The Strength To Walk Away

How do you deal with potentially explosive situations? Where tempers are beginning to flare, tensions are steadily escalating, and sufficient buttons have been pushed?

What happens with many people is that they remain in the situation, either hoping to talk things over calmly or to make their point emphatically clear. But this can only work if the other party is willing to collaborate. But sometimes, the other party can be willfully difficult. They can be persons who get off on pushing your hot buttons.

What happens then? A likely scenario is that like a fish to the bait, you continue to engage in the conversation, the other party continues to gall you, and *snap!*, the last straw breaks your back. At this point, when self-control is lost, you may utter threats, make scathing remarks, or throw pot-shots that you immediately regret.

In a social setting, you may end up looking rash and petty. In a business or corporate setting, you may appear to be antagonistic and hot-tempered. In a personal context, you may end up really hurting a loved one. In the long term, angry outbursts will sour any relationship.

If you find yourself quite unintentionally getting yourself into potentially-explosive situations, how can you avoid actually exploding?

Well, you can walk away.

A seemingly simple thing to do, but something that can be extremely difficult to do in practice, especially when you feel you've been grossly misunderstood. You'd want to stake it out and explain yourself until the other person gets it, right?

That's what keeps you there. That's what makes you reiterate your arguments again and again until they begin to sound meaningless. In these instances, you're at the losing end; it's simply more sensible to walk away.

Do you have the power to walk away from potentially-explosive situations? Are you able to postpone defending yourself to another more appropriate time? Can you conserve your cool and avoid saying or doing something you'll regret later?

Because when you care too much about winning in such situations, you lose. You're the one who feels the pressure, you're the one who seems antagonistic and defensive. It will be hard initially, but practice walking away and you'll understand just how powerful it can be in defusing explosive situations and even persuade others to see things your way.

Knowing Your Self Worth (Part 3 of 3)

In this part, let's continue to look at some key characteristics or disposition of people with a high level of self-worthiness.

Some say you can't escape worry; it's a undeniable fact of life. If you think something bad is going to happen, why should you be having a great time?

And to a certain extent I agree... I mean, if you feel the tremors of an earthquake coming on, you really wouldn't want to sit on the porcelain throne with a good book, if you know what I mean. You'd be worried sick, probably even panicking. And this kind of worry might even save your life, because you'd be driven to seek some safety or rescue.

But though worry can be useful in certain contexts, in most day-to-day situations, it's more of a bane than a boon. Just think of the things you usually worry about and you'll realise that for many of them, there's simply nothing you can do. And those things you can realistically do something about, you're so petrified with worry that you can't think of any solution or even have the motivation to do anything about them.

Worry can be a driving force, but for most of us, most of the time, it's simply a handicap. Unless you feel you can realistically do something about something you're worrying about, and will do it, there is simply no sense in worrying. Most of our worries relate to trivial problems anyway, like "will people like me at the party?" or things we can do nothing about, like aging. That's why one of the main habits of self-worthy people is the lack of worrying. "Care-free", not "care-less" is the watchword.

A self-worthy person is also able to appreciate most things around him. He is constantly mindful of the fact that Life itself is a wonder; that it's wondrous and worth being thankful for that he can move, can touch, can taste, can laugh, can see clearly with spectacles, lenses or laser treatment, can read a book, kick a ball, dig his toes into the sand, stroke a cat, and transport himself around swiftly in metal boxes that create cool, comfortable atmospheres and emit pleasant sounds from their speakers.

And finally, the hallmark of a self-worthy person is his ability to love people and other living things. He is constantly giving and receiving love. Whether it's planning a good time for someone, sharing his favourite food, or daily picking up someone from work, his mind is filled with thoughts of how to make others happy. And he is able to receive the rewards of this with equal enthusiasm; we all know the joy of giving... sometimes, we should also allow others to experience this joy.

Knowing Your Self Worth (Part 2 of 3)

In the last part, I talked about how a healthy sense of self-worthiness is the fundamental building block of a happy, loving and successful life. In fact, it's the main reason for many of the emotional problems we face today like low confidence, self-loathing, lack of love, worry, fear, doubt and so on. We also talked about how one of the key characteristics of low self-worthiness is the need for other people's approval for your opinions and behaviour. Another one was how some people feel that they do not deserve happiness and therefore accept mistreatment and abuse from others.

Today, let's go through the main clues that hint at a person's high level of self-worthiness. These are characteristics that we would all do well to master.

First, a habit of thinking and acting spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experience. This means that you begin every task with a clean slate. Like an actor on stage, your previous scene has already transpired. Whether or not you stumbled on some words or gave it a lacklustre rendition, it's over. Period. You cannot go back and do the scene again. All you can do is give your next scene your best shot. Thinking about your performance in the last scene only preoccupies your mind with something you can't do a thing about and will likely adversely impact your next scene.

Another characteristic of self-worthiness is the freedom to enjoy each moment, unencumbered by regret or resentment from what's past or fear of what's to come. The past and future are an illusion, as they say. The only "real" moment is Now. If you can't savour the most of it, whatever it is, then you're wasting the moment. And it won't come back. So forget about how you quarrelled with your partner last night, how obnoxious you thought he or she was... today, remember that ultimately, you're in love with each other, you have this beautiful new day to enjoy together, so do it.

A self-worthy person also doesn't judge himself negatively. By "negatively", I mean in a way that is unconstructive and masochistic - that is, consistently saying to yourself "That was a dumb thing to say!" or "That was a stupid thing to do!", "You're so unattractive!" or "You never do anything right!" - you know, making shallow, sweeping statements about yourself without assessing the situation or making a commitment to do better next time. A self-worthy person knows that frequent self-beration gradually breaks down a healthy ego until the brain starts to believe these crippling remarks. The body soon begins to obey what the brain believes in and subconsciously instructs the body to do.

I'll explore more habits of a self-worthy person on the next part.

Knowing Your Self Worth (Part 1 of 3)

How easily is your ego bruised? How often do you shy away from social situations? How doubtful are you when it comes to your own opinions and actions? How satisfied are you with who you are and what you have? How harshly do you judge yourself? How often do you look to others for approval? How much love is in your life? How often do you worry?

Sorry if I overwhelmed you with the barrage of questions, but if your lingering sense is that you are generally unsure of yourself and that daily life, social interaction and relationships feel shallow and stressful for you, then perhaps you should try doing something about your self-worthiness.

If you think your self-worthiness is bed-ridden, then stop focusing on anything else. Almost nothing will work out for you if you don't get your self-worthiness up and running again.

You can never be happy by looking to others to validate your existence or value. The essence of self-worthiness is being true to yourself, no matter what you think others might think. No one else on earth is like you and therefore no one else on earth can know or understand you as well as you can. And regardless of what others may tell you about what's behind the door, only you can walk through it and find out for yourself. No one else can be responsible for you. Therefore, the first step to higher self-worthiness is to get to know yourself as well as you can, and to stop depending on the approval of others to fulfill you.

Some people have the misconception that they must suffer in life. They may not put it quite as simply as I have, but the core of the concept is similar. Somehow, they feel that life is suffering, that they must suffer for someone else's happiness, that misery is an essential part of life that must somehow be endured. Again, they feel this way because they do not think very highly of themselves; they feel they do not deserve to happy, that self-punishment is the only right thing to do, the only way they feel alive. That's why many people continue to allow themselves to suffer oppression, mistreatment, disdain and abuse.

Even though many people might say they want love and happiness; they might even pray for these things, but they do not take any real steps towards improving their situation. They continue to lament and wallow in self-doubt and misery, claiming helplessness when in reality, they're fully equipped to make things better anytime.

Be Responsible

How responsible are you for your life? How much power do you have over how you feel? Do you have the authority to respond successfully to what happens to you, even if it initially seems unfortunate?

How happy and successful we are depends pretty much on how empowered we feel we are to deal with life's twists and turns. Life, like the sea, is unpredictable, with its random tides and pernicious storms, but we don't necessarily have to bobble along helplessly. Whatever the direction of the tide, we can always choose to swim against it.

Claiming responsibility for our own lives is staking our ability to respond actively to the world, it's pledging our ability to do, to influence, to act, to change. It refuses to meekly bear or accept whatever is handed to us. When we don't accept responsibility for how we feel or what happens to us, we feel powerless and afraid. But when we claim that responsibility, we take that power to change our lives for the better.

For example, when you say "He made me upset", you're giving that power over your emotions to someone else. This is also known as blaming. When others perceive this kind of passive thinking in you, they very quickly learn to use that power to keep you under their foot. We often also resort to blaming because we feel helpless to change the situation and try to make ourselves feel better by attributing fault to someone or something else. When we shift the responsibility of how we feel to someone else, we're also trying to guilt that person into somehow compensating us for making us feel bad.

In any case, it's a dangerous power game that eventually isolates you from others and leaves you feeling powerless and empty.

Just think of all the times something made you upset and you thought "This is so annoying!" or "That is so frustrating!". Well, why are you choosing to feel annoyed and frustrated? Yes, choosing, because how we feel at any given moment is our own decision to feel that way. Nothing or no one can upset you if you yourself decide not to be upset.

See if you can catch yourself the next time you entertain a disempowering thought - like "She embarrassed me" or "He gets on my nerves!", "This is so infuriating!" or "That is so worrying!". Try asking yourself why you're allowing yourself to feel these negative and debilitating emotions. Take back control over your mind, over your mental state. Why are you allowing someone or something to make you upset? Train your mind to let it go.