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Others Treat Us The Way We Treat Ourselves

Guest post by: Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

Article Overview: Discover how to love the unlovable in yourself and transform how others treat you.

Others Treat Us The Way We Treat Ourselves

"Everybody is like a magnet. You attract to yourself reflections of that which you are. If you're friendly, then everybody else seems to be friendly too." --Dr. David Hawkins, Physician and Lecturer

Have you ever noticed how true this is?

I would change it a bit and say that we attract to ourselves what we choose to be in any given moment.

What we intrinsically are, is our true essence, which is a spark of the Divine - unconditional love. But since we don't always attract unconditional love to us, others are generally reflecting who we've chosen to be.

It is my experience that when I choose to interact with others as my true Self, others usually relate to me from their true Selves. At those times when I allow my ego wounded self to be in charge, others relate to me from their ego wounded selves.

Of course, this isn't always true. I can be my most unconditionally loving self and others still might stay in their wounded selves - angry, closed, withdrawn. After all, I can't control how another person chooses to be. But I have found that the more loving I am to myself, the more loving I am to others, and the more I attract loving people to me.

Most people unconsciously pick up the energy of how you treat yourself. They might not be able to articulate it, but their behavior generally reflects this. If you tend to be judgmental of yourself, then it is likely that you often feel judged by others. Sometimes they are actually judging you, but many times you are projecting your own self-judgment onto them and believing they are judging you when they aren't. In either case, your experience is that of being judged.

Years ago, I judged myself all the time. If I made a mistake, I relentlessly beat myself up for it. So of course I attracted people to me who judged me; then I would try to control how they felt about me by judging myself! All this effort to control myself and them was exhausting.

When I was finally able to connect my constant anxiety and feelings of shame with my own self-judgment, I was gradually able to completely stop judging myself, and instead learned to move into compassion for myself. That's when I started to attract compassionate people into my life.

One of the most powerful things you can do to attract love into your life is to shift your intent - from controlling yourself and others with judgments - to loving all aspects of yourself.

"Love the Unlovable in Yourself"

Marci Shimoff, in "Love for No Reason," states that one of the keys for the doorway of unconditional self-love is to "Love the Unlovable in Yourself." I totally agree.

In the Inner Bonding process, we call the unlovable part of ourselves our wounded self. This is the part of us who is always trying to have control over getting love, avoiding pain, and feeling safe.

Our wounded self is NOT who we are - it is who we decided to be, as young children, when we did not receive love for who we were. This part of us is not bad, but since most people don't like it when we try to control them, it is not likely that anyone is ever going to love our wounded self.

Yet this part of us cannot heal without love. Therefore, it is our job to love our wounded self - the part of us who believes we are not good enough. It is only through our love, compassion, kindness, gentleness and tenderness toward this wounded part of ourselves that we can heal our core shame and false beliefs about ourselves.

You will be amazed at how differently people treat you when you treat all aspects of yourself with compassion.

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Article Tags: compassion, core Self, Dr David Hawkins, God, Inner Bonding, judgmental, Margaret Paul, selfjudgment, selflove, spirit, spirituality, true Self, unconditional love, wounded self



Related Forum Posts
Area of concentration - Yes, you should work harder on those people. You should train them to be ambassadors for you. Treat them like royalty if they truly are giving and referring lots of business to you. And you should always be looking for new ambassadors. Hope that helps.
Work Hard on 20% Slab - Yes, you should work harder on those people. You should train them to be ambassadors for you. Treat them like royalty if they truly are giving and referring lots of business to you. And you should always be looking for new ambassadors. Hope that helps.
Be fresh and alive and attentive - Keep on doing the same old thing and business will evaporate. You have to be fresh and alive and attentive. Find at least 4 reasons to contact your customers every year. Thank-you card, newspaper clipping, birthday card. It's all about them, not about you. Treat the 20% like royalty and schmooze the 80% to milk more business and prospect new business so you can grow by 25% a year for a 5% net growth.
Something I never heard off - Keep on doing the same old' thing and business will evaporate. You have to be fresh and alive and attentive. Find at least 4 reasons to contact your customers every year. Thank-you card, newspaper clipping, birthday card. It's all about them, not about you. Treat the 20% like royalty and schmooze the 80% to milk more business and prospect new business so you can grow by 25% a year for a 5% net growth.
Incentives for Gathering Data - Great question Kevin! How do you encourage and motivate others to give you the data and information you need to conduct market research? First of all, you need to know what kind of data you are hoping to collect, and how much time you really need a participant to give you? I'll outline this step in Step 2 Market Research coming soon. Many times I see people and companies offering prizes or gifts for taking the time out of your day. This is a great idea. Contests are another great way. With technology so accessible now, gone are the days of the long handwritten survey responses. Surveymonkey.com is just one resource where you can import your survey questions, email them out to a collected database and then get your report for analysis. If you have been in business a while, your own client base is a great first place to look for information. Take clients out for lunch, or host a cocktail session where you can speak with each person. depending on the level of personal data you need, be cautious to allow each person their privacy. We often tape our research interviews, but in order to get past the facade of information some people will give, we have a written contract that we sign with them that states that all their information will be added to the collective group, with no specific names mentioned. This signature commitment negates most peoples responses and we get real, honest feedback. And ultimately, we honour that. Its the arrangement we make with a client too. We wont abuse their clients or staff's confidentiality in us. So if you are hoping to gather information from a specific audience, find out as much as you can about them before planning your approach. if you only need 10 minutes of someone's time, perhaps the prize or incentive is valued differently than if you expect people to take 45 minutes. I once spent over an hour on the phone with a call centre on behalf of Walmart. I was told it was going to take no more than 30 minutes and I would receive 5 new DVD's for my time. NEedless to say, I'm still waiting for my DVD's and I will never entertain another research call from Walmart. Manage expectations. Treat people and their time with respect. And reward them with their efforts. Cheers!


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