The Psychology of Relationships – We Hurt Others in the Same Way We were Hurt

Posted On April 28, 2016 / Written by Dr. Linda Gadbois

 Relationships act as a Mirror for Reflecting back to us Unconscious Aspects of Ourselves

What many people don’t realize is that we’re never conditioned to only one role or position is a dynamic as a behavioral pattern, but rather to the whole pattern. Whatever patterns as family dynamics that we’re being played out around us and that we were an integral part of, we not only experience from one position or role in that dynamic, which was created through the interaction itself, but we develop defensive behaviors that serve to provoke the other roles being played out that were necessary to give us the experience we had in relationship with it. All behavioral dynamics are dramas acted out that create a consistent type of experiences. The only way we can do this is by attracting the same type of people, enter into relationship with them, where the same idea begins playing out, causing us to feel the same way that we always feel.

The relationship we form with others is a relationship we form with ourselves in the other person. Our consciousness as vibratory energy blends into theirs, where whatever qualities we share in common are naturally stimulated just through the nature of the interaction, made active in both people, brought forth as behaviors, and used to create our experiences of the relationship. Energy is qualities of consciousness that form our character and identity which produces the natural behavior and way of being that naturally act out greater patterns as self-expression that tells a certain type of story as a consistent version of reality. A certain type of person consistently tells a certain type of story. It’s fairly easy to recognize that you’ve got a personalized theme playing out in your life that’s the basis for how you experience things by the story you tell yourself about them that makes them mean something, the meaning we give things creates your experiences in a congruent and consistent manner. This theme, is at once the expression of the energetic structure of your paradigm and your perceptual lens which interprets everything to give it meaning by the story you tell yourself about it, while simultaneously creating and reinforcing your mental paradigm. We’re never experiencing other people or neutral events as they actually are, apart from us, but by how we remake them in our mind to naturally become a coherent part of our story about things.

Throughout our life, we were in conditions, circumstances, and situations where a consistent type of drama and behaviors were being acted out, and we were trained to participate in them, and they served to shape us to the natural mind-set and behaviors of that pattern. These events caused us to feel a certain way, and the story we made up about them as a way of putting them into context and making sense of them, created the perspective that became habitual, and we began interpreting all of the events of our life to mean the same thing and thereby tell the same type of story, and serve to give us more of the same type of feeling. We become conditioned to feeling a certain way, and that feeling as an overall mood forms all our personal experiences as the expression of it, which naturally produces more of it, strengthening and validating it. The inner feeling forms the outer perception as the reality of that feeling, stimulating it in others by how we feel and act, and using it as the basis for the interaction as a drama of some kind that acts to strengthen, multiply, and amplify the feeling in both people, and becomes the result or outcome of all experiences created out of that relationship.

Because we are conditioned to patterns, and our natural perception and behaviors are a product of that pattern, our natural perceptions and unconscious behaviors act to naturally stimulate, initiate, and produce that pattern. Often, this doesn’t come through actual behavior, but rather in our ability to interpret a large variety of behaviors displayed by others to mean what we believe it means, rather than as they actually intended it. What we expect to find or see in another (based on our past and the theme we developed) becomes our filter through which we look and our theme for interpreting everything to mean what we need it to mean in order to keep telling our story about things. Our perception is an interpretation that bares our signature as our style for creating.

The idea of do unto others as you would have them do unto you, is not a nice idea or polite behavior, but a psychological fact or law. As we do unto others, we stimulate them to treat us the same way in return. Not necessarily in the direct and fully aware sense, but in the indirect and unconscious sense. We produce the behavior of that pattern, often without realizing it because we’re telling ourselves a story about why we’re doing what we’re doing that makes it seem different. But the behavior itself stimulates the same behavioral pattern in the other person, who returns the favor by acting the same way towards us.

For example: Someone who feels rejected and not wanted (their theme), produces the attitude (how they feel) and behavior (how they come across) that causes them to be rejected and not wanted. They go into any situation expecting to be rejected, and anticipating it, looking for it, and are able to readily interpret any number of behaviors being displayed by the other person as meaning that they’re (once again) being rejected, and so they behave as if they’re being rejected and go into the behaviors they normally do when feeling that way, and act distant, aloof, somewhat cold, agitated, sad and hurt, and quit participating having to be coaxed into joining in, are overly shy, rude and harsh (angry), and act hurt for no obvious reason (to the other person), and so on. They act in a way that causes the other person to feel unwanted or rejected by them, and they respond in kind, by outright rejecting them. In this way, they produce the experience of being rejected by rejecting another, usually without ever realizing that that’s what they’re doing. When the other person responds in kind by rejecting them, they think, ah ha! I knew it, see, once again I’m not wanted, and they feel the same way they always do and can continue to tell the same story about things.

In a similar fashion someone whose been betrayed, expects betrayal, and behaves in such a way that causes the other person to feel betrayed, and they respond in a like manner, betraying us back. All action causes an equal or greater reaction. Cause always produces a corresponding effect. We can only produce the effect that we act as the cause for. Likewise, other people act as the cause that produces an effect in us. We’re attracted to people who share the same feeling-pattern as we do, and who act to not only stimulate us and we them, but naturally cooperate and participate in acting out the same story, giving both people more of the same feeling they share in common.

Whatever we do ourselves, we imagine the other person is doing also. A person who lies and hides things is always suspicious of the other person as doing the same thing, and often accuses them of it even when they’re not. A person who plays around and cheats, expects the other person to be doing the same things, and often looks for (the same way they go about it) and accuses them of it. In fact, whatever a person states as their issues or what they don’t like or react to in another, is something they’re prone to doing themselves, they just have a different reason for doing it that makes it seem different.

Someone who says honesty is really important to them, and they don’t like it when their partner lies and keeps things from them, will not only attract the very people that will fulfill that, but usually have a considerable number of secrets themselves that they constantly lie about in order to keep hidden, and will sneak around snooping and spying on the other person trying to catch them at what they know they’re doing, which of course is doing the same thing they’re imagining the other person is doing. But when they’re doing the same thing, hiding things, they’re doing it for a reason that justifies it in their mind, so they don’t see themselves as doing the very thing they suspect the other person of doing.

Whatever theme we’ve built our identity around, we attract naturally the co-star of the same drama. A person with a victim mentality needs a victimizer in order to keep telling the story of being the victim, and produces the ideal behavior that provokes the person victimizing them. We always imagine that it’s being done to us with no fault of our own, and once again, we’re innocent victims to malicious people. When in reality, they’re acting as a mirror to reflect back to us our own tendencies and projections, showing us the dramas we act to consistently co-create. And of course these dramas are never cut and dry or outright obvious, but formed in very personal ways through twists in the plot. We have a particular way of being betrayed, for example, and there’s a sub-theme to the main theme. We have a particular way of being rejected, or a specific reason for being rejected. We then try to solve the issue by only focusing on the other person, and are not willing to recognize our own part, or work on our own tendencies, and are certainly not able to get into another relationship while acting the same way and producing a new effect. A person who’s sarcastic and verbally abusive, for example, usually causing people to become sarcastic and hurtful back, will try to find someone who won’t be bothered by it, or that will put up with it, without becoming the same way back, so they don’t have to change.

Whenever we’re in a relationship, if we reflect on the overall nature of it, we’ll notice a pattern being acted out as a life drama that involves our issues, or is about the same thing all our experiences are about. In noticing and gaining realization of the pattern as tendencies, we can begin seeing our part in it, and what we’re doing to actively co-create it. What we see in the other person is a reflection of that same feeling-quality in us. Our interaction stimulates their feelings and behaviors, and vice versa. They play a complementary role in our drama, and us in theirs. When we understand that we are costars of the same story, we can realize that what we imagine they’re doing to us, is something they also perceive us as doing to them. How they’re being with us is a direct reflection of how we’re being with them.

Like always begets more of what is like itself. We can’t enter into relationship with someone who doesn’t share the same qualities and behavioral dynamics because we fail to relate and there’s no connection between us. When we feel chemistry with someone, their energy is moving into ours and stimulating it by activating or vibrating it. This is because we’re resonating with them, we are of the same vibratory frequency, and share the same mind-set. When we come together there’s immediate connection, pronounced feelings and we instantly relate to them. There’s a natural understanding that takes place. The nature of our immediate interaction sets the shared pattern into motion, and basic ways of interacting become established fairly early on, and sets the foundation for how the relationship develops in terms of the feelings and behaviors it endeavors.

No one is going to come into our life and fix or heal us. We have to do that before we can attract or be attracted to the person that will act out a different story with us. Until we heal and correct our own issues and tendencies, we are only capable of attracting, relating to, and forming a relationship with those who play a complementary role in the same dynamic. However, two people who realize their own tendencies, and awaken together in the midst of their pattern, can heal together by supporting one another in their growth, act as the means for healing to take place through transformation, and continue to grow together throughout their lives.

 Dr. Linda Gadbois

Transpersonal Psychologist, Mind-Body Medicine Consultant, and Spiritual Teacher