What to Do When Someone Wrongs You
Excerpted from an interview with Goop.com.
QUESTION: Do you generally recommend letting things go, or should you address the person who has upset you?
BARRY MICHELS: I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all answer to that. You should always get yourself out of the Maze first before you make that decision. You can’t make good decisions when you’re in the Maze.
For Phil and me, your state of mind is ground zero; it’s more important than anything else that you do. The reason for that is simple: you can’t control what happens to you in the outside world. But you can control your state of mind, your response to what happens to you.
PHIL STUTZ: If you have to confront somebody, or tell them something uncomfortable, always send Active Love to them first; bring it right into the situation. To your amazement, you’ll find that about 50% of the time it’ll change the trajectory of the interaction.
You’ll be sure the other guy is going to jump on your case, but if you use the Tool, somehow the peace of mind gets transmitted to him also. And without his even knowing you used a Tool, he’s a little bit nicer to you.
BARRY: I experienced this about 25 years ago. Just to give you a little background, my mother was a very difficult woman. She was an amazing mother in many, many ways. But she was really tough to get along with, and the people she was the hardest on were my sister and me.
“When you use a Tool, you send out forces and you never know what’s going to happen.”
—BARRY MICHELS
One night I came home and I was just exhausted. I’d made myself some dinner, I was just sitting down to it, and the phone rang. I picked it up and it was my mother on the other end. She didn’t even say hello. She literally said, “Barry, there’s a light bulb out over my bed, and if you don’t get over here and change it now, I’m going to find another son who will.” And then she hung up on me.
I must have used Active Love 20 or 30 times while I finished my dinner, got in my car, and drove to her house. She answered the door and I went in and I changed the light bulb. And then I sat down with her. I’d used the Tool so many times I was calm but really firm. I said: “Listen to me carefully. You have alienated everyone who’s ever been close to you . . . except for me. You can’t ever speak to me that way again. Do you understand that?”
And amazingly for a woman as tough as she was, she burst into tears and said: “I know, I’m so sorry. I’m so scared that everyone’s going to abandon me that I come out swinging, and that’s why people abandon me.” It was an amazing moment, and it’s indicative of the power of Active Love.
When you use a Tool, you send out forces and you never know what’s going to happen. Very often, they not only change you, they help those around you to feel safe enough to change themselves. You rise to a higher level, and those around you rise with you. And Phil and I are strong believers that that is how the world is going to change for the better: one individual at a time.
