When life experiences happen, our first tendency is to look at what is happening from outside of us. If something happens that we are uncomfortable with, we look at the person or the situation and think that if that person or situation could change, we would feel better. That is going outside of yourself for how you feel. If we look for change on the outside to make us feel better, we will be sorely disappointed most of the time.
For example, if you have a person in your life that you consider a good friend and she commits to meeting you at an event. The event comes and goes and your friend is nowhere to be found. You get very triggered. If you take that experience outside of yourself, you will project your feelings of anger, anxiety, or fear and go to her to get her to show up differently for you. You may call her and say, “I can’t believe you just no-showed me. You clearly don’t care about our friendship.” And then your future action might be to not be her friend anymore. You are taking this event totally personally.
If you bring the situation inside of yourself, you would look at why you got triggered. Maybe you feel disregarded, not important, or betrayed. If this is the case, then maybe you have an old belief that says, “I’m not important; I can’t trust people; or, I’m not safe in the world.”
Your friend’s actions have nothing to do with you, your importance, or your safety.
If we take the first action and go outside of ourselves to change the other person’s behavior, we are buying into those old beliefs. Instead, we need to go inside and realize that we are important and we are safe in the world, and that just because someone acted poorly doesn’t mean it is about us. Maybe your girlfriend was having a bad day or maybe she is just unconscious. Either way, it’s not about you! This doesn’t excuse their behavior. You may decide that this isn’t a person you want to be in relationship with, but you won’t decide through your upset and trigger. After you look at what’s going on within yourself, then you can make a decision that is good for you.
