If you squeeze a lemon, you’ll get lemon juice. If you squeeze an orange, you’ll get orange juice.
If you press a person’s sensitive spots, you will get what exists inside them. The spectrum can be wide—from kindness, understanding, compassion, to anger, aggression, narcissistic episodes, hatred, even violence. Unfortunately, we see such manifestations almost daily, even in circles where we might expect a high level of education.
These types of behaviors are quite evident, easy to identify.
But there are also other, more subtle types.
Here’s an example.
I attended an event where the facilitator asked the audience what they could do to positively impact their own well-being. One participant started rambling about how their manager needed to change. As if the key to that person’s well-being lay outside of themselves.
Of course, others can influence us, for better or worse.
Everyone can have good days and bad days, pressures, goals, complicated situations at home or at work.
But we are in motion. When we are assertive, we learn to manage our relationships with others, we trust ourselves, in what we know and what we can do—we stop staying in the wrong relationships.
We cannot change anyone else but ourselves.
It helps to introspect, to know ourselves as well as possible, to ask for feedback, to see what brings us joy, what annoys us, what brings out the worst in us, just as it helps in this process to adjust our behavior toward others.
The key to our own well-being lies within us—maybe we’ve misplaced it, maybe it’s hard to look for it during certain times. But it’s within us, not with the manager, not with the colleagues, not with anyone else. And if it’s not easy to find, then it’s good to seek professional help.
A good therapist can support us, a good mentor or coach can help us stay balanced, rediscover the light within us, set boundaries, trust ourselves, and allow ourselves to grow wings again.