Jasper had been worried about money for about three years. Since his partner Ruth had become ill and unable to work, things had been tight. At first, they saw it as a sort of a challenge – they swapped energy providers and switched to own brand products at the supermarket and celebrated the savings they had made. They rented a cottage in the UK rather than going on holiday abroad. They cancelled their gym memberships and walked their dog Benjamin a lot more. They dipped into their savings pot because that’s what savings were for, right?
The last six months had felt bleak though. It was no longer a game. Any holidays at all were a distant memory, the savings fund had dried up and they never put the heating on despite freezing temperatures. They were defaulting on their mortgage payments and, to make matters worse, Ruth’s health was declining fast. Jasper couldn’t see any possible happy ending – he stood to lose his partner and his home and he felt desperate.
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Karen had been overjoyed when she got the job four months ago. It was a significant promotion for her and she loved the company she worked for, the position itself, which saw her having to be creative and innovative, and most of all she liked the team she was working with.
Well, all except one person. Since she had arrived, Karen had made a big effort to befriend her colleagues by chatting with them at work and socialising with them as much as possible after hours but Jasper seemed to resist all her attempts to strike up conversation. Every time Karen tried to engage with him, either by asking him opinion on a work related matter or just offering him a cup of coffee, she was met with unsmiling eyes and a polite but very brief answer to her question and nothing more. Jasper seemed to almost be going out of his way to avoid Karen and never joined in with the social activities when she was there.
Jasper’s reactions bothered Karen and she spent a lot of time worrying that maybe she had done something wrong or said something to annoy him. She just couldn’t shake the idea that it was something to do with her – maybe Jasper thought she wasn’t up to the job? These concerns were starting to make Karen doubt her abilities and question her new role in the company.
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When people that we come across are distant, abrasive or even aggressive, it’s very normal to put up our defences and go to War with them. Depending on what sort of person we are, these reactions can be self-questioning, aggressive, or judgemental (we use a framework called the ‘5 Shades of Red’ to better understand this on our War to Peace workshop). Whichever Shade of Red we go to, our reactions invariably only make the situation worse for ourselves and the person we are at War with, even if we try to hide how we’re feeling.
In the situation above, Karen has a very self-critical reaction to Jasper’s behaviour, which makes her unhappy and question her ability to do the very job she was overjoyed about just a few months before.
Another person in Karen’s position may have also gone into the Red but reacted by complaining about Jasper to the other members of the team, in an attempt to gather allies and make themselves feel somehow ‘more right’ about their difficult colleague.
Still others may have confronted Jasper, made disparaging remarks or denigrated him to the boss.
Yet, as we have seen, Jasper’s behaviour has very little to do with Karen and very much to do with the big worries he is carrying around with him.
It’s very easy to take the behaviour of others personally. But what if we stood back and imagined that other person’s apparently abrasive behaviour has nothing whatsoever to do with us?
If Karen had known what was going on with her colleague at home, the chances are that she would treat Jasper (and herself) very differently, which would make her job enjoyable again, and would perhaps also make Jasper’s life a little easier at the same time.
Of course, we can’t always know other people’s stories and pains, but we can stop ourselves from making them up – and we can definitely learn how to stop reacting to their behaviour.
Over to you
- What might happen if you decided that the behaviour or attitude of a person you’re finding difficult to deal with has absolutely nothing to do with you or anything you have done?
- How might that new perspective benefit you? How might it benefit them?
- What has been your own ‘Shade of Red’ in conflict situations? How do you tend to react when someone is abrasive or ignores you?
Could you, or someone you know, benefit from War to Peace®?
If you, or someone you know, could benefit from learning more about how to remain effective and untriggered at work and at home, consider War to Peace®. These workshops can be held in your workplace and away from it. Spaces for our next public course that anyone may attend can be booked here:
photo credit: Bound to Ignite via photopin (license)
Love this post and the concept of the ‘5 Shades of Red’ as a means of understanding our ‘go to’ ways of reacting to other’s behaviour.
I also find that sometimes those reactions are triggered by something about the person or their behaviour that reminds us (not consciously) of someone else or of some event that happened a long time ago, and part of us has been on alert ever since trying to avoid a repeat of the situation, trying to protect us from ever having to feel those feelings again.
Love what you have written Linda!
Whenever people ask me “why should I do the work of being at Peace when everyone knows that THEY are the problem?” – my answer is always the same: “Who is suffering?”
The whole time we expect or hope someone else to change so that we can be happy, we are the ones who are suffering – we’re the one whose minds keep whirring and keeping us awake at night, the ones who keep being triggered by people and events that remind us of them. The whole time we stay at War with them, we give our power away and feel disempowered.
And yes, the ‘5 Shades of Red’ are a wonderful framework that we share in the workshop for people to see the range of how are warring can look – they are always a bit of an eye-opener! And, even though I’ve been teaching this for 9 years now, they still help me to see how it’s me that’s gone to War – and therefore me who can do something about it.
Thanks again for taking the time to make such a valuable comment.