“I don’t like this person.”
Have you ever had that thought?
I don’t like the way they talk.
They’re too assertive.
There’s something about them I don’t trust.
Being around them is exhausting.
And it isn’t only dislike.
Anger. Anxiety. Fear. Sadness.
When what we call a negative emotion appears, we don’t usually welcome it.
We would rather it went away as quickly as possible.
So we ask:
Why do I feel this way?
It’s a very natural question.
But there is another way of looking at it.
Looking for the cause
We live in time.
Something happens.
Then we feel something.
“Someone said that to me.”
I got angry.
“I got angry because of what they said.”
It is natural to understand our experience this way: something happened first, and something else followed, so we understand the two as cause and effect.
But there is more to it than sequence.
When an uncomfortable feeling appears, we tend to look for a reason.
Why am I angry?
Why am I afraid?
Why do I dislike this person?
And once we find something that looks like the cause, we try to do something about it.
If that person is the cause, change the person.
If this place is the cause, leave the place.
If something in the past is the cause, try to resolve what happened.
Sometimes, of course, that is exactly what is needed.
But is it always?
Don’t shoot the messenger
In Somatic Clarity, negative emotions are not something we need to get rid of.
Don’t shoot the messenger.
If you dislike someone, you can begin there.
“Oh. I don’t like this person.”
If you’re afraid:
“I’m afraid.”
If you’re angry:
“I’m angry.”
You don’t need to talk yourself out of it.
I shouldn’t dislike people.
They must have their reasons.
I should try harder to understand them.
There must be something wrong with me for getting angry about this.
When we try to make the feeling disappear this way, we may send the messenger away with it.
First, receive what has arrived.
That is where you are.
Looking for a cause is not the same as receiving a message
Suppose you think:
“I don’t like how assertive that person is.”
If you are looking for a cause, you might ask:
“Why do I dislike assertive people?”
Perhaps someone assertive treated you badly in the past.
Perhaps people like that always seemed to get the opportunities while you were left behind.
So you came to dislike assertive people.
You have found a causal explanation.
But if you keep looking, you may notice something else.
What did I take from that experience?
What did I choose then?
Perhaps, somewhere along the way, you made a rule:
“Assertive people are awful.”
That was a choice you made at the time.
There is no need to deny the self who made it.
But if you are still living by that rule now, what is it doing to you?
The rule applies to you, too
“I will not become one of those assertive people.”
That may have been the decision.
But the rules we impose on ourselves are not always very precise.
Speaking your mind.
Stepping forward.
Doing something you are good at without hiding it.
Letting people see what you have made.
Reaching for something you want.
Allowing your strengths to be visible.
All of these can end up in the same box marked:
“Assertive.”
But pushing someone else aside and taking your own place are not necessarily the same thing.
Taking something from someone else and expressing yourself are not necessarily the same thing.
And sometimes, that is when something clicks:
“Oh. That’s why I disliked that person so much.”
This isn’t about learning to like them.
Nor is it about reversing the judgment and deciding that assertiveness is wonderful after all.
Something that had been fused together begins to separate.
And you notice that a rule you no longer need may still have been limiting you.
That’s all.
When the message comes back
Remove what seems to be the external cause, and things may become quiet for a while.
The person whose assertiveness bothered you is gone.
Peace.
So perhaps you were right.
They were the problem.
Then, some time later, someone else appears.
This one seems even more assertive.
You distance yourself from them too.
Peace again.
And then another one appears.
Somehow, an even stronger version.
This is not a story about life sending increasingly difficult opponents until you finally learn your lesson.
We don’t even know whether those people are actually the same kind of person.
But it is possible that the same place in you keeps responding.
If so, perhaps the enemy isn’t being upgraded.
Perhaps the message simply hasn’t been received yet.
Last time, you removed what you thought was the cause.
But the message never arrived.
That is another way of seeing it.
After the message arrives
So what happens to the feeling of dislike once the message has been received?
Maybe it disappears.
Maybe it doesn’t.
I don’t think that part is necessarily very important.
Once the message has been received, sometimes the feeling itself simply stops mattering.
And even the event you thought was the cause may begin to look different.
Before, you might have found yourself watching that person:
There they go again.
What are they going to say?
How far are they going to push this?
Are they going to take something from me again?
Without noticing, you may have been spending your own energy keeping track of them, trying to contain them.
But once you can see what was happening in you, it may become simply:
“Oh. This is someone who likes to step forward.”
And that may be the end of it.
They haven’t changed.
They may still be doing exactly the same things.
But for you, it is no longer the same “incident.”
You can say no without hating someone
As you become clearer about what is happening in you, you may no longer need to see another person through one large, undifferentiated feeling of dislike.
They’re a bit strange.
They scare me a little.
I don’t like this behaviour.
I’m going to keep some distance from this person.
I don’t think I should trust this.
Sometimes, that is enough.
You can say no without hating someone.
You can walk away without making them the villain.
And if you do dislike them, you don’t need to change that immediately either.
There is no need to treat negative emotions as something to fear or reject.
They are not necessarily evidence that something has gone wrong.
And the unpleasant thing that happened just before the feeling appeared is not necessarily its cause.
When a feeling arrives, before searching for its cause and trying to fix it, you might ask:
What is this messenger here to tell me?
And if you keep sending it away, only to find a similar messenger standing at your door again—
perhaps this time, before sending them away, you could ask:
“So. What did you come to deliver?”
The Compass: 16 Coordinates for Inner Navigation — now available.
