That’s how one of my clients began our chat a few months ago. It wasn’t the first time a chat began that way. Sometimes it varies – “No one loves me, everyone hates me,” or “I will never find someone who will marry me,” or “My husband NEVER remembers holidays and ALWAYS forgets to buy me a birthday present.”
Living a life where everyone hates you and you have no hope of ever receiving a birthday present from your spouse or partner can be very depressing. It also can be totally unreal. Let me explain.
My client who had EVERYTHING go wrong, actually had eight events turn into minor disasters. All but seven could have been avoided had she started for work a half hour earlier than usual. Rain slowed her down and made her late, the supervisor was in a bad mood and called her out on the lateness, her boyfriend failed to text her which turned out to be because of the weather making him late for work also.
If I had allowed the statement, “Everything went wrong today to stand as itself, the reading would not have been as helpful as it actually turned out to be.
We have all had days when “everything went wrong” but actually it’s not EVERYTHING. Many times it turns out to be poor planning, time deficit or one or two things interfere with the day running smoothly.
We sometimes tend to exaggerate the negative. We are suggestible when it comes to negatives. I often wonder why we are not so suggestible when it comes to positives. I suspect it’s because as children we are trained with punishment for being “wrong” rather than suggestions on how to correct our mistakes or inappropriate behavior. Also, people tend to not reward the correct and good that we do because of the fear of spoiling us. No one is spoiled by a well deserved compliment, even if it’s for something ordinary.
The solution to a lot of these everything/always problems is to think them over and see what they consist of. In most cases you will see that “everything” turns into a couple of things at most and maybe even nothing but a bad mood. You will see that “no one” means not the one you really want to have like you instead of “no one likes me”.
The next time you are tempted to paint life with a broad, brooding, negative brush, take a few moments to make a list of reality. If your spouse or partner NEVER sends you a birthday card or buys you a gift, ask him why or send him a text reminding him that next week is your birthday. If you think you can never find someone to marry you, change it into “I am having difficulty finding a person who I really like and want to live with for the next 50 years.”
Well, that’s realistic because it’s difficult to get a good match of two people but just plod on and eventually you will find someone to fit the category. If everyone hates you and no one loves you, ask a friend who is not in either category of everyone or no one to tell you if you have some type of defect in your personality or better yet, ask yourself which of the everyone people you want to like you and what evidence do you have that someone or everyone hates you. Get down from the cloud where you have all these painful thoughts stored and begin to think it through until they all vanish or until you pin down where the bad feelings are coming from and find a cure for the problem.
My readings consist of three parts – listening to the situation, narrowing it down for my client until it sounds and feels logical and then giving advice on how to make it better.
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