Wendy Question #34

 

Dear Joshua,

So I may have spoken too soon. I have a hard time when my husband gets mad at me about something stupid ~ his persona jumps at me ~ his persona likes to be RIGHT all the time!! I do my best to look at it from a higher perspective. I was not looking to argue or fight; I simply asked a question. Obviously, I hit a hot button for him.

My persona immediately becomes hurt ~ withdrawing ~ basically upsetting a really nice Saturday afternoon.

How can I deal with this quickly? I don't like lingering in these emotions.

With Love and Gratitude
~ Wendy


Dear Wendy,

It is important to drop your resistance to these things and not to linger in negative emotion. So, how do you do that? Do you prevent the negative emotion from occurring in the first place? Maybe so, but how is that accomplished? Do you ask your husband not to get upset? Do you refrain from speaking so that he cannot get upset by your words? Or maybe you simply acknowledge what is really happening in the first place.

You're right, it was your husband's ego protecting his persona and causing him to lash out at you. That's all that was happening. He felt fear. It was not wrong for him to feel fear, just irrational. But you must remember that to him there is no difference between irrational and rational fear. It's all the same fear to him.

Should he have not felt fear? Of course he felt fear. He is not as aware of his feelings as you are. He has only one response: fear. It may seem silly to you, but to him the fear was real, even if he isn't conscious of the fear itself. He has a very well defined persona and if any aspect of his persona is called into question, his response is to lash out. Some people might withdraw or run away. He barks.

His barking causes you to feel fear as well. However, you already know that the fear is false and it's just your ego trying to protect your persona and you protect it by feeling bad or sorry for yourself. It's your defense mechanism. You are trying to get him to change by displaying how hurt you are, how weak you are, how you must be protected, and that he should not be right all the time. This is all an act on your part to get him to change who he is. But he cannot and will not change as a result of your wanting him to be different than he is. He must be who he is so that you can get a sense of who you are being right now.

You feel sad because you think your life would be better if only he would be different than he is. Yes, you love him and appreciate him. That's not what we are talking about. At the same time you think you love him, you want him to be different so that you can feel better yourself. If he was different, you think you would not experience negative emotion and so you would feel good. However, the mere fact that you think negative emotion is a bad thing and that you want to eliminate this bad thing, causes him to be different so that you might find a way to deal with negative emotion in the first place.

As long as you have a desire and as long as you resist that desire, you will encounter negative emotion. Your choice is to stop birthing desires or stop your resistance. Neither of those choices is possible, so your only choice is to get a handle on what a negative emotion really is. Negative emotion is simply guidance. It lets you know when your perspective is out of alignment. It lets you know that you have fear. It lets you know that you have a limiting belief. It lets you know you are behaving in a way that is not beneficial. That's all it is. Get used to it. Be comfortable with it. Learn to manage it.

If you would accept your husband (and all people) as they are without trying to change them, you would experience less negative emotion. The negative emotion is your indication that you have just entered a manifestation event. How you respond to this event will determine how your desires manifest. If you resist the event, calling your husband wrong for reacting the way he did, calling yourself wrong for saying anything, or calling the event itself wrong and wishing it never happened, then you create from that less empowering perspective. There is another way.

Imagine that you could slow down time and analyze what you were feeling while right in the middle of a manifestation event. First of all, you would realize that this event was happening for your benefit and there is important information contained within it. You would adjust your approach from defensiveness to curiosity. The next thing you would acknowledge was how you are feeling. You feel bad because your perspective is limited. Knowing this you would be aware that your ego will try to defend your persona. You know that your persona is false and that you are not attached to it. But you are aware of the tactics your ego will employ so that you might escape this event with your persona in tact. The ego believes that to defend the persona, you must withdraw and display your emotions so that the attacker (your husband) will alter his behavior. Of course, you realize that this won't be effective and instead you must find a new perspective while in the midst of these very strong negative emotions. You must keep your wits about you.

In the moment, is it really possible to analyze your fears and find evidence to prove them false? It certainly is. You simply have a habit of reaction. You can create a new habit. You can become more aware. You can slow down your reaction times. You can stop and think. You can leave the room. You can stop defending yourself. You do not ever have to be right. Your husband cannot make you wrong. Your husband does not have to change for you to love him. He does not have to change for you to feel better. You can manage your emotions. You can rationally think your way out of these negative emotions. You can take control of your own power rather than relying on others to constantly and consistently play "nice."

The only thing you can control is your reaction. Your reactions are currently based in fear. You can choose to base every reaction in love. You can allow everyone to be who they are. You can accept everyone as who they are being while also knowing that they are a mere shadow of who they really are. You can see them as who they really are even if they are being somewhat less than that right now.

The ball is entirely in your court. You are absolutely responsible for your perspective. Your negative emotions hinge on the perspective you choose. Choose the proper perspective and you will offset the need for negative emotion. It is not your desire or your resistance that matters, you simply have to manage your perspective. The faster you can find the higher perspective, the sooner you'll feel better. Feeling better is the only thing that really matters.

With our love.
We are Joshua

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