~*~ Passive Aggressive ~*~

The way to end passive aggressive behavior on your part or others’ is with complete honesty and truth in any situation.
If you’ve ever found yourself repressing your anger and behaving in other ways to get your point across, you may be someone who is adept at engaging in passive-aggressive behavior. Although passive-aggressive behavior is recognized as a psychological disorder, it also describes the behavior that many people use to cope with confrontational situations. Such behavior has the outward appearance of being peaceful, yet it is really an attempt to express oneself in seemingly passive ways—usually without accepting responsibility for doing so. For example, someone who doesn’t want to attend an event with a partner might engage in behavior that causes them to be late or miss the event without ever admitting to their partner that they never wanted to go to the function at all. Procrastination, inefficiency, stubbornness, and sullenness are some of the many ways that anger can be expressed indirectly.

It is important not to judge ourselves when we engage in passive-aggressive behavior. You may want to consider that you are not owning your feelings or your expression by indirectly expressing yourself. Perhaps you are judging your feelings and needs as wrong—which is why you are expressing yourself indirectly. You also may be worried that others will judge you for feeling the way that you do. Remember that anger and every other emotion are never good or bad. They can, however, become toxic of you don’t express them in healthy and proactive ways. When we express ourselves directly, we are more likely to be heard by the other person. It also becomes easier for us to ask for and get what we want.

Once we learn to be honest with ourselves about our feelings, we can begin to directly express ourselves to others. By learning to express ourselves directly, we prevent misunderstandings, hurt feelings, and resentment from cropping up in our relationships. We also learn to communicate with others in healthy and productive ways. It is never too late to start working on ourselves and our behaviors, just take it one day at a time ~*~

Wow - I have so much I could say about this one.  Remember how I wrote about "looking in the mirror" and about "projecting onto others, that which is needing attention in ourselves" ??  Welllll, I wonder.

All the training I had in psychology and management, team building, supervision of different styles, training techniques for different personalities, not to mention being an EEO counselor for an entire region for almost 2 years.  Heavens, do I ever know about passive aggressive.  I admit, that as the type of person who was constantly helping others, and the type of person who continues to try to always be available to people who need someone to listen ~ I admit there are times when I passively bail out.  Sometimes the overload is too much and I have to crawl within in order to recenter, rebalance, refocus.  I think that I might try being honest about my need to do that, as opposed to being passive.

This does remind me of several incidents in my life too, where someone I was trying desperately to reach through to or confront someone very near and dear and this type of response was illicited:

"Procrastination, inefficiency, stubbornness, and sullenness are some of the many ways that anger can be expressed indirectly"

I have to be honest here.  There are Definitely times in my life when I have procrastinated or been stubborn.  I am afterall, quite strong minded.  I wonder about the difference between the negative aspects of the Passive/Aggressive personality and the occasional passive bow out ?  I have known, at great lengths and to the deepest depths of my being, intimate relations who cannot express anger in a constructive and non-combative mode.  This is the healthy way to be angry.  And I find, that by living alone, I get to avoid the angry, sullen, stubborn of other people.  That is quite nice. 

Having dealt with this type of response does lead me down the rabbit hole.  When one person is continually acting in either a passive or aggressive modus operandi, and the other person is continually dancing to the beat that either digs in or defends, what kind of program does this create in the long term ?   What does this teach others who are coexisting in this environment ?   I believe what happens, over time, is a lopsided dance.  For us, we ended up "walking on eggshells" as the aggressive became more frequent than the passive.  Or the passive would last days or weeks following one huge bloody aggressive explosion.  And I Am confrontational.  If I am told I am wrong, or told that X is going to occur and then it does not, or, if plans are made for Both of us to participate, and then after I do, the other cancels their part.  I confront.  I do this with all the training tools I have learned.  And I realize that in living with passive/aggressive, having it constantly in my face, I did become a sullen, procrastinating kind of person in certain instances.   When one is constantly chopped down, eventually one just does not want to contribute anymore.   If everything is never right, then nothing cannot be wrong ???  Not so fast ...

I took the Walk to Emmaeus in late fall 2001.  My marriage was crumbling and I had little clues as to why.  We had been attending church and this was his idea.  He committed to it.  The wives weekend goes first and off I went.  I can honestly say that to this day, that was one of the best weekends of my life.   Not because I made permanent friends at the Table of Ruth; not because members of my church came out in support of me - some that were a surprise to see; not for any other reason than simply - God and I made contact.   I know this to the further tips of my soul.  The weekend wore me out too.  I ended up in a wheelchair being pushed by various members of my group.  How humiliating it was that I could not walk another step.  And here is where maybe the passive I learned from others comes into play.  I do not know how to sincerely accept a compliment or , in this situation, I was not sure how to acknowledge and verbally appreciate the efforts put out by others on my behalf.  That the Emmaeus community responded so quickly to my body quitting, wrapping blankets around me, getting me into a wheelchair, and pushing me around to the end.  Amazing.  That I had to stand and speak in this condition was so humbling for me.  I promised all the supporters that I would take God to school with me.  For he was an intricate and intensely fused part of me that I did not want to let go.  The God I know cannot hate or send wrath.  He does not tear apart or wreak havoc.  The God that I know and love, Loves and Forgives.  Before we even ask.  And that was what he promised me.  That as long as I continued to love and forgive, I too would be loved and forgiven in return.  I thanked the ladies from the Table of Ruth.  I know I was in tears, as were they.  I do not remember what I said, although it was received warmly.  I asked God to speak for me, to put the loving words in my voice for I was no longer even in deliberate thought.  He did.

I do know that I still believe God is woven within the very essence of who I am.  He cancelled his weekend the Friday that I left.  When I returned home Sunday evening, there was no conversation about how my weekend was, and I learned about the betrayal the following days.  In my eyes it felt like a sullen, angry, procrastination against accepting the bare bones truth of being honest with himself and with God , and in so doing, with the rest of us.  With my marriage and my friendship.  I can look back and know now, that was a huge signal.  I must have been intentioned to attend, to make that agreement with God (again)  God entered into my life when I was very very young, sending angels to me often.  I am grateful that he has been with me and forgiven me so much.  The hardest part is looking in the mirror, and avoiding the passivity of forgiving oneself.  Or looking in the mirror and aggressively being nit picky and judgemental.   This is what I am working on, I am sure now. 

I do realize that it is far easier for me to be Loving and Forgiving of everyone else than it is of myself.  And I realize that there is no excuse and no justification for this.  There is No reason for this to continue.   Why it pops up I am sure is because 1/ I am human and do have this thing called an ego and 2/ having God within me and all the way to the roots of me, does not yet make me as Loving and Forgiving of myself as God has been.   This is the Walk.  I have kept many remembrances of that weekend.  I do not attend churches anymore and when asked my reason is really quite simple.  God is with me every single day.  He is in the hummingbirds at my feeder; the soughing of the trees in the wind; the stars in the black sky at night; the sounds of the barred owls calling to their mates.  He is in the way my fur babies look at me with total and absolute love even when the food bag gets really thin.

And as crazy as it sounds, when I put out a request for assistance, the messages flow to me.  FB may have many quirks that are not so user friendly, I do think G+ has inspired some drastic changes to FB that are more beneficial now.  All the pages that I need to receive guidance from that have thousands of pictures with thousands of messages and thousands more quotes ... of the multiple thousands times at least five or ten, when I ask, the messages come.  As I interpret them.  Sometimes, I go searching for items of interest to research.  I want to do that and really, I sincerely enjoy doing this.  I feel as if I have pushed off some people and am no longer welcome.   This saddens me for the connections are strong ones.  I do not understand, other than, they came to me.  These connections all came looking for me.  I did not seek them out.  So I remain open and trusting that God will continue to work his magic, Mother Nature and the winds, trees, animals and birds and bees - they will as well.  Art and poetry , music and photos, shared prayers and sorrows, joys and plans of the morrow - will continue. 

Meanwhile I am still ~ working on myself and my behaviors, healthy and productive and directly, to avoid misunderstanding,  just taking it one day at a time.  ~*~