When Someone’s Behavior Pulls You Off Center

Lately, I’ve noticed how many people are struggling with the way others are showing up in their lives.

I hear it from clients, friends, family members, and even people I talk with at the gym. Someone they love is behaving differently than they expected. A longtime relationship is changing. A person they count on isn’t showing up in the way they hoped. Something was said, or left unsaid, and now they feel hurt, disappointed, angry, or confused.

I understand. I’ve experienced this too.

We naturally have expectations of the people in our lives, especially those who have been with us for a long time. And expectations are not always wrong. We are allowed to desire honesty, respect, consistency, and care. We are allowed to have boundaries around what we will and will not accept.

But when someone’s behavior pulls us completely away from our center, there may be something deeper asking for our attention.

The quickest way back to ourselves is to turn our attention inward.

This does not mean fixing the situation.

It does not mean repairing the relationship.

It does not mean excusing someone’s behavior or allowing them continued access to our lives.

It simply means asking:

What is happening inside of me right now?

What has this situation triggered within me?

What is this behavior revealing about something that may still need my attention, compassion, or healing?

This is where our power lives.

Our power is not in making another person understand. It is not in convincing them to change, apologize, or show up differently. Our power is in recognizing what their behavior brings to the surface within us and choosing how we will care for ourselves in response.

The people who come into our lives, whether they stay for a season or a lifetime, often hold up a mirror.

Sometimes they reflect the qualities we love about ourselves. These are often the people we feel immediately drawn to. Their kindness reminds us of our own kindness. Their courage awakens our courage. Their light helps us recognize our own.

Those reflections feel beautiful.

But some people reflect the places within us that still hurt.

They may awaken an old wound of rejection, abandonment, betrayal, unworthiness, or not feeling seen. Those mirrors are much harder to look into, but they can also reveal where we are ready to offer ourselves more love.

Everyone is living from what is inside of them. People’s behaviors often reveal their pain, fears, beliefs, and capacity, not our worth.

Remembering this allows us to see them with compassion without abandoning ourselves.

We can offer grace and still have boundaries.

We can forgive and still choose distance.

We can understand someone’s pain without making it ours to carry.

Forgiveness does not always mean reconciliation. Sometimes forgiveness simply means deciding that we no longer want to carry the weight of what happened.

I choose to believe that most people are doing the best they can with the awareness, tools, and capacity they have in each moment. That belief helps me see a world filled with far more love and goodness than fear.

It does not make harmful behavior acceptable. It simply keeps someone else’s pain from changing who I am.

Because what we fill ourselves with is what we have available to offer the world.

When difficult moments arise, and they will, what is already within us comes to the surface. If we have been filling ourselves with resentment, judgment, and anger, that is what will be readily available. But if we have been cultivating compassion, grace, self-trust, and love, we are better able to respond from those qualities.

This is not something we master once and never have to revisit. We remember, forget, and remember again.

So, when someone’s behavior pulls you away from yourself, pause.

Take a breath.

Bring your attention home.

Ask yourself:

What is this situation showing me?

What part of me needs my love right now?

What belongs to me and what can I lovingly give back?

Then remind yourself:

Their behavior is information. It is not a definition of my worth, or theirs.

You cannot control how another person shows up, you do get to choose how you will show up for yourself.

This three-month group mentoring space is for the woman who is ready to stop carrying everything alone.For the woman who has spent years being responsible, dependable, and strong — but is quietly tired from holding so much.

The details:
Meet: On Zoom: September 15 and 29, October 13 and 27, November 10 and 23. All times: 6 PM – 8PM Central | Investment: $400 | Limited to 10 people

Save your spot!

Remembering You is an intimate retreat created for the woman who has spent years carrying, giving, fixing, and holding everything together—and is ready to gently lay down what was never hers to carry.

When we change the world changes.