Assertiveness for Earth Angels: How to Be Loving Instead of Too Nice (15 page)

Deal-Breakers

In all relationships, there are “deal-breakers,” meaning issues, behaviors, or situations for which you won't stand. Common deal-breakers include:

• Dishonesty
  
• Betrayal
  
• Cheating
  

Any form of abuse You may have additional deal-breakers such as:

• Must be a nonsmoker
  
• Must have good hygiene
  
• Must be romantic
  
• Must make a certain amount of money
  
• Must have a fit physique
  
• Must be a good stepparent to your children
  
• Must not abuse drugs
  
• Must have a spiritual or religious beliefs similar to yours
  
• Must love cats [. . . and so forth]
  

If he or she doesn't have the deal-or-no-deal qualities you're seeking, the relationship is over. To you, there's no compromising on deal-breakers.

Yet for some Earth Angels, there's a secret deal she makes without letting her partner know. She secretly decides she's going to “fix” his deal-breaking habits and turn him into her ideal mate. She fantasizes that her love is so special that he'll give up drugs, gambling, womanizing, and other toxic behaviors.

When he resists or relapses, she gets angry and blames him, instead of realizing that he was always this way! She knew, going into the relationship, that he had these issues. So it's really a matter of accepting responsibility for her choices and then forgiving herself for making them.

Almost every week on my call-in radio show or at one of my workshops, a woman will ask me if her boyfriend or husband will change. She tells me he's violating her deal-breakers. She asks, “Should I leave him? Will things ever get better?” (Meaning:
Will he become the ideal man of whom I dream?)

My million-dollar question to someone who asks me this is: “If nothing ever changes about him or in the relationship and it stays exactly the way it is now, would you be happy?”

I always hear a gasp of surprise in response to this question, and a pause. Then a shaky voice always says, “No.” She has just realized that she has two choices: stay in an incompatible relationship or leave. She realizes that her entire relationship was built upon a fantasy that he'd magically change into a different person:
If he really loved me, he'd be like me. If he was my soul mate, he'd have the same outlook on life as I do
.

If they break up, hopefully she doesn't hang on to resentment toward him. It wasn't his fault that he was incompatible with her. That fact was revealed at the outset of the relationship! She just chose to ignore it, because she looked upon him as a fixer-upper project, which was never wise or fair.

If you ignore the red flags that the angels send you when you're about to enter a relationship, don't blame the angels or the other person when the relationship turns out to be unhealthy. You had your warnings, but you chose to overlook or ignore them. Perhaps you thought,
This time it will be different
, or
My love will change him
.

Next time you get red flags, please turn around and go the other way.

You're Not a Fixer-Upper, Either!

Earth Angels think that if they change, other people will be nicer to them. If they're sweeter, thinner, sexier, richer, more successful, prettier, smarter, better-dressed, and so forth, then they'll be accepted. They'll finally feel the big love that they remember feeling in heaven.

Changing yourself to win love is a desperate attempt to control another person's opinion of you! Let it go! Love yourself as you are, and only “improve” yourself because you're guided to—not to get someone to love you. In other words, make self-improvements because it makes
you
happy.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

ENJOY LIFE,
INSTEAD OF
PEOPLE-PLEASING

W
hy does everyone else get to have a fun, happy life, but not me?
is the Cinderella-like complaint that Earth Angels frequently think to themselves. After all, an Earth Angel rarely complains aloud. To do so might make others uncomfortable.

Every spiritual path and religion touts the importance of helping others. And being helpful
does
lead to happiness. But there's a tipping point for everyone who feels that they're giving much more than they're receiving in return.

In a healthy relationship, both parties give and receive. It's impossible to make it completely 50-50. However, a healthy relationship encourages both people to air their true feelings if there's a giving imbalance. In a healthy relationship, you feel safe telling your partner about anything that's upsetting you. Your partner listens and shares his or her feelings in return. You negotiate as a couple to creatively resolve the situation in a fair way that both people respect.

In unhealthy relationships, one person rules and the other hides his or her feelings. The ruling person is very clear about the source of upsets, and usually points the finger at the other partner. Very often, Earth Angels assume the role of the “scapegoat,” a person on whom everything is blamed. It's the scapegoat's “fault” if there isn't enough money in the family budget, the kids are being too noisy, or the jar of peanut butter is empty.

Earth Angels also accept the blame and say “I'm sorry” continually, even for things that aren't their fault. They assume that if someone's angry, it must be something they did.

The Earth Angel cowers before the angry person, giving away personal power and praying that the confrontation will end soon. This dynamic partly stems from past lifetimes. In each lifetime, our personality stays relatively similar. It's a myth that we bounce between being cruel and kind to balance our karma. That just doesn't happen! Kind people stay kind throughout lifetimes, and cruel people (unless they experience spiritual growth) stay cruel.

So, you've probably had previous lifetimes with similar personality traits of kindness, generosity, and a flair for spiritual divination and healing. In those lifetimes, spiritual healers and teachers were persecuted and often killed. During the Inquisition, everyone blamed tragedies upon “witches” (the generic name given to spiritual healers and teachers, even if they didn't practice witchcraft).

For that reason, you developed a phobia of being blamed, because blame was once a death sentence. You may have even been burned at the stake, stoned to death, or permanently imprisoned because people unfairly pointed to your spiritual gifts as the cause of famines, childhood illnesses, crop failures, and so forth.

Deep down, your soul recalls each lifetime's happy and painful lessons. If your body is twitching or flinching, you find yourself exhaling deeply, or you have “goose bumps” while reading this section, that's a sign that you suffered in this way.

In this lifetime, you've likely twisted yourself in knots to avoid blame. You anticipate everyone's needs with your supersensitive intuition, and then do superhuman work to ensure that everyone's happy . . . partly to escape the tyranny of being blamed! Your underlying reasoning (which may be unconscious) is:
I'm safe as long as everyone's happy
.

Martyr-Victim -Rescuer

Earth Angels are unhappy with unbalanced relationships in which they give far more than they receive. So, they feel victimized, used, and exploited by unappreciative people. No matter how much trouble they go to, other people don't reciprocate. Of course, if an occasional nice person
does
offer to help, the offer is refused. That's because deep down, Earth Angels feel needed and wanted when others make unreasonable demands. They also feel more in control when they're the ones doing all of the giving.

What our Earth Angel wants more than anything is appreciation, which she equates to “job security” and “love.” The Earth Angel wants to be reassured that she's pretty enough, smart enough, and lovable enough. She craves reassurance because she hasn't yet learned how to give herself feedback.

When you rely upon others to define who you are, you've given them your power. You treat other people as a mirror that reflects back to you whether you're a “good person.” If they're happy and pleased, you're a good person. If they're unhappy or angry, you're not.

Of course, that's not true in reality. But lifetimes of abusive conditioning have left hypersensitive Earth Angels feeling highly afraid.

The Angelic Martyr/Victim

If you're worried about “bothering” others, and you rarely request that people help you, you may be trapped in an Angelic Martyr/Victim cycle. This cycle means that you feel resentful that no one's helping you, yet you're not asking others for help. You may even say no when others
do
offer to help you!

Martyrs are those who deny themselves any pleasure in life, because they focus entirely upon others' needs. But then they punish the people they're helping with passive-aggressive behavior, which just increases, instead of reduces, anger.

This cycle stems from low self-worth, where you value other people's time more than your own. You may assume that they're too busy to bother helping you, and that they'd feel resentment if you asked for their assistance.

Could this be a projection of
your own
feelings of resentment? After all, wouldn't you love to have others help you? It would almost be better if they just dove in and lent a hand without first asking. Because when they ask, that's when you hesitate and usually say “No, thank you.”

To turn this around, it's important to begin accepting other people's offers of help. The exception would be when you can sense the helpful person really has a hidden agenda such as trying to ingratiate him- or herself to you (make you feel that you owe him or her). But if a genuinely nice person offers assistance, being assertive means that you say “Thank you,” and accept this kind gesture. Then, afterward, avoid the old habit of saying “Thank you” a million more times or apologizing for being a bother.

When you receive, the other person has the pleasure of giving. Allow him or her to have the inherent reward that accompanies helping another person (you). The other person will derive satisfaction from feeling helpful and useful. All humans have the need to feel needed. When you think of it this way, you'll agree that it's selfish to be the only one doing the giving. So spread the love by giving others the opportunity to give to you!

People-Pleasing

Your need for other people's approval puts them in control of your happiness. No one deserves that power over you.

You seek approval to avoid conflict. You have an uncanny sense about what other people want to hear, and you know how to feed it to them in heaping spoonfuls! Meanwhile, the other person believes that you're the nicest person on the planet—which you
are
, except there's an authentic and real version of your nice self masked behind “people-pleasing.”

“People-pleasing” takes the phrase “If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all” to a whole new twisted level. It means that you're pretending to be someone different from who you really are, in order to control how another person reacts to you.

You try to prevent the other person from being angry with you, leaving you, or firing you by being extra-compliant and phony-nice. Or, the flip side is that you try to control others into liking you, marrying you, promoting you in the company . . . all by pretending to believe what they believe and laughing at their jokes and having a false front.

So people-pleasing is a dysfunctional and ultimately manipulative and dishonest way of relating to other people. There's nothing pleasing about people-pleasing!

You can be pleasant and very kind, thoughtful, and nice while still being genuine and honest with others. In fact, the most charming people are those who tell you the truth in a loving way. This is the combination for Earth Angels to aspire to: being real, nice, loving,
and
honest.

Everyone can relate to real human emotions. So when you admit how you really feel, it's a relief to people to know that others feel the same way they do. In this way, by being honest with others, you're being a teacher of how to live an authentic life.

Many people confuse being honest with being aggressive. That's because for so many years, the average nice person was passive and silent. But that has all changed, thank goodness! These days, it's essential for nice people to speak up about the issues that are near and dear to their hearts.

For instance, if your child is having difficulty with a teacher, it's very appropriate for you to hold meetings with either that teacher or the principal. This is an example of you taking action because you love your child. You speak up and are honest because that's the only way to protect him or her.

In personal situations, being genuine can bring blessings, too. For example, let's say that you and a group of friends go to see a movie. The movie is awful, and you don't want to watch any more of it. You look over at your girlfriends and they're squirming in their seats and seem to not be enjoying themselves either.