understand and be understood is a fail proof strategy, even if you are dealing with someone that has not yet learned how to be effective.

Explaining with love and kindness the tremendous energy drain that any nervous system uses up to reconcile differences in reality, may be a perspective that they have not come across before. Let’s face it, if someone frequently employs contradictory behaviors as a way of relating to others, not many will stay by their side, let alone invest any energy to understand a behavior that hurts. If anything can provide compelling evidence of the power we all have for positive change, this is it!

  1. Role model emotional intelligence.

It’s very easy to simply get mad at someone who makes the most wonderful promises and when we challenge them for not delivering, they say: “I don’t know what you a re talking about”. Speaking emotional language with someone and the impact their actions have on us, can often times trigger feelings of empathy even in people with reported structural deficits in the anterior insula region of their brain. (Brain region involved in healthy development of empathy.)

After all, emotional intelligence is nothing other than making intelligence use of our emotions.

By role modeling emotional intelligence, we have a much better chance of getting through to someone, but even if we don’t succeed, at least we maintain our internal balance and prevent our selves from getting out of our zen!

  1. Set and enforce healthy boundaries.

We can be kind and loving to all life, but first and foremost we have to be kind and loving toward our self!

Brene Brown, Ph.D., best selling author of a number of books on the power of vulnerability, defines betrayal as “choosing not to connect to someone when the opportunity is there”.

We have to face our fears and practice being assertive, speaking clearly of what we are willing to tolerate and what we will not.

We can work with our internal resources to maintain our inner balance in the face of someone who does not have the ability to relate to us in a healthy way. We can even have empathy for their condition and understand that their behavior reveals that they have established intimacy and vulnerability as a threatening situation and that it’s nothing personal.

But at the end of the day, if we employ all the skillful and effective techniques and we are still not able to see accountability from the person that confuses us with contradictions, we may not have many options left.

The healthiest and most effective approach may be to love them and leave them.

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