It’s Not About Me

If you haven’t already figured out the pattern, Tuesday is psychology day. Mostly cause I have my theories of personality class today at 10am and the teacher always leaves me with many thoughts.

I decided that one of the most important tools to have in a relationship is the “it’s not about me” thought process. This doesn’t only apply to romantic relationships. It works with parent-child, friend-friend, worker-boss or any other scenario you can imagine.

Here’s how it works: while the opposite party is reaming you a new ass for having failed at such and such, you mentally repeat the words “it’s not about me” over and over again. After a while, it becomes easy to do and easy to believe.

The thing is, in most cases, it’s not about you. Think of the times you yell at someone. Are you really yelling at that person cause they did something bad? I believe we tend to yell at the person who we think will let us. If I’m really pissed off one day at work, I come home and yell at Jake over a set of dishes. It’s not because the dishes are so important but I need to get this anger out of my system and I know Jake will let me vent and get it over with.

Same thing at work. Your coward boss yells at you cause he can’t yell at his boss. Your mom screams over something stupid cause she was really stressed or worried about something totally different and hopefully something much more legitimate.

Obviously, you can now use this knowledge to make sure you never yell at an undeserved person. (Not that anyone deserves being yelled at, it accomplishes nothing. If you need to get it out of your system, it’s often a better idea to yell at the walls or sing loudly or do something physical, like exercise.) Next time you make a mountain out of something tiny, try and think of the repressed root of your anger and work on resolving that instead of creating more unnecessary problems.

As for when you’re being yelled at, try the “it’s not about me” technique and when things are calm, remind your loved one or your friend or your boss that no one has the right to yell at another human being.

Ok, done being psychologist for this week.

Previously? Disappearing Act.