Jerk or Doormat? There's a Third Option

I almost went full jerky jerk on a prospective mortgage lender last week.

After the first time he didn’t call me when he said he would, I sent a friendly email in which I gave him the benefit of the doubt about getting lost in the shuffle, and offered some other times we could talk. 

When he responded that I would “never be lost in the shuffle,” (even though I clearly already had been), a red flag went up. 

“Don’t gaslight me, dude,” I thought to myself. “Just be a human and admit you messed up.”

I was not at all surprised, then, when he said he’d call and didn’t two more times.

I puffed up with righteous anger, feeling the impulse to shame him for wasting my time or give him a bit of his own medicine by ghosting him back. 

At the same time, I also sensed the part of me who wanted to keep giving him a chance so that the loan would go through; the impulse to be nice to him so he’d start showing up more.

The reality was, I didn’t really like myself in either of those two impulses. 

The first, to look down my nose and spout some scathing remarks, meant putting myself in a one-up place to him to send the message in no uncertain terms “I am important and you will not ignore me!”

The second, to placate him at the expense of my own time and self-respect, would be to put myself one-down to him, to let his reality trump mine until it was convenient for him to show up for me.

One-upping is a way to demand respect from the other while acting contemptuous toward them. One-downing is a means of avoiding conflict by acting in a way that’s contemptuous and ultimately harmful toward myself. 

Both are based upon a false, zero-sum narrative that only one of us gets to be right or good or walk away from a mishap with our dignity in tact.

But there was a third option. The one where I show up like a  person who has respect for myself and compassion for him. The one where I come from the place in me where I am not one-up or one-down to him, but same-as. The one where I act from my knowing that we’re both humans who are inherently worthy and who sometimes screw up.

I looked for the feeling of same as in my body, and emailed him: I’m underwhelmed with your lack of follow through. Can you understand how I might be concerned that if I went forward with you, you might not be there when I’m in escrow and need timely responses from you? Before we move forward, let’s have a conversation about how you work so I know what I can expect.

Which is to say, I said what was true for me in a way that was kind to him. I asked him to consider me in a way that showed I considered him. And though, to the part of me who would have chosen going one-down, it felt mean, and, to the part of me who would have chosen one-up, it felt soft, it also felt right. I knew because I liked myself for what I said.

I invite you to consider—do you ever go one-up to feel more powerful than someone? How do you recognize it in your body?

Do you know the feeling of going one-down to keep the peace? What does that feel like?

Now, try on the posture and the feeling-tone you’d have if you held yourself as same as. Let yourself stay with this for a beat, get familiar with it. 

Think back to a time in the last few days when you might have gone one-up or one-down with a colleague, a friend or even a stranger. What would you have said or done differently if you had been embodying same-as?

Do you like yourself more in that response?

Because here’s the deal—you won’t always like other people, and you can’t control whether other people like you, but you can control whether you like you.

But that sometimes means showing up in ways that require more bravery or confidence or self-worth than you feel.

That’s where your body comes in. Your body is a HUGE ally in you relating differently. In fact, research shows that growing embodied self-awareness also helps you to build emotional and social intelligence. 

This is why my Yours Truly program incorporates numerous tools to help you grow embodied self-awareness so you can leverage your body to help you NOT default to your knee-jerk response. 

Because learning a different way of relating takes more than just knowing better. The trick to doing better is knowing how to also work at the level of your body and your nervous system.

Want to learn more about what makes Yours Truly unique and effective? Check it out here.