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April 7, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
35:49
'I NEVER MEANT TO HURT YOU'
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Good morning, good morning. Hope you're doing well.
Time to talk about a very interesting topic somebody brought up about what is the story behind the statement, I didn't mean to upset you.
It was never my intention.
It was never my goal. I didn't mean to upset you.
Now, I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that this is perhaps a smidge more on the female side than the male side of the human equation.
Let's unpack it. Because I guarantee you, you'll be getting this in spades over the course of your life, at least while you still have immature and manipulative people in your life.
I never meant to.
I never promised you a rose garden.
So, if a woman does something and you're upset, and you say, you did this, it upset me, Now, does she want to deal with your feelings?
Again, this is not the most mature approach to life, but we'll just, you know, call her Mary and say she's not particularly mature.
Does Mary want to deal, does she want to take responsibility for her actions, and does she want to explore your feelings?
Well, I mean, she will want to if it's easier, right?
But if she can get away with something much easier, which is to say, whoa, I never meant to upset you.
Then she'll take that route. Most people take the path of least resistance, which is why when society loses its capacity to enforce moral decisions, things crumble very quickly.
Let's take a silly scenario.
Your girlfriend uses a hairdryer, right?
Like there's a bathroom off the bedroom.
She uses a loud hairdryer at six in the morning.
And it startles you awake because she's got some, I don't know, important thing to get to.
She's got to get up and she uses a loud hair dryer very early in the morning.
And you get startled awake and it's annoying.
And you say, hey, what's with the hair dryer?
I'm really annoyed that you woke me up when I didn't need to be up and I need my sleep and blah, blah, blah, right?
And she says, whoa, I didn't mean to upset you.
I didn't mean to wake you up. So that's interesting, right?
Because that's considered to be some kind of defense in this situation.
And it's very interesting.
So she's saying to you, my goal was not to wake you up.
It was not my goal to wake you up.
Therefore, you can't get upset with me for waking you up.
Now, of course, if you've lived with someone you love and if you share a bed and you wake up earlier or you have to get up earlier for some reason, Then you, of course, take great pains to protect their sleep.
My wife is usually up earlier than I am, but on the times when I am awake earlier, I sort of slither out of bed with the soundlessness of a stingray at the bottom of the ocean.
I'm trying to be super quiet, of course, because I don't want to disturb her sleep.
That's just basic consideration for living with someone, right?
Of course, when I get up after she does...
Then I don't have any particular need to be quiet, so I sort of yawn and stretch, and maybe I'll put on a bit of music and so on, right?
So it's just, if I'm pretending in my mind like she's not still asleep, and I'm just getting up and clanking around and making my noise, I mean, that's very inconsiderate, right?
It's very thoughtless. It's saying that her presence...
Here is immaterial to my choices, right?
So if your wife Mary or your girlfriend Mary uses a loud hair dryer when you're sleeping and she says, well, my goal was not to wake you up.
My goal was to dry my hair.
Then you are redirected, right?
You're redirected away and she's basically saying that narcissism is better than malevolence, right?
So She's saying, I didn't even think about you and your sleep.
And I woke up, and I washed my hair, and I needed to dry my hair.
My goal was to dry my hair.
The fact that it would startle you out of sleep, the sound of my hair dryer, it didn't occur to me.
It's a sort of monstrous, selfish innocence that's being proclaimed here.
I didn't mean to wake you is kind of chilling.
And she could, I mean, with relative, quote, innocence, she could genuinely say, I had no thought about waking you.
The fact that you're asleep 10 or 15 feet from where I turn on this loud hairdryer did not even cross my mind.
Now, you understand. That is an absolutely monstrous red flag in a woman or a man, for that matter, right?
Let's say, to take an opposite example, let's say that there's a computer with a big sound system in the next room, and the man gets up early and starts playing some loud shoot-em-up game over the speakers.
And this startles his girlfriend or wife awake.
And she says, hey, what are you doing?
I'm sleeping. I'm trying to sleep here.
And he's like, whoa, I didn't mean to wake you.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you.
That's weird, right?
I mean, isn't it weird to not notice the existence, nature, and state of another human being 10 feet away from you?
It indicates an absolute lack of awareness of the existence, nature, and state of another human being that you claim to care about.
It's weird. It's weird.
I didn't mean to wake you.
It's the strangest defense when you think about it, right?
What she's saying is, your existence vanished for me.
Your existence does not exist to me.
That's one option. The other option, of course, is that it's passive-aggressive.
She's upset with you about something, and therefore once you upset her, she didn't talk about it, so now she's going to startle you, and she turns on the hairdryer with a certain grim satisfaction and then claims innocence, like all this passive-aggressive manipulative crap.
But it's either monstrously selfish or Narcissistic really.
I need to dry my hair and I'm going to do it.
I'm going to dry my hair as if there's no one here.
As if there's no one here.
As if I'm alone.
Your existence does not exist for me.
My goal is to dry my hair.
And you don't exist for me in that equation.
And then when I'm reminded of your existence because you complain about being woken up, she says, again, in all, quote, monstrous innocence, I didn't mean to wake you.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you.
It's like, but if you're doing something that is guaranteed to wake someone, Then saying, you didn't mean to wake someone, is saying, I forgot you existed.
I forgot you existed.
I forgot you existed.
Isn't that chilling? I mean, I'm sure, you know, if you've been in love in sort of deep and meaningful ways, you never forget that the other person exists.
Never! Again, that doesn't mean you're not occasionally thoughtless or careless or whatever, but I mean, I never wake up and forget that my wife exists or my daughter.
Oh yeah, that's right, there are people in the house.
Whoa, where did you come from?
I mean, that's bizarre.
That's absolutely bizarre.
I didn't mean to upset you.
And claiming when something is objectively upsetting and careless and thoughtless, like if somebody does turn on a loud hair dryer when you're trying to sleep, I mean, that's not an interpretation kind of thing.
I mean, that's thoughtless, right?
It's not exactly cruel, although it could be, again, if it's passive-aggressive.
But... If you turn on a loud machine near someone who's sleeping, then they're going to wake up.
Well, it wasn't my intention to wake you up.
But you see, that's considered to be a defense.
But it's actually much more of a condemnation.
If the woman said, oh yeah, no, I was mad at you for last night, so I thought I'd greet you with some loud noise in the morning because I'm annoyed, right?
Okay. That's way better because at least she's still thinking of you.
That's better. But if she says, basically, I forgot you existed after waking up next to you, as I have for the last months or years or decades, I completely forgot you existed.
Woo, that's chilling, man.
That's chillingly cold.
And, of course, that is a sign of what is most likely going to be a pretty destructive parent.
I forgot you existed is not what you want in a mother who might be taking your kid to the mall.
Well, you know, I was looking at dresses and I completely forgot that my child existed, so I just wandered off.
I forgot I had a baby in the car.
I just left the car and went to the mall, right?
I forgot you existed is considered to be some kind of defense, but boy, is it ever not.
Not a defense at all.
In fact, it's really one of the most chilling things that you can hear from someone.
I mean, somebody described parenting in this way.
I mean, you're always thinking about your kids, right?
You're always thinking about your kids. Now, there are times when you think about them a little less, you know, like if you're watching a really involved movie and they've gone to bed, you're not, you know, they're not sort of right there in your mind's eye.
But somebody said, I think it was a mom, said, it's kind of like a dimmer switch.
You can turn it down, but you can't turn it off.
And that kind of continuity...
of the existence of other people in your mind, that continuity of the existence of other people in your mind, that's essential.
To having a secure, trusting, loving relationship.
I mean, take an extreme example, right?
Your girlfriend goes out to a club.
The newest club.
It's opening up. Your girlfriend is going out to a club and she ends up going home with some other guy and then she says, Oh, I completely forgot I was in a relationship.
I mean, that's really chilling, right?
That's somebody who most likely experienced so much trauma as a child that they had to literally wipe out the existence of other people in order to survive.
No continuity, no bond.
So I didn't mean to, X, is considered to be an excuse.
It's actually way more of a condemnation because it shows just rank selfishness.
I didn't mean to upset you means I forgot you existed.
Now, that's sort of one aspect of things.
Now, generally it's not quite as obvious as she turns on a loud hair dryer when you're trying to sleep.
It's usually more subtle.
So let's say that...
Your girlfriend is complaining that you're struggling in your career, you're trying to get your foot going, and she's complaining that you never take her anywhere expensive.
That can be a little upsetting, because she's complaining that you don't have enough resources to satisfy her requirements.
And that can be upsetting.
Now, it can also be a stimulant, but she should be more direct and say, look, I'm concerned that you're not making enough money for us to have a family.
What can we do about that?
Now, it doesn't mean that she's wrong, but it's an upsetting thing to hear for a man that you're not making enough money To satisfy your girlfriend, right?
And let's assume that she's not some nutjob who's like, you don't have a yacht in the driveway.
So it would be upsetting.
That doesn't mean that she's wrong.
But in general, it is rather upsetting.
It would be equally upsetting for a woman who was letting her looks go for the man to say, I'm not finding you...
I'm not finding you sexually attractive enough or good-looking enough to settle down with.
Again, it might be right in that she's letting her looks go.
Maybe she's gaining weight. Maybe she hasn't taken care of her teeth in a while.
Whatever. It could be any number of things.
But it would be upsetting for the woman to hear, even if the man's right.
But if you say to your girlfriend, you're becoming less attractive to me and I can't commit.
Then that's going to be upsetting.
Now, if you say that to your girlfriend, you're just letting your looks go and I really can't commit.
And she says, well, that's hurtful, that's upsetting.
You say, hey, I didn't mean to upset you.
That's... Of course it's upsetting.
Of course it's upsetting. Again, it doesn't mean that it's not a useful conversation to have.
It might be true. Maybe the woman is gaining weight.
Maybe the man is underachieving in his career.
Maybe he is settling into a trash job and gaining his sense of accomplishment from World of Warcraft.
I mean, it could be things that are true, but of course it's going to be upsetting to hear.
For a man to hear you don't make enough money.
For a woman to hear you're losing your looks.
I can't commit. These are upsetting things to hear.
And again, could be right, could be true, could be useful, but it is upsetting.
So if, you know, take a silly example, if your girlfriend says, do these jeans make me look fat?
And you say, it's not really the jeans, it's the size of your butt.
The jeans are just hanging in there, they're just holding on, like a Zeppelin and a condom.
She's going to be upset. Now saying, hey, you asked my opinion.
I told you my honest thoughts. I didn't mean to upset you.
I mean, that's just naive, right? Of course it's going to be upsetting.
And again, doesn't mean it shouldn't be said.
Doesn't mean it shouldn't be talked about.
Probably should be talked about in some other context, right?
I mean, I knew a guy years ago who married his wife when she was about 100 pounds.
And after they got married, she gained maybe 200 pounds.
Like, it was wild. Wild.
And of course, you know, something like weight is a relationship issue.
Right? It's a relationship issue.
So, if you get married and you gain weight, that's on you and it's also on your partner for not to say, hey, you seem to be gaining some weight.
What can we do? Do we need to walk more?
Are we eating out too much?
Do we need to buy a gym membership?
What can we do? Because you're a team, right?
So, it's a combined weight management scenario, right?
And it actually works pretty well.
So, when your partner says, I didn't mean to, they're saying, I'm not going to focus on your upset.
I want you to focus on my unverified intentions.
I don't get involved in discussions about unverifiable things with people I don't have a strong trust relationship with.
I just don't get involved in those discussions.
Intentions cannot be proven.
Intentions are a form of savage attack and foggy, pointless defense.
So, if you want to attack someone, you read their intentions.
They're racist, they're sexist, they're misogynistic, you're reading their intentions.
You're not dealing with the facts of their behavior.
And this sort of mind-reading of intentions, it's again, a little bit, it's become a little bit more prevalent, a lot more prevalent in society, it's a bit more of a female thing, right?
Reading intentions. So using the defense of intentions and the attack of intentions of mind-reading is really boring.
It's really boring.
I didn't mean to upset you.
How do I know? How do I know?
And here's the other thing, too. Someone could sincerely say, I didn't mean to upset you, while still having an unconscious, passive-aggressive or trollish motivation to upset you.
I didn't mean to upset you, even if the person could pass a lie detector test on that statement.
If they were valid, right? Or believable.
But let's say there was some magic wand that could truly tell if somebody was lying.
Somebody said, well, I didn't mean to upset you.
I mean, they could pass that lie detector test, honestly saying that they didn't mean to upset you.
But still, but still, they have an unconscious drive to upset you.
I mean, I just had a call and show yesterday with the fellow who's got the half-suicidal mom.
And he kept changing definitions on me.
Now, this was frustrating and made me feel kind of trapped and helpless, which of course was his experience of his own life, which he was trying to transfer to me.
And again, it wasn't a conscious thing.
So he could say, listen, I don't mean to frustrate or upset you, and he would absolutely pass that lie detector test.
It was an unconscious motivation.
So when people say, well, I had no intention to upset you, I didn't mean to upset you.
They're saying that they know themselves completely and totally and they had absolutely no conscious or unconscious intention to recreate any of their own historical unconscious trauma in you.
Somebody who says that is claiming a state of perfect self-knowledge which is impossible.
So to take the example from yesterday, if a man has a mother who wants to hang on to him, Then she is going to sabotage his relationships with women.
So if he has a girlfriend, she's going to give him bad advice.
She's going to give him bad feedback.
Like when they have a big date, she's going to call him and wind him up and upset him and make him really tense and frustrated.
And then he's going to be less appealing, right?
Now, this may all be completely unconscious to her.
And then if her son, as probably will be the case, the son says, oh, yeah, it didn't work out with the woman.
I broke up with her. She's going to say, oh, I'm so sorry to hear that.
And she's going to believe that in the moment, right?
And if he's going to say to her, listen, you know, I just noticed every time I had a big date with this woman, you would call me up and we'd get into a big fight.
I think you wanted to break us up.
And she'd say, what are you? That's crazy.
Come on. I was rooting for you guys.
I liked her. I thought you made a cute couple.
And that's, of course, twisting the knife in that you lost a good girl.
And she would genuinely believe, and I had no intention of breaking you up.
Come on. That's crazy. I mean, let's not get paranoid here.
I want you to be happy.
I want the very best for you. Of course, when a narcissist is talking about you, they're always talking about themselves.
I want the best for you. It's like, I want the best for me.
I want you to be happy. I want me to be happy.
It's just a simple translation mechanism that you need to go through.
So by getting you to focus on their thoughts, their intentions, they're taking away their attention or any potential attention they might be focusing on your thoughts and experience.
You upset me. Mom, I had no intention of upsetting you.
And then you start to talk about her intentions rather than your experiences.
And really selfish people have this amazing, it's wild, it's voodoo, this uncanny ability to return the topic to themselves.
And that's the entire purpose, or one of the central purposes behind, I didn't mean to upset you.
Is now, instead of talking about you're upset, you're talking about their intentions.
And because it's unprovable, you abandon yourself.
You upset me. I had no intention.
I didn't mean to upset you. Come on.
It was the furthest thing from my mind to upset you.
No, you did. You did try to upset me.
Now, that's how you're talking about them, right?
You're talking about them and their intentions and their motivations, and you've abandoned your own thoughts and feelings.
Which is why in real-time relationships, it's the central reason why in real-time relationships...
If someone upsets you, you say, I was upset after you did this.
I'm not saying it was because of you.
I'm just saying that you did this, and then I got upset.
Because the moment you say, you upset me, then you're saying that the cause of your upset is the other person, and you're no longer focusing on your own feelings.
You're trying to ascribe motive to the other person.
Motive is unprovable. And then you lose yourself.
You lose your own. And again, that's the purpose.
One of the main purposes is to have you abandon your own feelings and focus on the other person's motivations.
You upset me. I didn't mean to.
Sure you did. Come on, this happens every time.
I didn't mean to. Like, now you're focusing on whether they meant to or not.
And you've lost your own upset and your own feelings.
You've self-erased in hot pursuit of the uncatchable, which is this quicksilver, ephemeral, nonsense, will-of-the-wisp fantasy called intentions.
Intentions cannot be proven.
It's like when somebody has something important to do that's relevant to you, helps you, and then they say, I forgot.
Well, you can't prove whether somebody did or didn't forget.
You can't prove that. That's why I said it's not a defense in law, of course, right?
But you can't prove that. Now, you can say, well, geez, whenever it's your interests that are on the line, you never forget anything.
But whenever it's my interests, you seem to forget on a regular basis.
Oh, don't be paranoid. I forget things all the time.
Somebody says, I forgot.
You can't prove it. You can't prove it.
I don't have conversations about I forgot.
I don't have conversations about intentions.
Again, if I have a high trust relationship with people, then of course we'll talk about forgetting intentions because I trust that they're not lying, manipulating, falsifying, and again, falsifying even to themselves.
There's a machinery down in the unconscious that lies even to the person whose brain it inhabits, and then that person thinks that it's true.
I forgot. I forgot.
Again, absolutely unprovable.
And of course, when somebody says, I forgot, and considers that an excuse, then if you say, I don't believe you, what are you accusing me of?
Then they get all high and mighty because you're accusing them of something nefarious.
You know, if you've got a, I don't know, your sister keeps going back and forth to the library, and you have some book that's due back or there's some big fine, And you say to your sister, you can take the book back to the library, and you put it with her books, and then she takes her books back, but not yours.
She says, oh, I forgot yours, right?
I just forgot yours.
So come on, it was right there. You can't prove that.
What you can do is you can say, well, wait a minute, you remembered all of your books.
My book was right there, but you, oh, I thought that was...
You can't prove any of this stuff.
And people drawing you into the unprovable...
It's a hole with no bottom.
You get lost in that fog.
You erase. And everybody knows this.
It's this tactic of retreating to the fog until everyone's lost.
And you've had this.
Come on, everybody's had this, where you have a confrontation with someone, they get foggier and foggier and foggier, and claim more and more, oh, my intention was this, and I forgot that, and I never meant to, and it was a further thing from my mind.
You just, bit by bit, you just get lost in the fog of unprovable things.
I mean, personally, in my life, I don't accept that as any kind of conversation.
I wouldn't accept that in a million years.
I mean, don't worry. Don't get me wrong.
I have in the past. This is a sort of hard one.
Knowledge and wisdom. But everyone knows.
You try to confront someone, they just get foggier and foggier and foggier, and then they counterattack with, how dare you insinuate, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And you never get a chance to really express your own thoughts, your own feelings, because you're trying to chase this will-o'-the-wisp called their intentions, their inner state of mind, whether they forgot or not, whether it's true, whether it's false, what's unconscious, what's not.
And then you just give up. Oh, forget it.
Oh, forget it. I'm lost.
I don't know where we are at the moment.
And then they've successfully avoided the confrontation.
The fog of war, right?
It was never my intention to allow that.
Now, as men, we generally don't get that excuse.
As men, we generally don't get, like the hunter-gatherers, right?
You throw a spear at a deer, and you miss.
And then your family's hungry, you come home, and you come home, and your family's hungry, and you've got no food for them.
And they say, where's the food?
They say, well, hey, man, it was mine.
I threw the spear at the deer.
It was totally my intention.
It was totally my intention to hit the deer.
I totally intended to get you food today, but I missed.
Well, of course, people will say, your intention doesn't fill our bellies.
Let's say your wife has said to you, fix this hole in the roof.
Fix the hole in the roof. And you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll get to it, right?
And then there's some terrible storm.
You haven't fixed the hole in the roof, water comes pouring into your house.
And you say, well, it was totally my intention to fix that roof.
And he's like, I can't stop the water with your intentions.
Your intentions don't mean anything relative to the actual facts of the matter.
I mean, if you're a kid, you've got a test coming up in some subject you're not particularly good at.
You've got a test coming up and you really don't study that much for it and then You failed the test.
And then you get a letter that your parents have to sign about you failed the test.
And your parents say to you, why did you fail the test?
It's like, look, I went in there.
I totally intended to pass.
I never, ever meant to fail.
It was never my intention to fail.
Is that an excuse? Of course not.
Because your parents would say, well, did you study?
Well, not much, but I thought I knew the material.
My intention was to pass.
I really wanted to pass.
Failing was like never one of my to-dos, never on my to-do list.
And they'd say, well, look, if you're not that great at the subject, you didn't study, you're going to fail.
I said, no, no, no, but I never meant to fail.
It's like, yes, but you took the steps.
Or rather, you fail to take the steps that would be necessary for you to pass.
And when you fail to take those steps, then you choose to fail.
No, no, no. But you don't understand.
My intention was to pass.
My goal was to pass. I was absolutely committed.
When I went in and sat down and did that test, my total goal was to pass.
Would your intentions matter?
No. Not at all.
I mean, every surgeon who screws up doesn't go in saying, I'm going to screw up.
Their intention is to do a good surgery.
They screw up something, right?
Leave the sponge inside the patient or something like that.
Well, no, my intention was a good surgery.
That doesn't matter. That doesn't matter.
And the law recognizes its intention a little bit when you think of the difference between first-degree murder and manslaughter.
The law recognizes its intention a little bit, but a lack of intention doesn't mean that there's no crime.
If you Hit someone's pet drunk driving, and you say, well, I never meant to hit that pet.
I don't have any animus against that pet.
I didn't even know the pet was there.
I saw three of them. My goal was just to get home.
My goal wasn't to harm anyone.
My intention was never to hurt anyone or anything.
Again, intention doesn't matter.
Like in the actual world, intentions are worse than useless.
Intentions are worse than useless.
And yet, it's used as an excuse all the time.
And if somebody is using this as an excuse, I never meant to, blah, blah, blah.
Well, the problem is that they're really putting a trust relationship at risk.
And, look, if you have a high trust relationship and somebody...
Forget something or I didn't mean to.
You accept that, right?
Because it's an exception to the rule.
If your sister has, for the last year, taken your library books back because she goes to the library all the time and then one time she forgets your book and hers, of course she, I forgot, oh yeah, okay, this is out of the pattern, right?
But if somebody never forgets their own interest and then continually forgets your interest, then that's different, right?
Then you have evidence. You can't prove it, but you have evidence.
And people who get all kinds of high and mighty when you raise the possibility that they were being selfish, they get high and mighty and they counterattack Very dangerous people.
Look, we all have the capacity to be selfish.
We all have the capacity to be mean.
So it should always be on the table.
You know, if you say, hey, come on, you always remember your own interests and you always forget mine.
When it's important to you, you remember.
When it's important to me, you forget. Okay, that should be on the table.
Is it possible? Sure it's possible.
Of course it's possible. And women in particular are very sensitive to the thoughts, needs, and feelings of those around them, in general.
So the idea that they just forget...
Oh, I just turned on the hairdryer and forgot you were in the next room...
That's not really a thing.
Sorry, I just forgot. I wanted to throw this in afterwards.
So how do you deal with this? The way you deal with this, in my opinion...
Is if you say to someone, I was upset when you did this, and they say, that wasn't my intention, you say, let's focus on my upset.
Like, let's keep the focus on me, and then we can deal with your intentions maybe afterwards.
Let's keep the focus on me.
Don't get drawn into a discussion of other people's intentions when you're feeling something strong.
Say, let's focus on my feelings.
Talk about your intentions later.
Let's continue to focus on my feelings.
And that way you find out if they have the capacity to focus on somebody else's.
Everything is just manipulation and defense.
So just keep bringing the conversation back to you.
But it was a further thing from my mind.
Well, let's talk about my feelings.
Please try and focus on my feelings.
It's not a condemnation, not a criticism.
Let's just try and focus on my feelings.
We can talk about the intentions later, but if I'm upset about something and then we talk about your intentions, my upset doesn't get addressed or dealt with or solved.
So let's just keep the focus on my emotions and we'll get to your stuff after.
So that's the way.
All right. Back to the ending.
And the last thing that I'll say about this is it's a way to make you feel paranoid and to question yourself, right?
The whole purpose of this statement is to unseat you from your own authenticity, to unseat you from your own feelings.
So if you're upset, your wife does something, your girlfriend does something, and you're upset, and she says, whoa, I never meant to upset you in any way, shape, or form.
It was the furthest thing from my mind.
Then she's saying you're paranoid.
You're blaming me for some weird upset that you have, and you're ascribing it to my actions, but that's insane because that was the furthest thing from my mind, therefore you're crazy.
And then you doubt yourself, and then, well, maybe it wasn't, and then you've unseated from your own authentic experience.
And getting you to abandon your own authentic experience is really fundamentally the goal.
Now, I don't recommend that you blame the other person for your experiences, your feelings, Because even if they did cause it, you are choosing to have that person in your life.
Therefore you are the ultimate cause of your own experiences, right?
If you date some mean, selfish girlfriend, you can't blame her for your state of emotions, your upsets, because you chose to have her in your life.
You picked her and you chose to have her.
So you are the cause of your own feelings, not her.
If you've got a mean aunt who constantly puts you down, you can't blame the aunt for your feelings of humiliation, frustration, and anger, because you choose to go and see the aunt.
You choose to interact with that aunt.
So you can't blame other people for your own emotions.
Because everyone is in your life by choice, assuming you're not in prison or something.
Everyone in your life is there by your choice.
And, oh, well, you know, but it's my aunt.
She was around since I was a kid. Okay, well then you've chosen to have that person in your life, and you choose the relationship.
You choose the emotions that come out of that relationship.
I choose not to have relationships in my life that produce negative emotions in me.
Because I wouldn't be able to blame it.
I couldn't blame the other person.
If you've got some mean person who makes you feel bad all the time in your life, you can't blame the other person.
You're choosing to have them there. You know, if I choose to have a wild tiger in my house, can I then say that I'm a victim of being mauled?
No, you chose to have the wild tiger in your house.
No, but it's the tiger's fault.
No, it's not. It's your fault.
You chose to have that. So anyway, I hope that this helps.
It's a really, really important topic, and I look forward to your...
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Really, really need your help, my friends.
Thank you so much for listening, as always.
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