Transcript

Brian
Hi and welcome to the Somatic Coaching Academy podcast for episode 112. Ani, how are you today?

Ani
I’m good, thanks. How are you?

Brian
I’m doing great. Feeling good?

Ani
Good. Me too.

Brian
Yeah. You ready to do this?

Ani
Yeah, I am ready.

Brian
You’re ready. Okay. So today we are talking about what to do when people rub you the wrong way.

Ani
Brian, why doesn’t anybody say that they rubbed me the right way?

Brian
Well, maybe they do.

Ani
I have never heard anybody say that.

Brian
Well, maybe you can coin that.

Ani
I don’t know that I want to.

Brian
Thank you. Maybe that’s why no one says it. Maybe no one wants to own that.

Ani
Maybe so.

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
Maybe so. But I think everybody knows what it’s like to be rubbed the wrong way. Way.

Exactly. You used to rub me the wrong way all the time.

Brian
Yeah. You too. Me.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
Exactly.

Ani
Good.

Brian
But one of my favorite Rumi quotes or poems, a short poem, is that it goes something like this. If you’re bothered by every rub, how will you ever become polished?

Ani
It’s a really good quote.

Brian
It’s a great quote. I come back to that one a lot whenever I feel irritated by someone. I think, I’m just being rubbed.

Just being polished. I’m being polished though. Because think about sanding, rubbing, polishing.

It all creates friction. There’s all friction there.

Ani
As you’re talking about it, it kind of makes me feel a little irritated, right? Being rubbed or being polished still has some kind of, like you said, friction. It feels like something to me when we talk about it.

Brian
And so what that quote alludes to is that there is a deeper way to look at the experience of being in relationship with someone who creates friction for you. Or you could say agitation, irritation, rubbing, whatever it is. But really, it’s an experience that there’s some type of friction that goes on.

Ani
I’m just kind of curious as you’re talking about that, what our expectation is anyway? Is it that all of our relationships should kind of feel good? Where did we get that idea from?

Oh, wait, I know where we got that idea from. A society that has been feeding us more and more and more convenience.

Brian
Right, yeah.

Ani
Right?

Brian
Sure, yeah.

Ani
Technological convenience.

Brian
Yeah, and the algorithms and social media are just feeding you things that you agree with.

Ani
Absolutely. Well, most of the time. Yeah.

So anytime we get rubbed by something kind of in the physical world, we find a solution.

Brian
Yeah. So again, what that quote kind of leads us to is there’s kind of two layers here. And so one layer you just kind of mentioned is that when someone rubs you the wrong way, one way that we approach that is trying to understand, fix, or work around the other person.

Right. So I think that’s what you’re kind of talking about, finding a solution.

Ani
Yeah, let’s fix it.

Brian
To deal with the other person.

Ani
Yeah, let’s fix it.

Brian
So I’m trying to fix the other. We need to have a conversation so I can fix you.

Ani
You need to be fixed. I need to be fixed. The situation needs to be fixed.

There must be a solution.

Brian
Right.

Ani
Or to go, like how you said, to go around.

Brian
So there’s all kinds of different ways to engage with it. But essentially what we’re doing on that first level or the one way when someone rubs you the wrong way is that it has something to do with dealing with the other person. I’m going to try to understand them more, which could be a good thing to do.

Sure. Or I’m going to try to fix them or control them, which may not be as helpful, but that’s something people do. Or I’ll try to work around them, avoid them.

Right. That’s something that people do too. But it always has something to do with understanding, fixing, controlling something, the other person.

Ani
Yeah. I’m just thinking about all the times in my life and for clients and students and stuff. It takes a lot of energy.

It takes a lot of energy.

Brian
And we’re not saying that it’s unimportant to consider how you relate to that person. And certainly if the person is abusive or really overtly toxic, I mean to remove yourself from their vicinity is really important. So let’s just say that.

But also sometimes they just rub you the wrong way and they’re not being abusive or toxic or damaging or anything like that. They just rub you the wrong way. And yet you may be in situations where you’re going to be close to them at work or in groups that you’re a part of, masterminds, communities, something like that.

Ani
Family units.

Brian
Family units. So then what do you do?

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
Right. Then we go to this kind of this next level, which this kind of poem or quote kind of says, like if you want to become polished, you’ve got to be rubbed a little bit. And so the second level, actually, let’s talk about this a little bit more, Ani.

You’ve mentioned that we do talk about this a lot with our clients, that people do feel like they’re getting rubbed the wrong way by other people in their life.

Ani
Oh, yeah.

Brian
And that this does happen in certain communities.

Ani
Oh, definitely. Oh, yeah.

Brian
And so you’ve even talked about how this shows up in community.

Ani
Oh, well, I mean, I’m just thinking like, certainly any kind of community. I mean, think about it, whether it’s the, you know, the neighborhood knitting circle or church or your family, you know. One of the ways, actually, Brian, this shows up quite a bit is with women.

Women have been conditioned to like not like each other and pick at each other. It’s part of how we’ve been conditioned to act with each other. So it very often shows up between women on women, you know, women with women.

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
So that’s just a very insidious way that like the patriarchal conditioning has weaved its way into our world that we don’t often recognize.

Brian
So it kind of adds some fuel to that feeling like you’re being challenged, threatened, rubbed the wrong way.

Ani
Oh, yeah.

Brian
Like from one woman to another by another woman.

Ani
Yeah, yeah.

Brian
In communities and groups and organizations and those types of things.

Ani
Yeah, yeah.

Brian
So it should be like a little- It’s very common. So could it be then like a flag, like to say, oh, there’s actually something else going on here? Like in one, the flag I think you’re pointing out is that, oh, this is actually a part of societal conditioning.

Ani
100%.

Brian
Is why I feel agitated or aggravated by another woman. Another woman. Okay.

Ani
Yeah.

Brian
Let’s just call that out for a second there.

Ani
Yeah. I mean, it happens in community groups. It definitely happens in collegial relationships as well.

Yeah.

Brian
Yeah. So the segue here is there’s a deeper way to kind of look at this. And this is what Rumi’s kind of pointing to.

So the deeper way is to look at when you feel rubbed the wrong way by somebody, that it’s an opportunity to learn something more about yourself.

Ani
Mm-hmm.

Brian
Right? Because when you learn more about yourself, that’s how you really become polished. If we’re talking about being polished as being kind of like raising our vibrational frequency, becoming more accepting, more empathetic.

You might be thinking, I’m plenty accepting. I don’t want to accept any more. I’m like, I have plenty of empathy.

I don’t want my empathy anymore. It’s part of this is like, yes, accepting, empathetic, but it’s also an element of being detached from other people’s experience too, and being able to hold space for it. Right?

So all that stuff kind of goes into being polished.

Ani
Yeah. And there’s this kind of like, I don’t want to accept, accept any more kind of thing that is, I think, important because it’s important for us to honor and recognize whatever emotions are coming up for us and they’re there for a reason. And following them also isn’t necessarily the solution.

So just if you’re like, I don’t accept any more. I’ve been compassionate enough and I am angry. Okay.

So the anger isn’t necessarily the higher vibrational frequency to come from, but it’s definitely something to work with to repattern ourselves. So we are coming from a place of a higher level of consciousness, a higher vibrational frequency.

Brian
Yeah. And you could look at that anger, again, as a clue that there’s something to learn more about yourself.

Ani
Right. Because that’s who we can actually make an impact with, of course, is ourselves. It’s what we have control over.

It’s what we can do something about. But more than that, each of us is looking through our own perceptual lenses. So if you want to think about it like wearing a pair of sunglasses, everybody’s looking through their own sunglasses.

And if my sunglasses are blue and yours are orange, we’re both looking at the sky, but we’re seeing different colors.

Brian
Right.

Ani
You know? And so actually changing the perceptual lens is where it’s at. And that’s work that we do within ourselves.

Brian
Yeah. So I love that you brought up the analogy of the glasses and the lens, Ani, because a way that we love to work with people in a really practical way on this exact topic is through what we call the law of reflection. So the law of reflection is one of the natural laws.

And what the law of reflection states is that, well, first of all, kind of the general parameter of the universe is always bringing us, always guiding us towards wholeness. Right? It’s always kind of urging us to get back to wholeness.

Ani
And more life.

Brian
And more life. So what the law of reflection basically tells us is that the qualities that we see in other people that we don’t like, and we do like actually, that we either feel infatuated by or repulsed by are actually qualities within ourselves that we’ve repressed.

Ani
Yeah. And it accounts for this idea that multiple people can be a part of relationship with a person and perceive that person in vastly different ways. No person is like this or that.

Brian
Yeah.

Ani
We are each everything. And we perceive other people based on our own stuff.

Brian
Yeah, for sure. For sure. The author, Anis Nin, said, I love this quote.

It’s, again, so spot on for what we’re talking about, is that we don’t see other people as they are. We see them as we are.

Ani
Yep.

Brian
So just let that soak in for a second. We don’t see other people as they are. We see them as we are.

And as Anis is pointing out, it’s because we’re all conditioned with beliefs. And we’ve talked about this a lot on other podcasts too, but let’s just talk about it a little bit in terms of this law of reflection. So we’re all conditioned with beliefs when we’re young, right?

And here’s the thing, though. As we grow older, we may actually come to despise the beliefs that we learned when we were young. So think about when you’re a teenager.

Maybe you can remember when you were a teenager. Maybe you actually have teenagers. Or maybe you had a teenager, especially right around middle school.

Especially right around middle school.

Ani
Yeah, that’s a tough age.

Brian
When all of a sudden you’re like, you think that your parents are the dumbest.

Ani
I don’t get it.

Brian
Don’t get it. They are all screwed up. They don’t know what’s right and wrong.

They don’t understand values.

Ani
They are definitely rubbing me the wrong way.

Brian
They’re rubbing me the wrong way. And so here’s the thing. So when you’re young, though, you are literally soaking up beliefs from your parents and your caregivers and your family, society, all those people.

Let’s just keep it to parents and caregivers right now for a second, just to make this example work. So you have your parents and your caregivers. And so you soak up beliefs.

And let’s say you soak up a belief, something to the effect of money is really important. Let’s just take it to money for a second. And then at a teenager, you get the thing like freaking my parents, all they talk about is money, money, money, money.

Things are so expensive. They can’t afford that. Or I can’t afford that.

And I hate money. I think money is just the worst thing in the world. So now, as a teenager, you are now despising the exact belief that you were raised with.

So the problem is, is that that belief you were raised with is already woven into your physiology. It’s already baked into your bioenergetic system because you lived with it between the age of zero and seven and now to the time you’re 13, 14 as a teenager, something like that sort of thing. So what happens is basically now you have both the belief that you don’t like baked inside of you, right?

You already think you don’t like, it’s already inside of you and you don’t like it, but you don’t like it about yourself.

Ani
Rubbing yourself the wrong way.

Brian
You’re rubbing yourself the wrong way. So what happens though, is that then- You see it outside of yourself. You repress it deeper.

Absolutely. So the more you don’t like it, you repress that quality in yourself like more and more and more and more and more, but it’s already in there. You don’t like it, so you repress it.

And the more you repress it down, the more you see it in other people. Because the universe is always trying to get you back to a sense of wholeness.

Ani
Right. So when you say wholeness, it’s interesting because we might think that we perceive everything, but we so don’t. We perceive parts.

We perceive sections, you know? And it’s one of the gifts actually of other people in our lives to be able to see aspects that we can’t see.

Brian
Yeah. And so that’s called the shadow aspect, basically.

Ani
Right, because it’s so far repressed.

Brian
It’s so far repressed, it goes into a shadow.

Ani
We can’t be a part of ourselves.

Brian
Right, exactly.

Ani
That’s kind of a classic thing when I work with clients and we’ll do this law of reflection and I’ll say, well, that must be a part of you, this thing that you see that you don’t like. And they’re like, I don’t see it.

Brian
Yeah. And so here’s an interesting thing, though, is just because you can’t see it in yourself doesn’t mean other people don’t see it in you. 100%.

And how painful is it when someone else points out to you that you’re behaving or being like someone that you despise?

Ani
Yeah, that hurts.

Brian
Right? Has that ever happened?

Ani
Oh, yeah.

Brian
Yeah, right? I mean, so that’s happened to me. It’s like someone points it out to you, you’re like, ow.

Ani
And then, yeah, no.

Brian
So just because you can’t see it in yourself doesn’t mean other people don’t see it in you. Yep, yep. Okay, because again, they’re also living with the law of reflection.

So once you get to this point, if you really want to do this work, like if you say, hey, I’m on, because this isn’t easy work to do. I mean, this is really, you really have to look at yourself in a non-judgmental way. Compassionate, caring, loving, accepting.

Ani
Not taking yourself too personally.

Brian
In a pioneering type of way, though, too. I mean, a lot of this work, you really have to be a pioneer of your own experience to kind of get through there. So the science behind all this stuff is really, really fascinating.

And we actually go pretty deep into this science in our Somatic Coach Complete program.

Ani
Right, the Level 3 program.

Brian
And also in Living With The Laws, because this is one of the laws we actually talk about in Living With The Laws, and we integrate, we practice with. We actually walk our participants and students through it.

Ani
Mindset for Manifestation.

Brian
Yeah, Mindset for Manifestation, the Living With The Laws program. But let’s just say about it right now is that the universe, again, is always urging you towards becoming whole, right? It’s always doing that.

And it’s infinite humor, because the universe is like infinitely humorous. It brings you into relationship with people who remind you of the unloved parts of yourself. That’s basically how the universe works.

And so the people who are bringing you in to reflect that back to you, they feel like they’re rubbing you the wrong way. So you can either look at people who rub you the wrong way as being annoying, irritating, bad, wrong, problem, whatever, and then try to get rid of that. Try to fix it, understand it.

Again, that’s on that first level. And sometimes that works for immediate—I’m not even saying immediate relief because it doesn’t. Sometimes it works in instances and those sorts of things.

Ani
It works if you remove yourself from the situation and you change your pattern, because then you won’t attract it back. But if you’re not changing your pattern, you’ll just attract it back. And then you’ve got somebody else in your life who, god dang it, it’s the same freaking annoying thing as the other person.

Brian
Yeah, exactly. They’ll just show up again.

Ani
Different person.

Brian
Different person. Different clothes. So the first step to all of this is knowing why people rub you the wrong way.

It’s not because the person is specifically—it has nothing to do with the person specifically, actually, to Ani’s point. Because you might move just from one person to the next person, the next person, the next person. They keep reflecting back to you parts of yourself in your shadow aspect that you have not come to love and accept yet about yourself.

Ani
We have a friend who calls it the different guy, same pants. I love that. From a dating perspective, you just keep attracting—it’s a different guy, but it’s the same pants.

Brian
Yeah, exactly. Same thing again and again and again and again and again kind of thing. So you have to know why.

So if you want to do the deeper work, then now you know. Now you know why people rub you the wrong way.

Ani
So you said something really important here that I want to highlight. So when you’re asking yourself, why does this person rub me the wrong way? Usually people try to answer that question from coming up with why that specific person rubs them the wrong way.

What Brian’s saying is cue in with the greater purpose of why people rub you the wrong way.

Brian
Right.

Ani
Because if you’re trying to answer that specific question from a standpoint of what is it about this specific person, you’re just going to be chasing your tail.

Brian
Right, yeah. So you have to ask yourself, what qualities that I see this person expressing rub me the wrong way? Because those are the qualities in yourself that are in your shadow aspect.

Ani
Right, but first knowing that it’s an aspect of you.

Brian
Yeah, so that’s the first step. You have to know the deeper reason why. Now the next steps, you have to have a process to be able to work the next steps through.

And of course, here at the Somatic Coaching Academy, we have a four-step process. We have a four-step process. Become aware of, decode, modify, and reframe those shadow patterns.

This is a pattern. Right, it’s just a pattern within you. So you have to have a process to reorganize the pattern somatically.

And because it’s in a shadow aspect in your subconscious, it lives in your body.

Ani
Right, which is why the sensation-based work that we teach here, the somatic-based, sensation-based work, works with this stuff so powerfully. Because if you’re trying to figure it out from an intellectual standpoint, it just keeps being this ninja that keeps hiding on you. It’s this shadow that you can’t grasp a shadow.

Once you can tap in with the sensation-based stuff, then you can do something with it.

Brian
Yeah, and once you liberate it from your system, then it’s gone. And then those qualities and traits don’t rub you the wrong way anymore.

Ani
They just don’t rub you.

Brian
They don’t rub you.

Ani
They just don’t bother you anymore. And it’s funny because you don’t even recognize it until somebody might bring it up to you later, like, hey, that used to really bug you. And now it’s like, oh, huh, did it?

Brian
Yeah, so you have more ease, right? You have more flow. And the people, I think Ani already said before, people who had those traits or qualities before rubbing back to them, either you do not see those traits and qualities anymore in people because they’re not rubbing you the wrong way.

Just doesn’t bother you anymore. Or they gravitate out of your life. Yep.

And so there’s just so much more ease and space and flow in your life. Joy. Yeah, so if you want more ease and space and joy and flow in your life, like, you know, reach out to us.

Our email’s right there. Info at SomaticCoachingAcademy.com. We can tell you all about the programs that we do that help people do these exact things, right?

Especially Coach Complete and the Mindset for Manifestation program. That’s the work we do in those programs.

Ani
Yeah, in the Level 3 program, actually. It’s one of the rare bits of that program where this aspect is actually taught for the practitioner. We don’t teach people to go do this with other people.

Why? Because what happens is somebody’s rubbing you and you think, I’m going to teach you how to fix that in you. Ha ha, that’s not the point.

Brian
Yeah, so one more quote. I have one more quote. I love this quote too from Wayne Dyer, from Uncle Wayne, right?

Does anybody know Uncle Wayne? Yeah, I call him Uncle Wayne, right? Uncle Wayne Dyer.

Sure, he would appreciate that. So he used this quote. When I first heard this, I was like, oh, it was like a knife in my heart.

He says, when we judge other people, it doesn’t say anything about the other person. It only says that we’re the type of person who needs to judge.

Ani
Yeah. I remember reading that a while ago.

Brian
I read that quote for the first time, probably 15, 20 years ago. I realized I needed to do something different because I was very judgmental of other people. And I realized, oh, it’s not about them.

It’s not about the other people. It’s about me. And I have a need to judge.

Oh, why do I have a need to judge?

Ani
Boy, I’m glad you got over that before you met me.

Brian
Yeah, I’m sure you are. I am too. But it really put me on a path of realizing how my perception, how I was projecting my perceptions out onto everybody else in the world and all the situations I was in in the world and those sorts of things.

And it created so much tension and constriction in my physiology. I mean, I’ve told all those stories before and in my psyche and just not being a happy person, just not being free, not feeling free to express my purpose for being here on the planet, not feeling free to express your emote or really share my opinions or my ideas or any of those sorts of things because I was just always so constantly bound up internally. And I needed just to learn to let life flow, let life flow through me.

And part of that was this realization that I was the type of person who needed to judge other people. And the judgments I had about other people was not about them. It was about me.

And so that was one of the most painful but liberating early experiences I had in this work.

Ani
I remember reading that also and it was probably about 10 years ago. And for me, I read it and it hurt and I couldn’t argue with it.

Brian
Mm-hmm.

Ani
Like there’s a lot of stuff you read that you can, yeah, but this or that. I couldn’t argue with it and I had to sit with it and sit with like what that felt like for myself. And that was rough.

I remember exactly where I was first time I read that.

Brian
Yeah. So we’re leaving you with a quote to reflect back to you about this idea.

Ani
Can I say one more thing? Sure. The natural laws, which you’ve heard us talk about before and we teach here, they don’t judge.

And so I take solace, I guess, in the idea that I can be like the natural laws and you can too and get to a place where you actually come from a place where you’re not so judgmental anymore. So you can be like the natural laws too.

Brian
And that happens when you naturally dissolve these shadow aspects in yourself. Yeah. Then it happens naturally.

You don’t have to try anymore.

Ani
You don’t have to try. Yeah. Embodying the natural laws is the salve for that wound.

Brian
Yep. So check out what we’re doing on the website. Check out the natural laws programs.

Give us a call.

Ani
You can always ask questions.

Brian
We’d love to chat about it with you.

Ani
Send us an email, info at somaticcoachingacademy.com. And hey, have a great rest of your week. We’ll see you soon.

Brian
Thanks for joining us. Bye-bye.