Hey Guys- Mary and Donna were partners in a successful decorating firm. Over the years, they had been there for one another in many difficult times. But one day Mary confronted Donna on a behavior that had been bothering her. You always interrupt me when we are meeting with clients, she said. It makes me feel inferior. Well, maybe you are! Donna shot back. Mary stared at her, stunned. How can you say that? she asked. Were partners! Ive always worked just as hard as you. But Donna could not take the implication that she was not perfect. Unable to hear or even consider the message, she attacked the messenger. When Mary tried to resolve the conflict, her friend ended the relationship and the association. Mary was devastated. Bt as she thought back over the years with Donna, she remembered seeing her friend do the same thing with other people. If Donna did not get her way, she would turn on the other person with judgmental vengeance and literally write that person out of her life. Long before Donna dropped Mary, there were signs that she was an unsafe person. Unsafe people have personal traits that make then extremely dangerous to other people. They act as is they have it all together. They are self-righteous. They demand trust. And when their facade of perfection is stripped away, they blow up, like Donna, or disappear. These next two weeks I am going to describe the twenty traits of unsafe people. These traits are warning signals, and if you observe them in any of your relationship, you should proceed in that relationship with caution. For every negative trait mentioned, there is a corresponding positive one. Look at the positive trait, and you will have a good working definition of a safe person. Safe people, for example, admit their weaknesses. They are humble. And they prove their trustworthiness over time. So lets get started... Trait #1: UNSAFE PEOPLE HAVE IT ALL TOGETHER INSTEAD OF ADMITTING THEIR WEAKNESSES Over lunch one day, my friend Sally described a friendship to me. I really love and admire Julia, but... she sighed. Somethings just not right with our friendship. What do you mean? I asked. I guess it is that she doesnt have any needs, Sally explained. I feel like I am always the one with problems. I talk about problems in my marriage and the rest of my life, and get really vulnerable, but she never does. She seems to have it all together, and I feel like the totally weak one. What is it about this that bothers you the most? I asked. I guess it is that I do not feel like she needs me, she said. When someone has it all together, that persons friends will suffer these predictable results: -Feeling disconnected. Intimacy is built on sharing weaknesses, and friendship involved sharing vulnerabilities. -Feeling one down. There is an implied superiority in the one that has no need for the other -Feeling weaker than one actually is. The vulnerable one plays the weakness role in the relationship. There is no balance, for she is not allowed to be strong. -Feeling dependent on the strong one. The weaker one thinking she needs the stronger one to survive. -Feeling anger and hostility at the together one. The vulnerable person grows tired of the together facade of the stronger person. -Feeling the need to compete to reverse the role. The weaker person feels stuck in her role and fights to change it. The weak one may try to be the strong one in some other relationships to compensate for her lack of strength in this relationship. Instead of suffering through only one bad relationship, she may end up with several unbalanced, unsafe relationships. She would do better to balance elements of strength and weakness in each of her relationships. If we are always being strong and without needs, we are not growing, and we are setting ourselves up for a very dangerous fall. Cheers, Henry
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 18:56:02 +0000
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