Читать книгу 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do - Amy Morin, Amy Morin - Страница 21

Lauren allowed her mother-in-law to control what sort of an evening she was going to have. If Jackie showed up, Lauren felt angry and bitter about the fact that she wasn’t getting to spend quality time with her children. On the days Jackie didn’t come to her home, Lauren felt much more relaxed. She allowed Jackie’s behavior to interfere with her relationship with her children, as well as her marriage.

Instead of spending her spare time talking to her husband and her friends about enjoyable subjects, she wasted her energy complaining about Jackie. She even found herself sometimes volunteering to work late because she wasn’t excited about going home when she knew Jackie was going to be there. The longer she gave her power to Jackie, the more helpless she became about fixing it.

There are many problems with giving away your power:

• You depend on others to regulate your feelings. When you give away your power, you become completely dependent upon other people and external circumstances to regulate your emotions. Life often becomes like a roller coaster—when things are going well, you’ll feel good; but when your circumstances change, your thoughts, feelings, and behavior will shift.

• You let other people define your self-worth. If you give others the power to determine your self-worth, you’ll never feel worthy enough. You’ll only be as good as someone else’s opinion of you and you will never be able to receive enough praise or positive feedback to meet your needs if you depend on others to feel good about yourself.

• You avoid addressing the real problem. Giving away your power lends itself to helplessness. Rather than focus on what you can do to improve the situation, you’ll find an excuse to justify your problems.

• You become a victim of your circumstances. You’ll become a passenger in your own life rather than a driver. You’ll say other people make you feel bad or force you to behave in a manner you don’t like. You’ll blame others instead of accepting responsibility for your choices.

• You become highly sensitive to criticism. You’ll lack the ability to evaluate criticism. Instead, you’ll take anything anyone says to heart. You’ll give much more power to other people’s words than those words deserve.

• You lose sight of your goals. You won’t be able to build the kind of life you want when you allow other people to be in control of your goals. You can’t work toward your goals successfully when you give other people the power to get in your way and interfere with your progress.

• You ruin relationships. If you don’t speak up when people hurt your feelings or you allow them to infringe on your life in an unwelcomed manner, you’ll likely grow resentful toward them.