Passive Aggressive Behaviour

Recently I experienced a situation wherein someone made a negative assumption about my intentions.  It was a trigger.  That trigger point, lead me to speak to someone else about the comment that she made.  It made me try and placate her fear of people and mistrust within herself that she was directing towards me.  It wasn’t very serious, but to an Empath, it can turn your world upside down if you don’t have the tools to manage this. And let’s be clear, this situation didn’t make me do anything, I had a choice. The great thing about responsibility is that we can look at a situation, sit with it, and respond accordingly.

Firstly, boundaries become very important - energetically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically.  So when we are just in the world learning about life, it can definitely be overwhelming and the chaotic patterns that we have can be a further hindrance to seeing things clearly.

This minor incident was enough to sent me into a tail spin for 2 days.  I wasn’t incapacitated but I was a little stung by this comment.  The mental diatribe is “How can this person think I would do this thing intentionally?” Really, it is a waste of a question.  But in the question, there is a narcissistic sense of why me?  Poor me?  It’s the drama quotient.  Really, when we are aware that this is their comment, their lack of understanding or awareness level, their wounding, then it becomes impersonal.  We don’t have to take it on, because it isn’t ours to begin with.  That is why it’s so important to understand your thought processes, our up bringing, our experiences so that we can weed out that which no longer serves us.

Passive Aggressive behaviour only leads to more chaos.  This behaviour is an unempowered way of looking at the situation. It is victim in its nature.  It’s a way of bringing the attention to yourself because of family patterning.  It’s a way to make yourself right. It’s also a negative way to deal with a negative situation.  It only leads to an unhealthy way of being in the light.  You aren’t actually in the light.  You are playing with the dark.  It isn’t up to us to change or teach other people.  When we are silently looking at our own wounding, we can see what other people’s wounding is.  That is the gift of the Empath.  We can pray for their awareness, ask God that they have a more intimate relationship with him/her and that we forgive them for “They know not what they do”.

I have this book and it is called The Psalms, Prayers of Many Moods by Ronald Quillo.  This book has really helped me to turn over those emotions that are not mine, address my own emotions and ask for that person’s growth and connection to God.  Does it happen?  With God all things are possible and I believe my prayers are answered.  I can now see that this isn’t mine.  This is hers.  This was meant to come up so that I could see my reaction to it and what do I need to do to mitigate, if anything.  It also gives me clarity in how to deal with her, or how to respond. It also gives me insight into my patterns, my woundings and my hurt.

When I respond with compassion, love, and vulnerability, it actually works.  It works for me, it works for her and it works….period.  It actually puts you in a state of grace.  It allows for our humanness to come through.  It allows for mistakes, it allows for comments, it allows for compassion.  It allows us to be forgiving, it allows us to be human.

So sometimes human contact can be a lot for us Empaths and just knowing that is a gift that allows us to be still, alone, quiet, introspective and to work out the depth of our gifts and problems that can slightly sting us.

Forgiveness is a big key.  When we can forgive others for not being aware.  For using their words to hurt us (but what is actually happening is they are acting from their wounds), we can then understand others and ourselves.  We can make better choices as to who we want in our lives, and who we don’t want in our lives and set boundaries for those people that are in our lives but may never get it.  Those boundaries being, what you will and will not discuss with them and how to not leave ourselves exposed to those that don’t understand the depths of your emotions.

When you are a feeling Empath, the world can be very overwhelming.  People that don’t want to feel, don’t understand the depth of a feeling Empath, can be especially critical and harsh.  Empaths can get easily weighted down by the world’s heaviness and we really really really need to learn self care, self awareness, self comfort and self nurturing.  When we do this, we can operate in a more balanced way of being.  We can be more ready for the outside world.  We can cope, we can be more resilient, we can be more understanding and we can be more boundaried.  We can learn to say no and how to say no and we can honour our needs, our emotions and our being in all the ways that we are meant to.  It becomes second….actually first nature, when we give our attention to ourselves first.  It is only then that we can manage our outside world that we have taken care of our inside world….FIRST.

So instead of taking the toxic route of passive aggressive behaviour, we can take a more empowered approach in our boundaries, in our words that we say or the thoughts that we share, we can see or know that other people’s wounds are not to be placed on us and we don’t have to take their wounding.  That is up to them to deal with.  This is a perfectly healthy way of keeping your system clean.  What I would say is that is the gift of anger.  We can easily flow with the boundary of anger and it doesn’t have to be out of control, but it can be firm enough in that situation that keeps others from sharing their “stuff” and we don’t have to be dumping grounds for other people’s unresolved issues or lack of taking action.

So if you are an Empath and looking for empowerment, it starts on the inside.  We remove the beliefs, the behaviours, the patterns, the tendencies, and we learn that “no” is a viable answer.  That walking away is an option.  But also listening to ourselves firstly in knowing how to deal with a situation that will help us to set a boundary that will no longer become an issue for you.  When you set those, people will know that they can’t do this or do that with you.  It just happens.  But if you have those people in your life that don’t respect boundaries, then there is another choice that you have to make or not, you are in control, you are always creating, and you are responsible for your own life.  How are you managing your ship?

With the greatest of empathy for your Empathic life.  Do you know the difference? Do you know where your’s stops and ends? Do you know how to take action to set those boundaries? Do you know your patterns of passive aggressiveness and how is it serving you?

Warmly,

Jackie Gutknecht