How do you know when you’re being too flexible or too rigid in relationships? A lot of us are afraid to change parts of us. We may feel like changing means we are being controlled by someone else or compromising our values. Change may feel unnatural and uncomfortable which makes it harder to know if the changes we are making are the “right” changes. What if I told you that you can have both boundaries and flexibility without compromising anything, and that you are in control of what changes occur.
In order to give ourselves the best opportunity at a healthy relationship with others, we first have to have a solid relationship with ourselves. This means finding out our true feelings and what we value so that we can make clear decisions about what we believe and hold close to our heart.
To give an example scenario:
Let’s say throughout your life you were told that you need to earn respect to get respect, life is not fair, and that whoever is “in-charge” is right (could be a boss, could be a parent, could be an authority figure of any kind etc.).
It’s really easy to look at those three concepts and believe them as truth. Seems like it makes sense.
Let’s look at the first one: “You need to earn respect to get respect”
The belief here is, if I want someone to respect me, I need to DO SOMETHING in order to receive that respect. This concept in itself doesn’t sound bad; however, it implies that we need to try harder, achieve a certain status, or add something to our life in order to be considered worthy of respect. This is an example of a rigid belief. It’s not very flexible, there are conditions, and there is no grace.
How does the concept of grace enter this rigid belief? Grace gives room for error. Grace allows me to give respect to another person even if I don’t think they deserve it. Will it be harder for me to be respectful to someone who is blatantly rude to my face? Absolutely. The important piece here is that I don’t change my standard of treating people with respect based upon their ability to respect me back. I can give respect without someone having to earn my respect first.
The same idea can be applied to the other two beliefs: “Life isn’t fair” and “The person in-charge is right”.
These two beliefs miss the fact that life is both fair and unfair and that authority figures are sometimes wrong and sometimes right. Even better, let’s apply this with the first belief we restored and say you’ve been functioning under the belief that you need to earn respect to get respect. So, with that belief in mind, it’s implied that if someone disrespects you, you may find it very offensive. “Don’t they know they need to be respectful?”. But hey wait, life isn’t fair…so if life isn’t fair, then why do I believe that people should respect me? Since life isn’t fair, I SHOULD know that people are going to be rude sometimes even when I didn’t do anything wrong and don’t deserve it.
With these examples, we can see firsthand how rigid beliefs can contradict each other and confuse us more about people and relationships we build with each other. It can feel like we are closing many relationships rather than opening the door for healthier ones.
So how would we go about restoring these beliefs? Like I mentioned before, it starts with examining yourself on a surface level to figure out what beliefs you may have. Then to restore the rigid belief, you begin looking into the deeper meaning and feelings associated to it.
Here’s an example. One may start by asking:
1. What does it feel like when I get disrespected by others?
2. Why does being disrespected offend me? (look deeply)
3. What does it feel like when life isn’t fair and what does it feel like when life is fair?
4. Why does entitlement bother me?
5. What does it feel like when I’m wrong? What does it feel like when I think I’m right but get told I’m wrong?
6. What does it feel like to be misunderstood?
These are just a few questions to get you thinking about your personal beliefs and how they influence your relationships. I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s blog!

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