No man is an island, we all need people in order to survive and to lead fulfilling lives. Man is a social creature and has many connections with those around them for meeting his various needs. But many of us struggle with how we relate to and interact with others. For a culture that is so connected virtually, digitally, we are surprisingly disconnected with others.
We may have fights or arguments, feel taken for granted, feel isolated, resentful, unable to resolve conflict, struggle with our expressing our emotions or needs, feel insecure, unsafe, afraid of commitment, or face any other distress that seems to arise out of our relationships. This gives rise to emotional turmoil- resentment, anger, pain, loneliness, anxiety etc. within us which can last for a long time. And long term emotional turmoil is very harmful to our mental and physical health.
Why do we struggle with others?
But why does this happen? Why do we struggle so much in our relationships and why do they impact us so? What we fail to see is that our relationship with others is a reflection of our relationship with ourselves. And our relationship with ourselves is a very distracted and a superficial one most of the times. We don’t do any of the things for ourselves that we complain that we don’t receive from others. We don’t make space for ourselves to experience and process an emotion, instead we choose to distract ourselves with short term pleasures. We are often unkind and overly critical of ourselves, we don’t let go of the past, we don’t practice psychological self care. We don’t work on our negative thoughts and feelings. We don’t identify our psychological needs as well. We are not at peace with ourselves and that shows in our relationships. In order to have better relationships inner work is important, getting the knowledge on our patterns and challenging them is the way to be more content with ourselves. This helps us form better bonds, set boundaries with people and traverse the interpersonal issues that we face.
Social habits to unlearn
A vital part of beginning this inner work, is to start recognising the obstacles in our way. Our social habits or patterns keep us in constantly seeking validation and approval from others. We unlearn these patterns to make space for new ones.
What are these social habits to unlearn?
1. People Pleasing
We all need social validation and approval, but when we keep our needs unmet and try to get this approval by simply pleasing people, it is not healthy. People pleasing may look like: agreeing with people even when you don’t, faking to fit in, putting someone else’s needs consistently before your own, avoiding conflict all the time at the expense of one’s feelings, doing more than your capacity to gain someone’s affiliation, taking responsibility for others feelings, not being able to say no and many more.
2. Approval seeking
Similar to people pleasing, approval seeking is done to gain validation as are most social habits. You may seek reassurance or approval for how you look, your choices or even big decisions you make. You may question how you feel or think about something and use others opinions to guide your own mind. You may even pretend to be something you are not for moments just to get that approval or you may exaggerate or downplay some parts of your personality to feel liked. You worth depends often on how others see you.
3. Lying/ Faking to fit in
Many of these are overlapping, but subtle differences help us identify them better. To seek validation, we may lie or twist the truth about our behaviors, habits, thoughts and feelings or even our past or future goals. Many times this happens unconsciously so much so that we don’t even know at times if we are faking or hiding or exaggerating something or not. Conforming to the group and wanting to be like others and to feel belongingness is a powerful motivator. Many times these deceptions of truth are small and so we overlook them, but what we lie or hide is actually the parts of us that we judge the most critically.
4. Depending on others to feel good
Many of us don’t process and let go of our emotions, instead we distract ourselves with many things, including people. Having support, encouragement and a shoulder to cry on is a positive thing, but it becomes unhealthy if people become the only source of comfort and feeling good. We need to help ourselves, learn tools to feel positive about ourselves and to calm ourselves down. We need to learn to do for ourselves what we look to others for. It may be positive self talk, words of wisdom, appreciation, validating our feelings, gratitude and compassion for ourselves.
5. Not Drawing boundaries
Many of us feel like a victim of other’s actions, feel neglected, hurt, etc. But no-one can make us feel something without our permission. We need to learn to set healthy boundaries with people to protect our own mental peace. For example, if your partner finding faults in you when you share about your work issues is hurting you, you may draw a boundary by saying “I’d like you to listen to my issues and not tell me what I’m doing wrong. I’ll be willing to listen to your feedback but at another time.” another example is if spending a lot of time with parents triggers you, you can choose to limit your calls or time you spend with them, by politely telling them. Rather than long talks you can have shorter and maybe more frequent conversations. Boundary setting is never easy, your boundary may be violated many times for which you need to then either distance yourself from the person or if you don’t want to, then work towards accepting and working on your feelings and finding a middle way. It’s not the answer to issues but it’s a start to being assertive, not aggressive or passive.
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