How you treat yourself sets the standard for your normal, ongoing attitude to others. The way you deal with yourself is how you will learn to treat others. How you treat yourself becomes the norm, the right way to do it, the way things are. Written in stone!
In fact, when you haven’t even experienced a higher positive level of self-behaviour, you are unaware that there is a better way. You don’t even know how to treat others. You don’t even know what’s the right way to behave, never mind how to do it.
Like speaking a foreign language. If you haven’t learned it, then those foreigners will not be able to use it with you. They know they’ll be wasting their time.
When we don’t know how to treat others properly and appropriately, such lack of good behaviour gives no encouragement to others to treat you any differently.
It will be a rare, altruistic, loving person, who will not follow the poor level of your behaviour, but step up to their own level, and treat you much better than you treated them. You give them 10%, and they return 90%.
It seems to be a common human tendency is to respond in kind. Give as good as you get. Tit for tat. Disrespect gets disrespect, friendly and open produces a similar response. It almost seems as if it’s in our DNA.
This raises a very interesting question: do we all have an inbuilt tendency to mirror others? To build rapport, and get on their wavelength? Many other common sayings seem to suggest that this is our experience:
“Birds of a feather flock together”
“We can tell who you are by the company you keep.”
“We feel comfortable in the company of similar people.”
“We all seek our own tribe.”
Let’s take a common everyday example. A man gives up alcohol. That alone can mean that he’s no longer part of his tribe at the local pub.
He has set himself a standard that doesn’t fit in with the others. Strained relationships! The drinkers start to feel bad every time they buy another round of drinks, and their friend is the odd man out.
Our own self-behaviour sets the standard – invites, permits, the same from others. So let’s make it as positive as we can. Why not? If we do, then good things happen:
Self-respect leads to receiving respect from others;
Self-acceptance leads to receiving acceptance from others;
Self-esteem leads to receiving esteem from others;
Self-love leads to receiving love from others;
Self-belief leads to receiving belief from others.
In a nutshell: treat yourself positively, and others will raise their game, and try their best to return their own version of positivity.
Gerry McCann
What’s your own experience? Perhaps you’d care to leave a comment below. Thank you.
