PASSIVE, AGGRESIVE AND ASSERTIVE BEHAVIOUR

Do you want to go to the cinema?

One of the main ribbons through this writing is the idea that we can either be a victim of our history’s, or a product, and this next chapter endeavours to show you how you can change one for the other.

Dependant on how we present ourselves to others depends on how we get treated.
What do I mean by this?

Well there are certain ways of behaving which result in the treatment we receive as people, insofar, as if we are passive we get walked over, aggressive people find it difficult to get on with others and assertive people who respect themselves and others get to feel ok.

So what do I mean by that last paragraph? To answer it I’m going to focus in depth on all three behaviours and then bring it all back together about choices.

Passive behaviour, comes about through a lack of self esteem and sometimes self loathing. The people who are passive feel they have no control over situations and they are always at the beck and call of others who are able to be more demanding.

Women are particularly good at this, they start out as their parents daughter, become their husbands wives and end up as their children’s mother, only to have become resentful at some point about the loss of themselves.

Being passive means that we have no personal power, we deny ourselves our rights as human beings. In that, I mean that we as members of society have the same human rights as anyone else. We may have different incomes, be more or less attractive than someone else, be in more or less important jobs than others. All of these ‘qualities’ are not what I’m talking about, as everyone can be passive, it is not the privilege of the rich and famous, or poor and broke!

At the end of this chapter I will list some human rights and look at how they can be truly owned.

How does a passive person present themselves?

Well imagine that one of your friends asks you if you want to go to the cinema, being passive you won’t have any strong views, you’ll answer this in an, if you like response. But not in a powerful way, more as in ‘I don’t want to make a decision , cause if I do and it isn’t what you want then you might not be friends’ way with me.
At the same time as answering in this way your body language will also be reflecting your passivity.

You will be a bit hunched up, a bit humble, a bit fidgety as if you can’t own what you really feel, and generally you will present as being a bit sad and possibly pathetic. You may fiddle with your hands, and if you really get into being passive, almost wringing them with feelings of desperation at having to make something as awful as a decision.
You will feel trapped, like a rabbit in a car headlights, ‘Oh why have I got to decide, can’t you make the decision for me’ will be how you’ re presenting. Obviously you want to spend time with your friends, but when your being passive it is so much easier when they tell you what to do.

Wives and mothers do this a lot. When we first get married, we want to prove that we are as good as our husband’s mothers, not consciously but on a subliminal level. So we set about looking after his every whim and need, food on the table, house clean, healthy sex life, listening to him talking about whatever, almost to the point of forgetting that we might also have something to say.

I really enjoy reading those books from the 1950s about how to behave when our husbands come home from a hard day at the office, the sort of thing, where it suggests that putting a clean apron on, a pretty ribbon in your hair and some fresh lipstick will make him pleased to come home to you. The when he gets through the door, that you don’t interrupt whilst he tells you about his day as it’s your job to make him fell that home is a sanctuary…… Yeah right!

As daughters, we may have had to put up with being endlessly devalued and never being able to do anything right, so subsequently are confidence suffers massively. We may be so used to being told what to do by whomever, that when we get the opportunity to make our own decisions it fills us with such a sense of panic that it feels easier to not be the person to make decisions, and to behave in such a way as others make choices around us.

As mothers, we do it as it’s such hard work training our children, that half the time it is easier to go and clean their rooms for them rather than wait for them to do it. How strange is that? They’ll never clean their rooms when they know you are daft enough to do it, they are not stupid.

So whilst we are being the perfect wife and mother we are letting go of our self esteem, if supposing we had any in the first place. To begin with these roles are very satisfying, they give a sense of purpose, an identity, a feeling of security as we are important in these roles.

But ultimately they stop working, as relationships go through the ups and downs that are normal in a long term relationship, whether that is with a partner or our children. In particular this can be very painful in relation to our children as they grow and start to make their own lives outside of us. Whether through leaving home for college, or work or just using home as a sleeping place in their hectic social lives.

We no longer know our children, gone are the days when we could choose what they should wear, what they liked to eat, whether or not they could have a sleep over or whatever. This can make us feel very redundant, as for years we have put our life and soul into being there for them. We love them more than anyone else in the world and yet they still want to leave home.

It is these things that can start to make us feel we have lost our way and don’t know how to make decisions anymore. Obviously there are many, many more reasons why people become passive, but this is just to give a flavour of some contributory factors.
This is not about being critical of this behaviour, more a way forward to choice a different option to help anyone feel better about themselves, because one thing is sure that the people I have worked with over the last 20 years who are being passive don’t actually like themselves very much. The feelings of self hate, low self esteem, lack of confidence are huge and probably more apparent in this group than any other I have worked with.

Aggression, now this is fairly easily understood just from the name itself.
People who are aggressive are taking power away from others, as they know best what is right for anyone else at any give moment.

They too, have a particular body language, their chests are pushed out, a lot of the time when they speak to us their arms are folded across their chest , but not in a cowering way as in passivity, but, in a don’t mess with me way. They may use tactics like standing over others to impose their way through the use of their power in their physicality. They may point a lot, emphasising a point so that the passive person they are talking to, knows that they the aggressor means business. Interestingly you can’t really have aggressive people if you don’t have passive people in the first place for the aggressors to bully.

On many levels being aggressive is seen as a good thing in our society. It is how businesses want their employees to be especially in relation to business competitors.
Just watching how the people who work in the stock exchange on the floor, shouting out above others to be heard, trying to make the better deal, to do better than their rivals shows how valuable aggression is. Companies would collapse very fast if they didn’t have the staff who were prepared to work with a dog eat dog attitude.

But that sort of aggression is not what I’m talking about, I’m talking about the person who wants to impose their way at all costs on another human being. At it’s very worst this is where physical and mental abuse are used in a relationship.

The belittling of another human being, the constant criticism, the humiliation of another person, all of these tactics are used by the aggressor to strangely make then feel better about themselves.

Insofar, that quite often the aggressor doesn’t like themselves much, but couldn’t possibly own that feeling. So they find a victim to carry their pain for them, as they criticise someone else, the person they are having a go at is far too busy hating themselves to notice the aggressor feeling insecure.

For anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of being bullied will know, whether they started off strong and have had the stuffing knocked out of them over time. Or if they came into this relationship full of self hate to start with.

In this instance it is easier to stereotype. So we have the woman, who starts a relationship with all the needs to be perfect in all areas of life to her new partner. She wants desperately to please, it makes her feel good. She doesn’t necessarily question the unfairness of the work distribution in the home. She just wants to be seen as good.
And so good she is.

Quite possibly her partner is having a hard time at work, maybe he’s a bit wary of the boss, and feels he doesn’t have any power at work. This is making him unhappy, but being a typical stereotype male he isn’t going to discuss his feelings with anyone. He doesn’t want to loose face at work by looking emasculated, so he bottles up his feelings, and brings them home.

And what do you know, there’s his sweet and little partner there waiting for him, and he gives her all his aggression, both barrels of it. Because by this time in his head he has turned his pain into being someone else’s responsibility. It’s not his fault. But he may not be able to say it’s the bosses either, and so it becomes his sweet partners, and suddenly it’s as if she had known that he wanted his white shirt ready for him, when she has only washed his blue deliberately where all this anger erupts. He lets go of that rage on her, whether verbally, or with his fists. It’s her bloody fault, she should have known about the shirt.

What this does is validate the man’s feelings of power and masculinity, as he’s proved it’s no longer his fault. He stops thinking about his lack of confidence at work as he’s now got this other human being carrying his pain for him. And every time that he comes close to being aware of those feelings inside himself he immediately launches an attack on his partner, to stave off any uncomfortable emotions in himself, and to maintain the status quo of passive /aggressive balance which keeps him feeling safe.

This of course is not right, and I will come back to it, but first need to say something about assertion.

Assertion, is the ability to feel that one has rights, but so does everyone else. It is a place of being comfortable in your own skin. Where we know that we will do things for others, but only if we are giving back to. Not necessarily in the same way but that there is an equality in the relationship that allows both people to mutually respect each other, and not be overawed by others, or worse, superior to others. This is a place where there is no power struggle going on, there doesn’t need to be one.
People who are assertive, have confidence about themselves, have a reasonable self esteem, and who don’t hate themselves.

To be assertive is not about having better looks, more money, or a good job. These things are on the whole external. Although obviously we are born with our looks but in this day and age there are many things we can do to change those, from the application of make-up to plastic surgery. More money, comes more often than not from the job we do, and no-one has to stay stuck in a bad job, we live in a world of expanding horizons and education.

Assertion is not these things, it is an inner feeling, of being okay in the world we live in. A feeling of not being perfect, but also not being any worse than anyone else.
It is the experience of wanting to help others but not at a cost of our self worth.
Those that are assertive do not need to bully others, as they have no problem with self esteem so don’t need anyone else to carry their pain, they are content within their own skin.
But also being happy in our own skin doesn’t mean that we can’t ever use make-up of surgery to feel even better about ourselves. We live so much in a society of youth being all important and age being very undervalued. But there is a balance of self esteem versus self hate that the assertive person will look at before needing to make decisions about such things.

The liberation of no longer colouring my hair two years ago has been astonishing, I had been dying it since I was 16 and I stopped and it’s okay. But equally I wouldn’t ever go to work without full make up on, that would not be okay. So it’s treading that fine line between what feels right to us. The important issue here is that it’s our individual choice as to how to behave, obviously within the strictures of the society we live in. It is not however, okay in assertion terms if we make decisions based on what other people want of us, that strays into passive /aggressive roles.

To illustrate how simple and effective assertion is I’ll tell you a story about an ex client, who’s given me permission to use this story.

This client was a university teacher, and was very passive so for some time we worked on her learning assertion techniques. At some point she felt able to start putting into practise these techniques.

Every Monday when she got to work her colleague would put her diary on my clients desk for her to fill in, now my client wasn’t her secretary and she was very resentful at this weekly expectation. So the day came when she picked up the diary and put it back on the colleagues desk , but she didn’t say anything, so although she’d done something assertive it wasn’t quite right. Later on that week the colleague asked if my client was going to the canteen and if so could she get her a cream egg. Now my none assertive client in the past would have done that but gone of muttering under her breath about being a slave or some such thing. This time she didn’t, what she did was say, that if she went and got the cream egg then her colleague could make her a cup of coffee on her return. RESULT! Assertion, equality, self confidence, and a feeling of self worth., that doing something so simple was so life changing as my client has never looked back from this point.

Passive- Aggression, that story above also illustrates something called passive -aggression. That is when someone does or acts in a passive way, but on doing so feels a massive amount of aggression inside themselves. The client going off to the canteen muttering to herself, but feeling unable to challenge the other person.
This is not a healthy place to be, well neither is passivity actually.
Feeling downtrodden and unheard is soul destroying and destructive, so what can be done to change?



If we go back to the example of the cinema to illustrate the different reactions.

Do you want to go to the cinema?

Passive
1.Unsure
2.Scared of saying no
3. Frightened of loosing friends
4. Feeling resentment , if that not what you want to do.
5. Feeling unheard
6. Body language showing an ’inward’ attitude.
7. Body language showing an inability to be confident.
8. No confidence.
9. Low self esteem.
10.Self hate that not able to say what really wants to do.

Aggression.

1. Angry attitude.
2. Belittling others.
3. Scathing comments about their choice of activity.
4. Knowing better what everyone else should do.
5. Body language being threatening.
6. Deep inside, having low self esteem, but never ever admitting it..
7. Blaming others when things go wrong.
8. A confidence obtained at others expense.
9. An inability to know or care about what others think, at least outwardly


Assertive

1.Being able to say yes or no, without it being threatening to self or others.
2.Being able to give to others without feeling that won’t get something back.
3. Body language, relaxed and comfortable.
4. Equality in relationships.
5. Not doubting that friendships will still be around if you don’t go to the cinema.
6. Having self confidence and self worth.
7. Liking who you are.


So if you’re assertive and you get asked to the cinema, and it doesn’t fit in with your plans, the correct approach could be along the lines of maybe suggesting, that you couldn’t go that tonight, but as you’d love to see your friend why don’t you meet for a quick drink and go to the cinema next week. So you’re needs are met, your friend is not rejected and her needs can be taken into account at a time that works better for you.

Rather than passively agreeing to go when it doesn’t fit into your plans at all and you getting into a spiral of feeling that you are trapped and powerless, which in turn increases the passive aggressive feelings inside you. And you feel more and more unable to say no to anyone and your self worth gets further crushed.

Now if your going for aggression here then chances are you’ll turn down the invitation rather forcibly, unless you get your way, whatever that is. And strangely you may start to find you don’t get as many invitations as others. So even though passive people are thoroughly aggravating to you, they get more invites that you do, cause they at least are kind to the people around them even if they are victims in your eyes.

Returning to the human rights from earlier, these are just conditions of behaviour that we are all entitled to whether we are Prime Minister, milkman or just little old you!
They are such things as;

I have the right to say yes and no for myself.
I have the right to express my opinions and beliefs
I have the right to deal with others without being dependant on then for approval
I have the right to decline responsibility for other people’s problems.
I have the right to have needs and to decide that those needs are as important as other people’s needs.
I have the right to be listened to and taken seriously.

I’m sure that if you just give yourselves a moment here then you can think of many more.

So how to actually start to change.

1.First of all you have to become totally aware of these patterns of passive behaviour, with or without the passive -aggressive element.
2.You have to start sitting, metaphorically, on your own shoulder and notice how you are responding to everyone around you.
3.What sort of responses are you making.
4.Start to identify which of the behaviours it is.
5.How do your responses make you feel inside, is that okay or not?
6.Take time out to think quietly how you could have responded in an assertive way, one of the best places to do this is when in the bath as you can really give yourself time to consider all the discussion you could have had.
7.Slowly bring these ‘bath’ thoughts into your conscious mind on a daily basis, so that at least in your head you know what the response should have been.
8.When your ready try saying the assertive response out loud to someone. Making sure that the first few times you are assertive it’s with someone safe..
9. Become assertive with the people in your life who give you the most trouble!


Now obviously if you have been bullied for a while, that is going to feel very threatening not only to you in doing it, but it’s not going to be well received by the aggressor, who has an investment in keeping you in your place. So it’s worth having a conversation prior to your doing this about how their behaviour makes you feel and what you need to do to feel better about yourself. You are not out to change them here, just yourself.. And if you start to respect yourself and no longer treat yourself like an old dish cloth then slowly other people will stop feel threatened by this new confident you and slowly stop the need to bully you.

If of course they don’t stop, then the question you must ask is why are you still with them, what are you getting out of the relationship?
Woman who are in abusive relationships only stop being in them when they start to value themselves, however hard it is for them to get out of them.

We deserve to value ourselves, as if we don’t, why would anyone else think well of us. Woman who go back to abusive partners are doing it because they don’t think enough of themselves and they are still attracted to men who validate their lack of self esteem. Start to like yourself and you will no longer be attracted to men who operate in this way. The advert on the television that uses the line, because you are worth it, sums it up, you are worth so much and shouldn’t you only be around people who agree with you and not those that belittle you?

It has to start with you, learn to love yourself, you really are fabulous.
Look in a mirror every day and say to your reflection- you are ok. I’m not talking here about what you look like, or whether you’re having a bad hair day. I’m talking about your inner self, that person who needs to prove nothing to anyone, except yourself.
It’s not conceit it’s self worth to do this. Don’t be afraid, people will love you whomever you are, but they will particularly love you, if you love yourself first. I know, I’m one of the most assertive people I know nowadays, and I have a great number of friends who love and care for me because of who I am and not because I’m trapped into trying to please them all the time.

It takes time to change, and it’s difficult, but it’s about choices. You can be different if you give yourself permission to be different. Being a victim is so not a good place.
And you never know, being assertive may just be better than the downtrodden place you’ve been living, for however long.

What have you got to loose…. Nothing.
What have you got to gain……Self respect
Your choice!