Did increased awareness make you less tolerant?

Do you find that working through emotional issues has made you less tolerant of others? I’m interested in what others have experienced or concluded.

Cognitively I am really seeing things differently. This has been very recent. I am seeing the mental traps I set for myself and the crap other people do that I get entangled in. It’s like seeing the land mines when I used to blindly walk all over them.

Lately I have been cynical and irritable with people quite a bit. I am sure it’s just a matter of working through old feelings and balancing old behaviors with new ones. I don’t want to carry all this negativity. Seeing things for what they are and being logical about it all is one thing... being angry about it all is not personal growth.

To me it's been the opposite. I try to be more kind to people, although I don't always succeed.

In working through my junk pile, I became more compassionately aware, for lack of a better term.

Addressing the anger could be another work through. It's similar to going through the stages of grief in its own way.

For me, yes, it made me less tolerant. I know now what sort of people I can't tolerate being around or who make me miserable, so while most people are inclined to allow just about anyone into their life, I can't. Of course, I'm not normal and have a lot of things I struggle with regarding relationships in general, so I'm perfectly ok with being picky about who I let in.

Yep. You described it perfectly. I’m certainly less tolerant of who I let in my life and who I will be around. None of us is normal and we all struggle. ❤️

It does feel like the stages of grief. I want to be compassionately aware. But much more cautious and realistic than I used to be.

Nothing wrong with caution and realism. I believe that to be necessary in life. Self preservation matters. I think that's the awareness part to be honest.

Thank you. I totally agree with you. I want to keep being aware of my anger and work through that part too. I like the awareness but the anger and sadness and depression is wearing me down and life is too short for this. Nothing worth doing is ever easy and the path is never a straight one. 🤷🏼*♀️

For me, it's been both. I am less tolerant of other people's ******** and when it involves me. I am less tolerant and accepting of other people trying to manipulate me.

However, it's also made me be more compassionate when I see that others are suffering because I know what they are going through. But it's allowed me to be compassionate while having no tolerance for being dragged into their BS at the same time.

It’s made me less tolerant in a good way. Now I discover a toxic behavior in a person and tell them it’s unhealthy and I won’t feed into it, now that I know better.

Perfect. I believe that’s the exact thing I’m going through.

I so identify with what you are feeling, Sisabel. My heart goes out to you.

Working through your issues from the past and resolving them brings up all kinds of emotions.

For me, because I had always been a "pleaser" and someone who from earliest memory had been taught to never consider myself or my feelings over anyone else, regardless of what their treatment of me was, therapy brought new emotions for me as well. And part of my new internal reactions is exactly what you describe here.

I found it helpful to know that I was experiencing at what I first perceived as negativity towards others was in reality my first meaningful, tentative steps to creating healthy boundries with others. A totally new experience for me, as I have never done so with my past relationships.

I passed through a period of anger and resentment as you described. It was totally foreign to me, as before I had always blamed myself for the actions of others.

I found it helpful to actually embrace these feelings for a brief time. To acknowledge them, to reflect if my newfound feelings towards these people were justified.

And then to let it go.

That takes time. But I have found that embracing all of my new reactions and new emotions is actually a positive experience, as long as I work towards letting any resentment or anger go eventually. That has also provided a new set of guidelines for me that has resulted in letting go of toxic people in my life.

All my best to you.

Thank you so very much RascalCate. You described exactly what I couldn’t put into words. I definitely have always been a people pleaser who has always blamed myself for everything. The negativity and angry toward others has felt like the exact opposite behavior. I’ll keep being aware, accept and hope things balance themselves out. I guess none of us is ever perfectly balanced but I would like to hit a bit closer to middle ground more often than not.

I have become less tolerant of the intolerants. Make sense?

I’m more cautious.

I’m more compassionate, in general. But I’m also not so “ready” to take the blame for offending the offenders.. or iow I’m also less tolerant of the intolerants.......

Sisabel
Sisabel

I think you will eventually find that middle ground you seek. That feeling of anger at others is justified. And probably like me, it is such a strange, foreign sensation. It's downright scary, right? It is for me, too. Especially scary because you don't want to become an angry, bitter person.

You won't.

Just the fact that you notice it and it bothers you tells me you are a positive person. It's okay not to tolerate bad behaviour or mean, manipulative people. For me, it's unchartered territory, too. And a tiny bit of me wants to feel guilty for even experiencing that anger. But I truly have learned that a bottomless level of tolerance kept me from leading a happy life. It leads to constantly getting hurt and attracting more toxic people.

I had the unrealistic expectation that therapy, that after my psychologist helped me "put all the pieces together" I would be finished. Work done, job completed. Instead of that, therapy has taught me I have started on a life long journey. And that's okay, really. I have let go of so many heavy burdens that I carried. And I am allowing myself to feel emotions I never gave myself permission to feel before. Sure, it does feel mighty weird sometimes to find out everything is not my fault, including someone's bad behaviour.

Your feelings and emotions are yours, they are important, and you need to let yourself experience them. We are all on this journey together.

Thank you so very much for that lovely and encouraging post RascalCate. Your words are therapy to me. I definitely notice the change in myself and it has felt odd. I hadn’t thought about the fact that I noticed my negativity and it bothered me being key to working through it and balancing things out. It does feel good that I don’t seem to be attracting the drama and toxic nonsense. It’s almost lonely and boring but actually not because I’m enjoying the peace. My time is finally my own and I don’t feel obligated to get sucked in to something I don’t want. I’m noticing my anger and irritability as it comes up and just letting it be what it is for the time being. Already this week I notice I am quieting down. I was really getting negative at home and at work and I’ve started to tone it down. I am starting to mostly just see things versus say things. There’s peace in letting the emotion go and not saying anything about it. Hopefully the letting go part will get better. I’m babbling now. But thank you so much for the good talk we’ve had about this. It’s amazing when you finally see your own behavior and then you see the shift in your thought process and new behaviors slowly emerge.