It’s not me, it’s YOU

Yeah, you read that right.

Let’s take this very popular sentence that’s become a cliche for the dating scene…and turn it around.

If you run into thoughts like “what did I do wrong” or “what’s wrong with me” then this is for you.

How often have you found yourself in situations where you’re being rejected, ghosted, or canceled on and you get that pit in your stomach that says “what did I do wrong or what’s wrong with me”…or in my case “what did I say?” (since my words/unbridled opinions have always been the thing…).

We make it our fault that someone else had their reaction, and beat ourselves up pretty hard over it.

I’ve been thinking of all the reasons why we have this train of thought, and of course, some of it comes from how we were raised and if there was abuse or trauma, but I also think it comes from our collective need to not be a bother, or bother others.

Like, when children play and parents think they’re being “too splashy” or too loud or too honest or whatnot, it feeds into this “what did I do wrong?” because there’s such an innocence to children.

Here’s an example: I was in the hot tub in my building and there were two kids in it with me and they were splashing and playing.

COINCIDENTALLY

At the same time, I decided to get out – I had been in for a while and needed to leave.

As I did, I heard the mom say “stop splashing so much there are other people in the tub”…she was being kind and nice, not yelling or mad or anything, but nonetheless creating an association in her children’s mind that it’s their fault I am leaving.

Now, that’s just one small isolated incident, but let’s say we multiply this to a daily occurrence in your home as a child – having love taken away from you because you weren’t “perfect” or good enough, and so now you run this pattern of not good enough that overtakes you whenever someone “gets out of the hot tub”.

You see, it’s not YOU that caused the person to “leave the hot tub”, it was THEM.

And same goes for when we are dumped, fired, ignored, ghosted, passed over…

It’s not about US, it’s about THEM and their decision to keep riding along side you or not.

They get to decide, and unless we ACTUALLY did something (like kill their rabbit, cheat, or sabotage their business somehow), we can assume it wasn’t US, or our value or worth that caused the split, or breakdown or rejection.

It’s THEM.

Their decision to not move forward which they have every right to do.

What you get to do now is work on this pattern, and the best way I would say to start is to work on the belief system around “the other shoe is just gonna drop” which is rooted in survival based living, mostly brought on by traumatic childhoods, including having a narcissistic parent (doesn’t always need to be violence, emotional abuse and manipulation is also traumatic).

So next time you feel that drop in the pit of your stomach and you go “OMG, not again, what is wrong with me?” – as soon as you become aware you’re beating yourself up, do something to change your state like dance or workout – do something physical, then see if you can reframe and remind yourself – it’s not about you, it’s about THEM and list 10 reasons why that might be the case. (without getting into blame or whatnot).

>>>Pattern Release Coaching for adults who want to heal from negative & destructive thought loops. Enquire here.