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Reading Level: Gratifying

Resentment not dealt with is a roadblock to emotional and physical healing.

Resentment usually results from a lack of dealing with conflicts. This doesn’t necessarily mean you must resolve the conflict with the other person; sometimes, that isn’t possible, especially if the person is volatile or hostile. However, you must deal with your feelings toward the past conflict in your own mind. As will be mentioned later in this post, emotional and physical ailments result from not coming to terms with past events and dealing with your resentment.

The first step in ridding yourself of resentment is to own up to your own choices.

As the old saying goes, “It takes two to tangle.” By admitting to the mistakes you made in the situation, it enables you to stop the blame game-to stop your focus of solely blaming the other person for your problems. This does not condone the other person’s harmful behavior toward you. This does not mean that you pretend that such behavior is wrong. However, instead of being focused on solely blaming the other person, you take responsibility for your own poor choices. For example, maybe you chose to get into an abusive relationship by ignoring the warning signs. Or, maybe the conflict arose because you insisted on discussing a difficult topic when you knew the other person was too tired or ill. Or, if you are a compliant dealing with a controlling person, you need to admit that you “allowed” the other person to control you and did something that you later resented when, instead, you should have set boundaries by refusing to do what you knew was not in your best interest. If your resentment stems from being over-giving to loved ones or over-involved in a good cause, again you need to Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Very Impassioned

By the most basic definition, a compliant person melts into the demands and needs of other people to avoid the conflicts that would arise if he stood up for his own needs and desires.

We had a post a few weeks ago in answer to readers’ questions called, “Recognizing a Controlling Person.” Since then, readers have asked for clarification on the opposite personality type/boundary problem called compliant personality/compliance. There are obviously more than 2 personality types in the world, but among family, friends, and acquaintances, these 2 types seem to be very apparent, especially since opposites attract.

A compliant personality often leaves a person feeling defenseless against the demands of others and frustrated by the lack of fulfilling his own desires. A compliant person is unable to say “No” when a controlling person’s demands are unreasonable, against his own conscience, or hindering the progress of his own goals and the fulfillment of his own needs. Controlling people recognize a compliant person and easily manipulate him to conform to whatever the controller’s demands are by the use of guilt, manipulating circumstances, or even verbal or physical abuse.

When a compliant needs to say “No” to someone, a large number of fears typically make him incapable of doing so. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Very Impassioned

How do we recognize controlling people to stop the infringement of personal boundaries?

This is in response to a reader’s question. People with compliant personalities ( basically a personality that feels guilty for standing up for itself) are often “run over” in life by people with controlling personalities. Often the compliant person doesn’t even realize why he, or she, struggles with so much guilt and resentment, guilt for not wanting to do what the controller says and resentment for giving in and doing what is against his own conscience or goals. Since a compliant personality feels compelled by guilt to give in to the aggression or manipulation of the controller, he doesn’t always even realize that the other person is creating these problems. Other times a compliant does realize it, but just doesn’t have the emotional strength to stand up to the person. A compliant person must learn to deal with his or her own weaknesses and the lack of determination to stand up for his boundaries; he must determine to be true to the person that he is and how he wants to live his life, making his own decisions and taking responsibility for them. I needed to give you that background on the compliant personality to understand the relationship between a controller and a compliant. However, since the reader question was on identifying controllers, that will be the focus today. My definitions of the 2 types of controlling people and other illustrations are taken from Cloud and Townsend’s “Boundaries” book, pp. 54-55. Full book information is at the end of the post.

Controllers are people who cannot hear a “No” answer.

The example Cloud and Townsend use is of the phrase common to sales training, “No” means “Maybe” and “Maybe” means “Yes.” This attitude can make an effective salesman, but it is quite harmful to personal relationships. The primary problem of a controller who refuses to accept another person telling him, “No,” is that he is refusing to take responsibility for his own life. He is continually controlling others in various ways to convince them to take care of responsibilities in life that he should be taking care of himself. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Gratifying

People with religious tendencies are often profuse givers. Depending on your personality, the desire to give can be so compelling that it easily gets out of balance, causing feelings of resentment when receivers respond with a lack of gratitude.

Many of us are easily moved with compassion for people in need, desiring to respond with help in whatever way possible. When you are a personality type that is easily compelled to give, it is not uncommon for this desire get out of balance, causing feelings of resentment when receivers respond with a lack of gratitude. These feelings of resentment are compounded when you still feel compelled to give though you yourself have come to a point of being in need, from either stressful and exhausting circumstances or the void that has developed from those you give to rarely giving in return.

Compulsive givers frequently feel guilty when they try to back out of getting involved even though their own exhaustion is necessitating it, or when they allow someone to help them with their own needs. Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Impassioned

Please read Recognizing Real Love Part 1 before continuing this post. It contains all the foundational points for the illustration I will be covering below.

It is not God’s desire for any person to come to the end of his/her life having never experienced truly loving relationships on a consistent basis. However, many times religious beliefs or a compliant personality cause many people to endure long-term, emotionally unhealthy relationships because they suffer from an unrealistic guilt about getting help and/or getting away from the abusive relationship.

The abuser frequently tells the submissive person that he/she loves them, but then lives a lifetime of behavior that causes emotional and even physical harm to the other person. For a compliant personality type, the extreme contradiction in words and behavior is not enough to compel them to get help or make a change to bring the necessary healing to their lives.

Again, let me emphasize, infrequent, low-level hurtful behavior does take place in healthy relationships. However, allowing another person to treat you with consistent, immensely hurtful behavior will have lasting effects, deepening harm to one’s emotional, physical, and spiritual well-being the longer it is allowed to continue. If you are having difficulty in dealing with such a relationship in ways that will bring definite healing to your life, finding a reputable counselor is must. As the boundaries of acceptable and unacceptable behavior are not always clearly defined in our minds, we utilized a detailed definition of real love in Part One. A good starting place for distinguishing between acceptable and unacceptable behavior, between healthy and destructive relationships in your life, is using Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »

Reading Level: Impassioned

Recognizing real love can empower you to bring about needed emotional, physical, and spiritual healing. It enables you to distinguish truly harmful behavior in your relationships from typical, daily personality conflicts.

I have several friends and relatives who have gone through repeated, emotionally and physically traumatic experiences due to emotionally unstable family members who either refuse to take medication or are not helped by it. However, we all must, from time to time, handle the type of emotional hardships common to unstable or purposely hurtful people, whether in a situation on the job, in the neighborhood, or with relatives. While talking with a friend about recent stresses with a bipolar spouse, it became apparent that some of the difficulties I have seen myself, friends, and family experience in unhealthy relationships stem from an unclear view of what real love is.

The inability to identify real love causes some people to devote the years and effort of an entire lifetime to relationships that continually bring them harm when they could learn to identify and develop the truly loving, healing relationships in the realm of their existence. It is not God’s desire for any person to come to the end of his/her life having never experienced truly loving relationships on a consistent basis. The more of a clear, definite understanding that one has of real love, the easier it is to know where to draw the line Immerse Yourself in the Full Healing Contemplation Here »