Dr. David Lieberman: Transforming Relationships (Part 8)

welcome to transformer relationships this is part eight uh thank you everyone for the feedback uh we're actually gonna start with one of the questions that was submitted uh we'll start off this week um so yeah we're everyone or we encourage everyone obviously to continue to send me your feedback and your comments questions and uh definitely um we will be implementing into the classes um so um uh obviously we're joined by dr lieberman it's a great honor to have dr lieberman um and um so i guess we'll start off um so uh somebody asked a question based on a previous class um that um they said um in life we're told to ignore the negativity that others um speak about us um as we said in a previous class that it says more about the person who is negative than about you so uh logically and in our mind we know this is true but not everybody um has that level or they grew up with that level of self-esteem um where they could where that won't affect them so what are some practical tools or tips that we can implement um in our lives so that we can have that help that healthy level of self-esteem that it won't affect us negatively well that's a beautiful question so look yeah we said last time was that you know we gave a clinic example where you know one child says something about the other and it's not a one-size-fits-all in terms of you know to tell the children is that you can't call people names you heard her feelings and so on they're separate conversations we said is for the child that calls the other person the name that child has to be taught that words have power words can injure words can hurt people's feelings and so on so the child gets called the name that conversation is to help them to understand what does it do how does it change you your identity how are you less because somebody sees you a certain way or calls you a certain name now by children it can be a near impossible conversation uh in terms of them understanding that you know you can have a conversation with a child and say what does it mean that she called you a name they say but it hurt but why in other words and the reason why it's hard for children to get the idea that somebody calling them a name has nothing to do with them it speaks volumes about that person but it's nothing to do with them is because children by definition are egocentric their egocentricity means that they are however people see them and as the more egocentric adults are that is why they are very sensitive to criticism but they'll give criticism uh they're very raw they're very um they always have to be right they always have to be in control and so on is because their entire identity to varying degrees um is wrapped up in the facade at how people see them now you have garden variety egocentricity which you all have to some degree we have a body with ego so to some extent all adults uh with the exception of something to decam are are have a ego to them as that drifts more so into pathology you have like narcissism somebody whose entire identity is wrapped up in their image and then all the way at the extreme you have psychopathy or sociopathy where the person is um hopefully you don't run into too many of these people but they have zero connection with anyone or anything and they just live for themselves complete autonomy but bringing back to the question is that whenever you're in a situation with somebody who's belligerent or mean or hostile or unpleasant or they say criticism and so on your ego is always going to connect the dots to a place of pain meaning it's not the situation but it's the interpretation of it and that interpretation is based on you how you feel about yourself meaning that you don't get upset because of what somebody says you get upset because of what it means now what i always do with my kids when this comes up is they say you know what so-and-so called me a name and i walk them through the same logic um which gets you nowhere by the way um in terms of you know it doesn't mean anything and so on and then here's the example that i use with them which sometimes gets through to varying degrees depending on the age and that's this when they insist that a person calling them a name means something and it causes them pain i say what if i were to give you a dollar every time so-and-so called your name they'd be like okay that's pretty good now every time this person calls them a name not only won't they be in pain but to be anticipated the next time they'll be excited to be keeping a hedge fund keeping track of all the times they call the name and it's reframed as something that's positive and they'll say okay fine i get that but people calling me names aren't giving me a dollar in the real world i said that's true but what it does help us to see is that it's not the situation it's the meaning we attach to it and that meaning is based on how we feel about ourselves which means then if you're in a conversation with somebody you they are less than pleasant they're disrespectful you either focus on your pain or their pain if you focus on your own pain that they don't love you they don't respect you they don't care about you and so on you're going to find yourself upset and hurt and angry of course but if you're able to see past their own facade past their ego and look at their pain that it's coming that their hostility their angers coming from their own place of insecurity their own inferiority then you're bringing you remain pain free so it's always going to come down to am i focusing on their pain or my pain now the more arrogant the person is the more gruff they are more than they are the more bombastic and and the harder the exterior the more difficult it is to see past that to see the vulnerability but make no mistake anyone that treats you disrespectfully again as we said last time is a reflection of their own self-esteem it speaks volumes of their own emotional health is a confession of their character but it's a zero about you you treat other people based on how you feel about yourself if you don't have it you can't give it as we have knowledge weinberg that's how i used to say if you don't love you don't love me because a person doesn't love themselves they just really want to love other people but they have a hard time doing it so you're saying that they usually that that that like if somebody's they said something negative to us we would think oh fine it's like oh it's about me so you're saying that really it's like you have to look and say no it's really it's about them so that's a so that's um usually all he said about me so i have to think about the comment about me but really you're saying it's um it's all about uh that's right now look this doesn't mean that we don't have an obligation to look in the mirror and ask ourselves did i do something to cause somebody pain were my actions uh irresponsible but that only happens when the ego's out of the equation as soon as i get defensive my shield goes up my ego defense is engaged i'm already narrating and judging condemning you for how you're treating me so i'm not able then to be able to ask myself honestly honestly and say hey you know maybe i have done something to hurt you okay so we're not talking about not caring what the person says we're talking about not letting it affect how we see ourselves changing our identity who we are our self-worth because somebody simply was not capable of giving to us and a great way to look at this is like this let's say robbie you are an amazing expansive mood everything is coming up roses for you how are you treating the world around you can you repeat that sure sorry i know let's say you're in an amazing mood everything is doing great for you how are you treating everyone around you then uh it's the greatest day it's gonna be everything's positive now let's say hypothetically you're in a lousy mood just nothing's lining up right and so you maybe you don't treat people as well as you really would like to or want to you just don't always have it now does that mean that the self-worth the value of each human being that you interacted with was somehow less that day they were worth less because you couldn't give to them no it just meant that your capacity was limited and if you're able to flip it around and recognize that a person's capacity to treat us a certain way is about their capacity and is zero not one percent zero to do with our self-worth we're instantly free from criticism from negativity and from uh harmful and hurtful remarks from other people again it doesn't mean that we don't care what they think rather it's we're not going to allow it to impact how we see ourselves okay um so um and uh taking this to a same topic just different angle um about self-esteem so on the topic of let's say like regret and remorse like like about maybe what we did previously um that that we know that that that part of the the chuva the rest the repentance process is um that you have to you have to feel remorse and regret regretful over um something which person did in the past which maybe they they shouldn't have done so what so like how do we still fulfill that and um like well we're still we're still positive and confident and great i'm sorry the question is how do we deal with our own actions where maybe yeah we yeah oh yeah yeah yeah sorry about it yeah the previous question was about someone else but you're this us ourselves whether it's interpersonal something inter interpersonal or to right so actually i am speaking um on this on fish above here on kazakh and attorney time uh we're talking exactly about that question but i'll go ahead and give you a sneak preview now because a very very legitimate question that is look if we want to see ourselves through a positive lens how then uh does that reconcile with the mistakes and or of errors or things that we've done in the past and the answer is this is that the degree to which we're able to accept what we've done and who we are is a degree so we can move forward meaning if you wanted to travel from liquid to muncie and you put in the gps that you want to go to muncie the first thing that gps is going to calculate is that you're in lakewood you can't go from point a to point b unless you accept that you're at point a in other words i can't close my eyes and say i'm not here and then expect to move forward the growth begins with the acknowledgment that we have fallen down because i'll say exotic full of seven times gets up seven times it is the the constant getting up and falling that makes somebody great you can't be great without it but covering up saying that um our mistakes were somebody else's fault only engages the ego the it's a horror the path to real self-esteem self-esteem as a person originally asked by the way we come full circle comes to self-acceptance the degree to which i can accept myself i can love myself as actually was um the eminent psychologist uh carl jung who said any part of the personality that we don't love will become hostile to us so whatever aspect of ourselves that we don't embrace and accept they're gonna turn on us rather the good the bad the ugly accepted 100 completely own it doesn't mean you approve of it but when you accept who you are where you are that's how you can be someone else better um and in a different place but for as long as we are laying blame and responsibility outside of ourselves we can never move forward because if somebody else is responsible for where i am today that means somebody else now has the power to move me from where i want to be doesn't mean that other people didn't contribute to put me into this matzah what it does mean is right here right now my ability to move forward begins with a decision of taking responsibility i'm going to say i take responsibility right here right now to move forward it's up to me and in that power of decision we begin to move ourselves forward and even making that decision is very empowering so you're saying that that it's not just like oh whether we ignore it or we're accepting it like yes it happened but we're moving on and that's right that's right we accept it we do true the process of truth is necessary as you know because i'll explain that was created before the world was even before creation because we could not exist unless there was a mechanism that hashem created to wipe clean that emotional and spiritual slate and when we're able to move forward you know there are people by the way who wrap themselves up in this blanket of self-pity they say i'm so awful i'm so bad i'm so terrible they're not holding themselves to a higher standard than hashem they're holding themselves to a warp standard because god wants you to move forward he knows that you have a purpose you have a value you have a mission and you can't do that if you stay stuck the tuba is created for the person that says i'm no good i'm bad everything i've done i don't deserve xyz or everything done to me i don't deserve abc to the contrary the process of truma frees us from the past and we move forward unencumbered by the shackles of whatever it is was done to us and whatever it is we've done to anyone else okay great um and um just to find uh just to finish off um we sometimes in the workplace um we have like a colleague a that maybe they try to bring us down maybe because they want to advance themselves because they're jealous of what we have accomplished so so how do we maybe in the workplace how do we maintain that upbeat attitude like oh like like maybe oh like oh he's trying to he's trying to backstab me that's like what should our what should our mindset be very good question so you know when it comes to the business uh environment there are a couple of things you can do beyond personal situations because you know people are saying business is business personal is personal it's not it's always personal and and so when when you're in the workplace it really it would depend also whether it's a colleague a subordinate or superior but lamas if somebody treats you rudely or disrespectfully period for and you haven't done anything it's usually because either they feel jealous or envious of you or they believe that you've done something disrespectful to them and as unintentional as it might have been they feel that uh you don't respect them you don't care about them and so they've sort of gone ahead and are now on the attack with you so one of the there's a couple of things there's a whole process you can do um in this and the the the first thing is you want to humanize yourself very often in getting someone to like us we'll do what's called self-enhancement behavior we'll tell people how amazing we are how terrific we are how fantastic we are but that does the opposite just turns people off rather you want to humanize yourself you talk in an honest authentic way about your own maybe you know your fears your insecurities your failures certainly not to reveal anything that might come back to bite you if this person is malicious but by humanizing yourself opening up yourself to this person you help to sort of put yourself in a level playing field certainly treating him with extreme reverence respect and indeference will go a long way towards mitigating uh any sort of perceived lack of respect and so in doing those two things you sort of pave the way there are other things you can do as well we can get into next time if you want um but you would do well not to fight fire and fire and go toe-to-toe with this guy and try and quote-unquote put him in his place that'll just escalate things rather you want to sort of come in under the radar give him more coverage give him more respect give him more uh genuine praise and connect with him on a human level take your ego out of it talk about you know your own insecurities again your own fears your own failures um and if you're able to and it's responsible even ask the person for advice not in a sincere way but in a genuine way something that is good at or effective in and you'll find that he can turn around in two seconds to your best friend because once his ego is assuaged he has zero reason to be envious of you and zero reason to think that you don't like him or respect him so maybe maybe i'm saying would you say that let's say like empiricales it says that that who was honored somebody who honors others because then because when you respect others you use somebody else's honor so then it's like uh it's a mutual relationship it goes both ways and stuff that's that's beautiful that's right bragawa says who is honest you honest others at the same time fazal tell us when it comes to our own honor we're told to run away because end of the day honor is coveted it's a reflection of the ego and arrogance and we have no pocket to put it into but when it comes to interpersonal relationships i'll know very well that the foundation of those relationships is the ego and to show proper covet and respect and esteem because ultimately we all have an ego and if you uh if somebody doesn't feel that they are getting and if somebody suffers with low self-esteem and most of us do to some degree and that ego is engaged that ego's no has to be spoken to it has to be addressed has to be assuaged and if this person is operating from a place of you know uh corrupted self-love and doesn't feel worthy themselves you're going to kill the relationship by further beating them up or by trying to come into superior rather again coming under the radar and give them proper respect proper covet in a genuine way you'll build up the ego um and that will allow for you to be able to connect with them rather than them try to undermine you or be mean or as you said backstab okay great i think we covered uh some uh some great principles of um respecting others and having uh respect even for ourselves and self-proper self-esteem for ourselves um so um definitely uh we will continue next time and um everyone feel free to send in your comments your feedback your questions that we that could be addressed in a upcoming um class um send in your um comments or questions to events jazak.org e-v-e-n-t-s at c-h-a-z-aq.org thank you so much