Standing up for yourself can hurt other people’s feelings

Alexis Rae Baker

 Dear Lexis,

 People always tell me that I should stand up for myself more, but whenever I try to do that, people say I’m being mean. I don’t know what to do; I can’t seem to win here. Any advice would be appreciated.

 Thanks,

           ~ Standing in Lacey

Dear Standing,

Learning to stick up for yourself can be a difficult and confusing journey. I’ve been blessed in that department, but even I find that there are still things to learn. I’ve also been surrounded by people not as blessed in this department, so you’re in good company.

The interesting thing about standing up for yourself that everyone should keep at the forefront of their mind is that, ultimately, you stand up for yourself for the sake of those around you. When you are unable to express the hurt that you take on, resentment builds within you. Resentment over time leads to negative interactions, lost friendships, and bitterness that’s hard to overcome. So, even though it feels like you’re doing something selfish, standing up for yourself is merely a way to ensure that you can present your best self to others every day.

That being said, when it comes to learning to stand up for yourself, there are several stages of development that you must go through, and they are not all pleasant.

Stage 1 of learning to stick up for yourself is the Fight Phase.

You’ve probably heard of the fight-or-flight response. The interesting thing about this is that we all react differently based on the circumstance. When facing a novel threat,though, you progress through three reactions. Freeze, flight, and then fight.

In challenging situations, especially when regarding hurtful words, we all have our trained responses, usually developed in childhood. Women, in particular, tend to freeze or run because we are highly attuned to emotion and hate it when we hurt someone’s feelings.

And make no mistake, standing up for yourself can hurt other people’s feelings (even if only because they now realize that they hurt yours).

Standing up for yourself means transitioning from freeze or flight, to fight. You have to move from taking the hit, holding onto it, and heading home to lick your metaphorical wounds. Instead, you have to learn how to express your hurt and that generally means yelling hurtful things back at the person who hurt you.

With any luck, you’ll be able to translate out of this phase quickly, but give yourself grace as you may be expressing years of built-up anger and that could take some time.

Stage 2

Eventually, you will reach stage 2 though, which is Reserving Judgment for later processing.

This has been my point of development for a long time, and while I still revert to Stage 1 at times, this is primarily how I react to hurt now.

You reach a point where you realize you’re hurting people unnecessarily and want to stop. You also begin to understand that the person on the other side of the fight is feeling just as attacked as you or, that they are genuinely interested in helping you.

It’s not an easy realization, but once you reach this point you learn to take the punches in relative silence, leave the situation and question your reactions, and then return to express your hurt once the initial emotions have died down.

This phase is not always easy. I certainly wind up in tears much more often with this method, but it is a step up as it offers you the chance to effect change to repair a damaged relationship. Depending on the pre-established relationship, this method will be harder with some relationships than with others. From here too, you can transition to Stage 3.

Stage 3

This is where you learn how to express your hurt in the moment without hurting the other person in turn.

By far the hardest phase in my experience, this is the phase where you are completely vulnerable even in the face of an attack. Instead of reacting in anger, you can react from the place of hurt that underlies anger.

This is the scenario where someone can say something and you put a hand to your chest, flinch, and say “ouch, that really hurt”.

It may seem silly, but this stage of development allows you to fix the potential relationship damage before it even has a chance to occur. So, ultimately, for the sake of your relationships, this is the phase you want to get to.

This phase does risk further pain, which is why it’s so difficult to get to, and it requires an extreme level of honesty and self-knowledge. Keep working at it though, and you’ll get there.

Hope this helps clear things up and helps you progress through this journey,

~ Lexis

Lexis is Alexis Rae Baker. She writes from her home in Olympia.   Got a question about life, relationships, spirit?  Visit her at lexisrae.com or write to Lexis at  Lexis@theJOLTnews.com