How mending our fences can help us stand our ground
“Self-care is also not arguing with people who are committed to misunderstanding you” says London-based stylist Ayishat A Akanbi. Have you ever had this experience? A pointless argument with someone who you know really doesn’t get you or wilfully and perhaps even with a small dose of judiciously aimed malice misrepresents what you say?
If you have, how did it make you feel? If you haven’t, then read on to prepare and remind yourself what to avoid and why!
For those of you who have had the experience, did it take you back to the position of a child perhaps? Most of us can probably call to mind some memory of having the rug pulled from under our feet when young by someone arguing from fixated adult paradigm who has forgotten the precious reasonings and gossamer-like explorations of a young and tender mind.
Somehow we allowed ourselves to slip back into that role. Isn’t that interesting? We could have said “I can see that you do not have the slightest interest in my opinion and I have better things to do with my time than engage with you. When you are ready to listen respectfully, let me know and we’ll start again.”
Honestly, if you didn’t practise this in advance, could you see yourself saying this phrase or something like it? Probably not, unless you had already clocked the relationship dynamic that was at play. Perhaps it goes to point out exactly how easy it is to slip into a child mode, reminding us of those young parts of us that are still remembering their distress and have yet to learn their adult power.
So it is, that boundaries that have been trampled upon in young children can fail to reassert themselves as we get older. Self-care, self-love demands that we lovingly, tenderly, replace, mend and re-erect these broken borders. Imagine the difference these new constructions can make in our relationships. We can ‘stand our ground’ and if we can ‘stand our ground’, then we can ‘speak our truth’ with confidence and be heard. When we do this, we are able to validate ourselves, to affirm our view and our paradigm.
Perhaps you’re thinking, but how do we do this? Practise new things to say that work to build new boundaries. To mend ourselves, though, requires us to give our bodies’ permission to let go of those old fears. So every time we experience it, we have an opportunity to recognise and release, means such as The Control System.
This is how we build up and re-find the love and care of ourselves, by re-educating ourselves as to our right to disengage and choose the terms of our interchanges with others.
Maybe, just maybe, we will find others who are ready to engage in what is often called ‘a meaningful dialogue’.
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