If You’re Having a Problem With Someone, Ask Yourself “Who Has the Problem?”

Anytime I’m having a problem with someone else, I need to ask myself this question: “Who has the problem?” Obviously the answer is “I do.” This practice brings me back to reality. The problem is really with me, not the other person. And so I need to ask myself “What’s going on with me? What is it about me that’s being rubbed the wrong way by this person?”

As I was giving some talks recently, someone raised their hand and asked “What do you do about people who are narcissistic?” I asked this person to elaborate. “Well,” she said, “There’s this lady in our bridge group and she’s always talking about herself and she’s just so narcissistic that I can’t stand to be around her.” I asked the woman speaking “Who has the problem here?” She looked puzzled and thought for a moment. Then she said hesitantly “I do.” I said “Bingo!” Then I asked “So who is it who has to change?” She said “I do.”

I don’t think that was the realization that this woman wanted to arrive at. Most of us don’t like the idea that we are the one with the actual problem and that we are the one who has to change. We prefer to believe that the other person is the problem and so they need to change to please us. But life doesn’t generally work that way.

The truth is that every time we decide we don’t like or want to accept someone just the way they are, we give our personal power away to that person. Our very desire for them to be different to suit our needs renders us powerless and makes us miserable. No one is required to change from being who they are to being who we want them to be. Nor are they required to change their personal viewpoints or habits just to make us feel more secure or happy. And more often than not, this is what it’s all about: This particular person’s attitude or behavior is making us feel insecure or uncomfortable in some way because it’s hitting on an old painful nerve. It’s exposing an area inside of us that isn’t healed or that’s encased in a heavy state of denial. So when we are around these people, we are uncomfortable.

The solution can be two-fold:

1)  If we find ourselves irritated by a particular person, we need to do some serious self-examination to find out what it is about us that’s so uncomfortable around this person. Getting past any denial that we are harboring, like “I’m nothing like this very irritating person,” is essential. Too often we ARE just like this irritating person. Our eyes are completely fogged-over by denial, but inside our hearts know the truth.

2)     If we discern that they aren’t hitting on any of our camouflaged character defects, but they are still a source of irritation to us, then we need to practice acceptance. We can’t change them and our desire to change them renders us powerless and irritable. If we learn to accept them as they are—not to like them or their habits just as they are, but to simply accept that they are irritating and we are powerless—we will slowly take our personal power back from them. In admitting that we can’t change them and in choosing to accept them and all of their imperfections, we aren’t choosing to like whatever we don’t like, but we are choosing to no longer be bothered by it.

In these ways, we take back our personal power, which we had inadvertently given away, from these people. If we learn that we are too much like the person we can’t stand to be around, it gives us a chance to change for the better. And if it’s a case that we just want people to change to please us, we learn to let go and learn to please ourselves by accepting these people just the way they are. So remember, if you have a problem with someone else, you’re the one who has the problem and you’re the one who has to change in order to solve the problem. And the sooner you choose to change, the happier you’ll be.