Being challenged

[Emmalevine]

What happens when someone directly and fiercely challenges a view that you feel very strongly about due to personal experience? I'm not talking about beliefs that no one can prove, but completely different perspectives based on different experiences in life and perhaps an inability to see the other perspective?

It makes me feel threatened and unsafe. It makes me feel like crying. Something inside me feels annihilated - even though I know deep down my view and indeed my experiences and knowledge are valid. I also know that the other persons's views are valid too because they are coming from their own emotions and experiences which form their own perception.

But this doesn't stop the emotional hurt I feel inside. Inner child stuff? Perhaps. I've never been comfortable with conflict and tend to avoid it. Part of me still feels as though I'm being destroyed when someone doesn't agree with me. It threatens my sense of self, my ego.

I'm curious how it would feel to not have those feelings, to react to someone's different view with acceptance and compassion. I am trying to do that but I also feel afraid. I stood up for myself but it hasn't taken away that fear.

How do you react when someone challenges you over an issue that is close to your heart?

[Ecthalion]

Hi Starbuck.

I tend to react with anger. I know I shouldn't but certain subjects I care very passionately about. Maybe it springs from fear but if my view is challenged I become passionate about defending it. Not violent of course, just very vocal. I'm working on calming that part of my personality down.

[Emmalevine]

Hi Graeme

I get that as I think there's anger in myself as well. I think it's understandable that we react that way when it's a really sensitive issue that others doesn't seem to be relating to or understanding at all. My automatic reaction is to shake and feel afraid and hurt but anger is not a lot different to that, just manifestated differently.

I wish I didn't feel so small and fragile when this occurs. I guess the issue feels personal to me - the ego makes it personal. But it's hard not to make it personal!

[knightofalbion]

It depends...

Does it matter? I mean really matter.

If it's a trivial matter, then it doesn't really matter at all. 'Silence is sometimes the best answer', but if it does warrant a reply, state your opinion and let it go.

On the other hand, if it's a matter of principle, something that you know to be right and true - especially if whatever it is the other person is opposing is going to cause harm to someone or something, then you should stand your ground.

[silent whisper]

What happens when someone directly and fiercely challenges a view that you feel very strongly about due to personal experience? I'm not talking about beliefs that no one can prove, but completely different perspectives based on different experiences in life and perhaps an inability to see the other perspective?

It makes me feel threatened and unsafe. It makes me feel like crying. Something inside me feels annihilated - even though I know deep down my view and indeed my experiences and knowledge are valid. I also know that the other persons's views are valid too because they are coming from their own emotions and experiences which form their own perception.

But this doesn't stop the emotional hurt I feel inside. Inner child stuff? Perhaps. I've never been comfortable with conflict and tend to avoid it. Part of me still feels as though I'm being destroyed when someone doesn't agree with me. It threatens my sense of self, my ego.

I'm curious how it would feel to not have those feelings, to react to someone's different view with acceptance and compassion. I am trying to do that but I also feel afraid. I stood up for myself but it hasn't taken away that fear.

How do you react when someone challenges you over an issue that is close to your heart?


KNow in my heart that what I feel can never be taken away from me..if it is my own truth..

Challenges of this nature only awaken emotional charge that we still have attached to our truth of experience. In many ways the pain in that space of feeling anothers truth over your own, is simply a feeling like your truth of experience is somehow being unacknowledged..

True acknowledgment comes from within. That deep place in you, that doesnt react, or feels like another opinion is taking away from you. That deep place within also knows it most likely has to feel until the feelings no longer strangle the space of knowing in peace...

[silent whisper]

To further add, confrontation opens up our most vulnerable emtional space. That space when open, opens up it all, the withheld emotions and the feelings coming through from the other. To hold your own space. Empowerment of your own emotions especially if your predominantly a feeler type is often necessary.

We feel, till it doesnt feel so difficult anymore, then it becomes like a bump in the road. We feel it, but we stay in our own space of truth and knowing.

To reach compassion for others, one really has to face it all in themselves first.

Sometimes trying too hard to be compassion and not allowing yourself to feel all emotions only serves to bring your struggle.

Letting go of the other until you honour you is important as I have found.

[Albalida]

What happens when someone directly and fiercely challenges a view that you feel very strongly about due to personal experience? I'm not talking about beliefs that no one can prove, but completely different perspectives based on different experiences in life and perhaps an inability to see the other perspective?

It makes me feel threatened and unsafe. It makes me feel like crying. Something inside me feels annihilated - even though I know deep down my view and indeed my experiences and knowledge are valid. I also know that the other persons's views are valid too because they are coming from their own emotions and experiences which form their own perception.

Ah, but are they applying their own emotion, experiences, and perception... to their own actions and life? Or, are they forcing your hand against your own values?

How do you react when someone challenges you over an issue that is close to your heart?

Well, recently I got miffed by a friend who said that psychiatry didn't work on her at all. It worked quite well for me. Then she went on about how it was just a placebo, and They've Done Studies, and I'm making excuses for a corrupt pharmaceutical industry by suggesting that our body chemistry is different and that I'm lucky to have never needed an adjustment when she might have needed an adjustment... she'll shout from the rooftops that it's all fake from beginning to end, and anyone who "needs" it is a gullible weakling.

I would have been far, far more than miffed if she'd taken on this attitude years ago, when I. Needed. Antidepressants. Period. Full Stop. And my family and all their friends were being jerks about it and teaming up to the end of depriving me of life-saving treatment -- rather than now, when I'm off anti-d and quite happy, and appreciate how antidepressants helped ease me out of a biochemical rock bottom. It was an intensely limited place that I could not simply think my way out of. The medical intervention helped me immensely.

So, since my own circumstances are much better now... her attitude remains a sore spot, but I can leave her to her opinion and shrug off when she starts ranting, because it's not as if she'll flush my stash and leave me to willpower and bootstraps to stop me from cutting myself. That would be harmful to me, and an act of aggression against my autonomy.

From my own experience, I've come to believe that when a person really is at rock bottom, that willpower and bootstraps are extraordinarily unhelpful platitudes. Obviously, she's not in a place right now where willpower and bootstraps are platitudes... and I'm not in a place where I really need her to shut up about this issue... so I won't undercut or silence her, or go somewhere else looking for a safe space. I just recognize that, while there may be some resistance and defensiveness in me, it's something that I can afford to let go right now.

Basically, it's all right for them to pave their own paths-- but they'd better not stand in my way.

I believe that we draw our own lines between "I'm just miffed and it's my problem, I just have to find a way to shake it off in my own time. This is a communal or public space, a 'real world' that I must learn to adjust to" and "I can't function as my best self under these conditions, in this toxic environment, with that oppressive person... in a place that should be mine to define as Safe and Supportive." So far, I'd say that there's no wrong place to draw that line.

If a chrysalis of safety and support is what you feel you need right now, then go for it.

If being challenged to grow despite the pain you process is something you yearn for (some people do, they're not masochistic or even more evolved, they're just different) then go for that too.

As long as you're not standing in anybody else's way, there should be no problem. I'll admit to adding people to the Ignore list on forums like these, and I expect others to do the same to me if I start triggering unpleasantness in them. Offline, it can get more complicated to navigate, but the general principle's laid out right up there.

[Neville]

What happens when someone directly and fiercely challenges a view that you feel very strongly about due to personal experience? I'm not talking about beliefs that no one can prove, but completely different perspectives based on different experiences in life and perhaps an inability to see the other perspective?

I get side tracked, the issue of the challenge moves to the background while my focus shifts to trying to understand the aggressiveness.

It fascinates me that a personal truth should be so tooth and claw defended, unless that personal truth is on shaky foundations to begin with.

It is a fundamental belief of mine that my personal truth is not going to be applicable to all, this I accept and move on thinking to myself, that's OK ..not everyone shares my view, and nor should they.

[amy green]

If someone fiercely challenges my view, first I look to see whether it is because I have presented my view with equal passion. If I have, then I will try to cool down and take a more measured look at the debate. If not then I think it is an overreaction and tells me more about the person challenging me.

When someone challenges my view (that I have found to be true from personal experience), it is somewhat negating but I see it as a challenge to more accurately put forward that view, with examples. When this is done and still there is disagreement, then I am resigned to it not being right/appropriate for that person. I don't always have a clear understanding of why this cannot apply to them however. As in the case of positive thinking - not everyone seems able to take this on board/apply it - even though it is recognised and used in CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) to treat those suffering from depression. Admittedly it takes time, perseverance and faith for such a mindset to "take" if such an attitude is somewhat alien to someone.

Starbuck - you give various descriptions of how you feel when challenged - threatened, unsafe, shake, feel afraid and hurt. I identify with feeling threatened and (occasionally) hurt but not the other descriptions. To shake, feel unsafe and afraid feels like there is more going on. I wonder if it goes back to something significant that happened in your past and hence any further challenges trigger off those same feelings?

[Moonglow]

Hello,

Something recently came to me and that is to give myself credit for getting it (whatever that it may be at the moment).

Not everyone is going to agree with it. Not everyone is going to get it. Not everyone is going to even want to hear it. This is OK. For everyone is going through their own thing.

The key, to me, is accepting myself. Some things may not be for everyone, but a gift given to me.

So, if it gets challenged, when I share then look at where this is coming from. Is it me personally being challenged or what I present? Is it the manner in which it is being presented? Is it the others need, perhaps, to defend him/her self or way of seeing?

I can take it on or leave it be, but would suggest to try to have it not belittle what you have come to "know" or realize or who you are.

[in progress]

Well, if it's people I know I get angry and defensive or if I'm not feeling as triggered I just say we'll have to agree to disagree.

If it's with people I don't know like on a forum for instance (:icon_eek: ) then I get really upset. I think it's about lack of self love which leads to a sense of self disempowerment. It's something I've consciously started to work on just recently.

I was in therapy for panic disorder many years ago. Something like this came up and the therapist told me I didn't have to have a "good enough" reason for disagreeing with anyone. "Just because" was reason enough. I knew she was right.

[Emmalevine]

Thanks everyone, you've all given me really useful food for thought.

I think it is about accepting my own space, needing to feel acknowledged, and also about self esteem.

Amy I remember you once said your self esteem is high. You see I think mine is still quite low, which may account for what is happening here. My sense of self feels smaller somehow, as if I've been squashed by the other person metaphorically.

In Progress that's a great reminder about not needing a reason to disagree. I have a tendency to justify myself and often forget I don't need to explain or justify why I feel like I do, unless I want to.

Logically I know that what many of you said is true - if it doesn't matter, let it go, accept it's the other's opinion, etc. Easy to do in my head, not so easy for my emotions!

[BlueSky]

My own views have been challenged by my own new views.......lol
I've seen things i would die for drop away and be replaced by new things that I would die for.
Even 'experiences' have lost the magic they once held.
The thing is 'views' are personal and so are experiences so that to me says that they are impermanent, subject to change. Attaching to something personal doesn't really make sense. It's like defending one's like of the taste of red wine over white wine.
Thinking our views are more than personal is what thinking does.
Why............because we need to feel grounded and we do this with our thoughts. Life is observably not grounded in anything other than change.

Those are my views about views....lol and I'm not sticking to them.

[Mr Interesting]

Firstly if this indeed was to happen I would ask myself why I put myself in the position to be challenged because I would admit that it was my choice to end up in this particular position. Like a traffic accident I wouldn't just go blaming the other person for hitting me but ask why we both might have decided to be in this position, driving to it, and have such an accident occur.

Ah... I remember one! It took a long time though and when the person finally got round to it I was more surprised than challenged so I was somewhat on the wrong foot. I think I argued a little to see the depth of his challenge and it was deep and emotionally charged so I just kinda stood there and let him load his guns. I think I do this because when people just go all out they end up letting so much go that they are able to see themselves in the light of their venting... sometimes, othertimes they know intuitively that ones non-involvement will lead them to a position of vulnerability within themselves so they batten down the hatches and that in and of itself is a good thing too because it allows them to see the subtle edges of their own intuitiveness.

And in fact there is no challenge at all. There is only this is the only way that I can understand being able to communicate with you so please help me understand why this might be so... especially if there is a history of dialogue.

Actually, if I look back at all the challenges I have recieved I can kinda see a pattern emerging and it kinda goes like this. How come, and this is their challenge, that now matter how much I try and lay down parameters of communication, or define an area that we might accept each other within, you keep moving the flags and adjusting the boundaries? Why do you do this? Why can't you just accept the way I want to accept you and stay acceptable? Why must you keep widening the goalposts of my depiction of what you are?

[psychoslice]

While you have a belief, you will continue trying to protect it, if something is true to you, why even believe it, do you need to believe that the sun will rise every morning, of course not. If you get upset over someone questioning you beliefs, you can be sure your belief isn't rock solid. I myself don't have beliefs, and this seems to be a threat to some, they cannot understand that someone doesn't need to believe, how dare they not believe, is what they think lol.

[Niebla0007]

When I get challenged, depending on mood,
I used to just always ignore it to keep the peace or
take the matter and pull it apart, and get pretty defensive.
But now, still depends on my mood,
and as always I'd rather avoid trouble and find common grounds.

[Belle]

I'm rubbish, I take it personally!

I can see how unhelpful I am being to myself and am working on it, that it doesn't matter, it's not important.

I think also because I am strangely insecure about what I believe a lot of the time that I am looking to the external for validation, but if I look to the self for a validation of what I think, then I will find a resonance (or not) and can hold my views with a confidence and security.

I know a lot of this is a child issue, pretty much everything I did was managed away by my mother: she would tell me to jump not skip, then when I jumped she woudl tell me that I shouldn't have jumped, that I should have walked, so when I walked - that would be challenged.

That's a primative example but there is the resounding sense in my mind that everything I do / say / think is wrong.

Awareness is very key as I watch and observe and watch and observe and let the thoughts filter through - and then I get the "aha" moments.

It's not nearly as bad as it was.

[hannah]

I find it hard to accept, really. It's a bit work-in-progress for me. I think it forces you to really think about whether what you believe is actually right. Maybe you know you were wrong but you can't bring yourself to admit it to yourself, this is why it hurts. If you truly know that what you believe is right and valid, then any conflict is irrelevent, it changes nothing about what you have inside you.

[IsleWalker]

Starbuck--

I do think this comes from inner child stuff. It's having many experiences where not only are you not acknowledged, it's a sense that you don't have the right to exist. It is a challenge to your being. These other challenges bring back those old feelings.

I do agree with silent whisper that acknowledgement comes from within, but it does take considerable work to get that feeling back and to trust it. It is what that website I quoted spoke of as a denting in of the soul--making it concave, taking less space than it was intended to take. Taking back that space is what must happen, and feeling that it was always yours to begin with. It is your birthright as a soul to be whole within yourself.

Pink egg for you in your endeavor.


Lora

[Alexis M]

Hello,

Something recently came to me and that is to give myself credit for getting it (whatever that it may be at the moment).

Not everyone is going to agree with it. Not everyone is going to get it. Not everyone is going to even want to hear it. This is OK. For everyone is going through their own thing.

The key, to me, is accepting myself. Some things may not be for everyone, but a gift given to me.

So, if it gets challenged, when I share then look at where this is coming from. Is it me personally being challenged or what I present? Is it the manner in which it is being presented? Is it the others need, perhaps, to defend him/her self or way of seeing?

I can take it on or leave it be, but would suggest to try to have it not belittle what you have come to "know" or realize or who you are.

I completely agree. The moment I became solid in my belief I became calm. I didn't need to be defensive if attacked or challenged. I am my proof.

[lemex]

What happens when someone directly and fiercely challenges a view that you feel very strongly about due to personal experience?

How do you react when someone challenges you over an issue that is close to your heart?
My own awareness in this matter was beginning by understanding exactly what you are asking, what happens.... when someone directly challenges.... fiercely does so and seeing what was happening. It is realizing at any point it could be stopped not knowing you can. Finding no moment in space to. It is understanding it exists. It is choosing to and maybe the representation of choice.

I came to find out if I could put it into words that will make no obvious sense I was not acting but reacting. Not action, but reaction. :smile: We tend to become defensive and this is simply normal. I think we tend to react first and everything is intentional. All intention has effect and has effect. You simply must act. In intention I'm able to get caught up in it, even to lose myself in it, I liken this much like an empathic person who becomes so immersed in experience which isn't their experience they are not trained to handle it becoming overwhelmed.

What's relevant about experience is the power it brings to the table. Instead of breaking the cycle insistence and intention feeds it. You come along so caught up in the feeling the energy brings you wouldn't change the moment if you could. The experience is normal. All emotion produces energy this is how it use to be for me. I didn't want the other kind. I knew no other.

Once the choice is done I'm not sure you ever can return. I don't know how one finds that spot breaking the spell. Begin by seeing, it happens more then we ourselves see and it starts out as a physical process and ends in spiritual awareness.


-------------------------------------------------------

I realized something as I ended and I appreciate the memories, words, and experience that come back. I had the chance to have a spiritual event manifested physically something that some believe and some don't. Who knows what seeing is.

[silent energy]

"I can show them the water but can't make them drink it"

This is a quote I think of when my efforts of trying to convince somebody of something I feel is important fails...I use to get upset and feel enraged inside and still do sometimes but that is due to my attachments...its best to just let go and accept the difference of opinions

[Belle]

Indeed silent energy and your water may be someone else's poison, that's something I find I have to remember.

[psychoslice]

"I can show them the water but can't make them drink it"

This is a quote I think of when my efforts of trying to convince somebody of something I feel is important fails...I use to get upset and feel enraged inside and still do sometimes but that is due to my attachments...its best to just let go and accept the difference of opinions
He He, yes because sometimes the water may be poison lol.

[psychoslice]

Indeed silent energy and your water may be someone else's poison, that's something I find I have to remember.
Hey !, I didn't see your reply about the poison, damn lol.

[Gem]

It's probably much truer to admit that when our personal values are challenged we feel confronted. An example might be, I don't spank my children because I think it promotes violence, but my sister spanks her kids as dicipline... I don't like it because it's against my values and its even more confronting because it's so close to home.

[Ivy]

What happens when someone directly and fiercely challenges a view that you feel very strongly about due to personal experience? I'm not talking about beliefs that no one can prove, but completely different perspectives based on different experiences in life and perhaps an inability to see the other perspective?

It makes me feel threatened and unsafe. It makes me feel like crying. Something inside me feels annihilated - even though I know deep down my view and indeed my experiences and knowledge are valid. I also know that the other persons's views are valid too because they are coming from their own emotions and experiences which form their own perception.

But this doesn't stop the emotional hurt I feel inside. Inner child stuff? Perhaps. I've never been comfortable with conflict and tend to avoid it. Part of me still feels as though I'm being destroyed when someone doesn't agree with me. It threatens my sense of self, my ego.

I'm curious how it would feel to not have those feelings, to react to someone's different view with acceptance and compassion. I am trying to do that but I also feel afraid. I stood up for myself but it hasn't taken away that fear.

How do you react when someone challenges you over an issue that is close to your heart?

If it is an issue close to my heart I would be likely to share my views as well as my passion on the subject.

But there are times when I dont feel like discussing my views or giving any energy to conflicting perseptions, then I walk away.

However, those are the external reactions. Inside, if I cant accept the others view with underatanding, then I work on it. I use my imagination to view the subject from different angles...even if I will never agree with it, I like to create some understanding of how it might feel to see the world through the others eyes.

But if I was upset or distressed by the others view, I would look at why I felt that way. Its a useful tool for self awareness.

[Tobi]

What happens when someone directly and fiercely challenges a view that you feel very strongly about due to personal experience? I'm not talking about beliefs that no one can prove, but completely different perspectives based on different experiences in life and perhaps an inability to see the other perspective?

It makes me feel threatened and unsafe. It makes me feel like crying. Something inside me feels annihilated - even though I know deep down my view and indeed my experiences and knowledge are valid. I also know that the other persons's views are valid too because they are coming from their own emotions and experiences which form their own perception.

But this doesn't stop the emotional hurt I feel inside. Inner child stuff? Perhaps. I've never been comfortable with conflict and tend to avoid it. Part of me still feels as though I'm being destroyed when someone doesn't agree with me. It threatens my sense of self, my ego.

I'm curious how it would feel to not have those feelings, to react to someone's different view with acceptance and compassion. I am trying to do that but I also feel afraid. I stood up for myself but it hasn't taken away that fear.

How do you react when someone challenges you over an issue that is close to your heart?

Well I don't know if this helps -or what...but what I find myself doing is listening. And I kind of "slip out of myself" for a moment, and slip into them (metaphorically-speaking!) and imagine what point they are coming from. I know it's usually a point I could have come from myself not very long ago perhaps, as I've had all kinds of viewpoints in my life past. Then I remember how I used to feel about certain things, so I kind of understand. And I realize they are not being deliberately mean no doubt, but they are also sticking up for what they think is best.

On the other hand, sometimes there is valid criticism. I recall a silly post I once made with mis-placed humour which sounded as if I was encouraging low, negative, heartless treatment of an "astral entity". Of course I wasn't really in my heart of hearts, but unfortunately the silly humour came across very badly at the time. Someone pulled me up for this (someone who doesn't come on here any more) and at first I thought "can't they see I was just having fun? Don't they understand me?" Then I stood back and listened instead of feeling stung. Then suddenly I got this impression of young spiritual seekers maybe even teenagers coming on here, and did I really want someone like that to be influenced by my gung-ho humour? And maybe miss the joke, and start to think like that? So I apologized.
It was like "slipping out" of my own viewpoint for a moment, and seeing a bigger picture. I was not the slightest bit hurt.

[Emmalevine]

Thanks for the posts and advice everyone, I'm taking it all on board.

I think that when I become self centred, or ego centred, I have problems. When I'm in a position to apply empathy and really experience another person's world as their own, the challenge isn't personal, it becomes part of the collective experience.