But I think it's only being exposed to the harder situations, the one's we don't get, over and and over (like remedial math) and working with them that we'll ever get them. Just saying, "I don't get it" (or "I don't like it") and avoiding situations like that will pretty much ensure one never gets/likes it? You have to eat a lot of cooked carrots when you're a kid before you decide they're not too bad :-)

I'm not talking forcing someone to see or accept but exposing them to situations in a contained environment like therapy, is something that helped me. But I had to at least accept the exposure, even though it was often extremely uncomfortable and painful.

One of the main things I learned (all on my own) in therapy took me about six years. One day I realized that either the sky was not falling (as I reacted to life) or that my T was crazy.

My T was a very calm, quiet person, didn't get ruffled or excited like I did and I wanted to be more like that. But then I realized that the difference was more than just personality or our backgrounds; her worldview had to be different from mine. How'd she get that worldview?

It was the simple realization that I did not believe my T was crazy, so her reactions could not be that "wrong". The sky must not be falling, it must be "me" that started me on my life change for the better.

I'm not stupid; I left home because my stepmother called me stupid one time too many, I do have a good "base" so my self esteem is not that hard to access. So, I didn't berate myself for realizing that I had been wrong all that time, that the sky was not falling and thus my reactions to what experiences came my way were "wrong". Instead, I took that kernel I had learned and the next time I felt too anxious or felt I was at odds with those around me, I remembered my T, whom I admired and wanted to be like, was calm and wouldn't have viewed the situation as direly as I did, therefore, the situation was probably not as dire as I viewed it. Didn't make me see the situation as less dire but did make me feel supported (if a bit split as how I felt and how it actually "was" weren't the same).

That's when I realized that some of my T's favorite phrases were good for me. One that I immediately told her I really liked was "It's not like that." She was a little surprised I liked that statement but I liked it because it freed me to let go of whatever "wrong" way I was viewing something and try to find another view. It forced me to ask the question, "If it's not like that, then what is it like?" I got into sleuth/experiment/curiosity mode and away from focusing on me and what I was doing "wrong" or the other person and what I liked/didn't like. Instead, I started to focus outward a bit more. My navel had collected quite a bit of lint by this time and was looking a bit bedraggled and useless :-)

I quit taking everything to be about "Me" and started to look at the "everything" instead. I looked at the situation instead of my feelings about the situation, (Am I stubborn? If I'm stubborn, do I want that? How would I like to be instead?).

As good as "It's not like that" was for me, my #1 T phrase I still use with myself over 35 years later is, "Not with THAT attitude!" I did a self-pity party one session :-) and made some statement/question and that was the response I got. Woke me right up, LOL. It made me look at what I was saying and THAT is what I think therapy is all about. Only I can change my way of relating to what comes into my life. What comes in is not the problem, my attitude and response are and they're the only thing I can control.

I can't make other people do/feel/respond/understand in a certain way; I can't change what comes into my life because I can't predict or avoid the future. All I can do is figure out how I want to respond and to do that, I have to see how I am responding and how that works/doesn't work. I'm not talking about feeling, I can't control that either! Feelings are tools; they let me know what's going on with me. "Not with THAT attitude!" isn't a criticism, it's just a statement that my T doesn't think how I'm going about responding is going to work well for me. It forces me to look at MY attitude, my way of responding.

If I insist on swimming upstream when everyone else is swimming downstream, I'm gonna get buffeted and if I'm gonna get buffeted, it behooves me to look at what I'm doing, not try to get everyone else to swim the way I'm swimming or to "hey, watch where you're doing!" If I truly understand about swimming upstream and WANT to go that way, that's one thing and I'm probably going to be able to pay better attention to that job, go faster and not get buffeted as much as if I'm clueless and just going the wrong direction because I haven't looked at the situation and how things "are". If I understand about swimming upstream, I understand the other people aren't in my way, that I may be in theirs and impeding their journey and I'll work hard to avoid running into them, not decide they're all idiots.

While it's true that I'm the right size and it's the pants that don't fit, it's silly to decide that all the wrong-fitting pants SHOULD fit me. If everyone else is going the other way, it's usually not because they're idiots, it's usually because they're going the way and I'm going the "other" way. Once I notice that, I want to stop and look at what the situation is versus what I think it is.