Have you noticed you act differently around different people? There are people you feel relaxed around and the conversation is sweet and mellow and you just want to grab a warm drink and find somewhere soft and cozy to sit while talking to them. Then there are people that seem to bring out the worst in you. You brace when you see them and your behaviour becomes as unpredictable as the next sentence out of your mouth because you are in reaction mode.
So, you’ve done a bit of work and figured out a part of who you are when you are alone. Now it’s time to take a sneaky peak at who you are around other people, because when you show up differently in different situations, there is a disconnect.
It had been a long time coming for me. I didn’t give too much thought to who I was around other people. I’ve always been aware of my impact on others. I didn’t consider how I changed in different people’s company and their impact on me.
And I changed like a chameleon. It depended on my surroundings. Around some people I was a big personality – almost “larger than life”, and others I’d shrink in front of. I can’t tell you how many times I replayed conversation in the shower of things I coulda / shoulda / woulda said. I was extremely put together and eloquent in my shower replays. And sometimes it was embarrassing because I was aware my husband was getting to witness me showing up differently and that would go against my value of authenticity and cause me shame.
And then I became a life coach. And self-awareness became one of my foundation blocks that needed some big-time attention. Knowing my values and what I wanted to take a stand for in the world started to make things and people that didn’t fit suddenly stand out a little. And then a lot.
Here are a few of the obvious behaviours to watch out for:
Becoming defensive / angry
Becoming childlike
Becoming bitchy
Becoming competitive
Becoming superior to
The triggers that get these behaviours to come out could be wide and varied. What is worthwhile doing is identifying who you become around certain people and then choose who you would rather be.
So, what’s a girl to do with these people? First I’d like to offer the question to you – how would the wisest part of you, the part that knows you so well and knows what is best for you and knows how you want to show up in the world, handle these situations?
My personal remedies have been to firstly figure out my triggers. Fear or the absence of courage are usually the pesky creatures at the centre of a lot of my bad behaviour. Most commonly the lack of courage stems from the fear that “taking a stand”, for me or what I believe in, will be a fast track to getting judged or dumped as a friend or bad mouthed or mis-understood or thought of as a bad person or ALL of the above.
As I work through this (continually), I realize the people who matter roll with it and accept my change and those that don’t can choose for themselves. I wish them well as we ALL have work to do on ourselves.
And talking about getting to work on ourselves, I have made you a simple printable to be able to get your thoughts out of your head (I know I work better that way) and redesign how you show up in your life.
Because when you know better, you do better. You could even jot or doodle your values around the printable page to make sure you are honouring the most important part of you as you redesign your relationships.
As always, get in touch if you have any questions or just to let me know how you are getting on. And feel free to join the facebook group and share in there or ask for support. Hope to hear from you soon.
Vic x