Caring For You
It happens that many of us put others’ needs ahead of ourselves in many contexts – including when it comes to our interpersonal conflicts. We may tend to accommodate what the other person wants and essentially, ignore what is important to us – sometimes consciously, sometimes not. We do this for many reasons, such as to avoid dissension, to please, or to be liked. Other reasons may have to do with fears – about being hurt and hurting the other person, or about things not getting resolved indefinitely, or about possible loss of the relationship and so on.
What happens when we accommodate others’ perceived needs – besides putting ours aside – is we do not show that we care for ourselves, such as our hopes and interests and expectations. Rather, we may be perceived and perceive ourselves as self-sacrificing in negative ways. We lose track of what nurtures us and our rightful place in the world. That is, we deny ourselves the right and opportunity to assert and stand up for what we know is important to us. We are not caring or taking care of ourselves at these times.
If you tend to accommodate others in conflict and the above resonates for you, take a look at this week’s Conflict Mastery Quest(ions):
- What is a dispute about in which you are accommodating the other person?
- How are you accommodating (did you accommodate) her or him?
- What reasons are you doing so (did you do so)?
- What do (did) you prefer to say but hesitate(d) to?
- What really stops (stopped) you from saying what you want(ed) to?
- How did you not take care of you by accommodating the other person?
- What else are you losing (did you lose) about who you are by accommodating her or him?
- Under what circumstances are you most likely to do what the other person wants rather than what you want?
- How much do you want to change a tendency to accommodate others on a scale of 1 to 10 – 1 being not at all, 10 being very much?
- What do you want to do differently to be less accommodating, if you rated your desire to change more than 1 point?
- What else occurs to you as you consider these questions?
- What insights do you have?
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