The ‘Outer Justice’ System
“No-one can hurt you without your permission”, Mahatma Ghandi
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent,” Eleanor Roosevelt
I have witnessed thousands of cases as to why, how, and when relationships break down. Here I share with you one of the insights I gained -that the quality of your relationships with others is linked to the measure by which you self-care and by which you allow yourself to be hurt and unfairly treated, by others.
(1) How do you talk to / treat yourself? Are you highly critical of yourself and do you withdraw from others when upset? Or are you gentle with yourself and take time to self-care such as eat well, sleep enough hours, exercise, socialise, and so on?
(2) In what ways do you allow yourself to be hurt, or unfairly treated, by others; do you practice healthy boundaries, or do you find yourself saying ‘yes’ when you really mean ‘no’? Does saying ‘yes’ to others mean saying ‘no’ to yourself?
(3) What is the extent to which you take others’ words and treatment of you as your truth and your identity, wrapping yourself in another layer of false Self?
Where you draw your boundary line in all the above circumstances is in my experience proportionate to the level of health, happiness, and success you will experience in yourself and in your significant relationships with others.
What harm you do to yourself (self-judgment, self-criticism, and negative/ catastrophic thinking), is your business and your responsibility to heal. Only you have the power to change these damaging thoughts (or at least invest less time/ energy in them). You can do so by observing your thoughts through self-reflection, meditation, and mindfulness practices [see Client Well-being].
If you find yourself spending a lot of time dwelling on negative thoughts, the people you may attract into your life experience may have a similar mind-set; a question of like attracts like. Then there will be two of you locked into mentally and emotionally destructive mind-sets, encouraging the other into a journey downward spiralling. The quality of this kind of relationship will likely be very poor, and conflict levels are likely to be high. This consequently leads to attracting negative life experiences, such as conflict, relationship breakdowns and legal problems.
What do you find acceptable or unacceptable behaviour towards you? What are your ‘tolerance’ levels? For example, if someone judges, criticises, and speaks negatively to or about you or others, how do you respond? The more common, day-to-day, toxic relationships and negative experiences might include idle gossip, passive aggressive temperaments, inappropriate ‘jokes’, taunts and envious put downs, which likely come from others’ deep-rooted insecurities. If we allow these negative emotions (energies) in, these tend ultimately to drain us of our inner battery and deplete us of our much-needed energy supplies to keep us in well-being and get us through our day-to-day tasks.
Pushing back the boundary lines to a place where you safeguard your self-respect, dignity, and self-worth, is essential to building and maintaining strong mental health and creating strong bonds and healthy relationships with others. Why not start by practicing saying ‘no’ when you mean it; responding to abusive language or comment by saying, ‘That is enough’ and walking away from toxic people and environments. Communication is key and with gentle non-judgment you can also convey to others what behaviour you find acceptable and what you will not engage in/ with.
If instead of pushing back, you allow others’ words and actions to carry meaning in your life, again your health and happiness levels will be compromised, and relationships with others can become problematic. How many of us get tied up into mental and emotional knots, obsessing (that is, rehearsing the unfairness of it all, to yourself and possibly others, over and over) as to why he said this, or she did that, or didn’t do this, or that, ruminating about the injustice of it all? By cutting these energy chords that suck our life force, we become lighter and have a much higher probability of relishing peace of mind and heart.
If we adopt other people’s negative projections on us as our new truth about ourselves, the danger is that we may create a victim role for ourselves. For example, if someone has the habit of telling you, ‘You are stupid’, you may end up believing that you are, when in fact ‘being stupid’ may in that circumstance be one of that person’s deep-seated insecurities they are projecting outwardly i.e have absolutely nothing to do with you!
Awakening to your accountability to safeguard your own mental health and well-being by adopting self-reflective practices and actioning more positive habits to thrive, is crucial if you want to experience a ‘just’ world around you. You can only experience the balance of justice within when you do justice starting with you being just and fair with yourself; by keeping healthy boundaries by managing the way others treat and deal with you; and by discerning between the false ideas and identities about who you are which you may adopt from others’ projections, and instead connect with the essence of who you truly are. Only from the true you, the true Self, will you be able to create and sustain authentic and healthy relationships with others, raising your quality of life experiences.
Affirmation: Life only has the meaning I give to it
Related Blog: The Inner Justice System