Well, the idea is that it is about the fears that the other person has, and one should not take it personally. But it is a personal attack, so how can one not take it personally?
If the other person is smearing me to others, can I detach from that? Should I detach from that? In one sense I can say I will not let it bother me, they will do as they will. But in another sense, if I have an opportunity to bring it to light, or to let the PD be known for who he/she is, do I not have a moral responsibility to do that, in an appropriate way? Out of respect for myself and others (who are being lied to)? I think so.
QFT.
I used to "let things go" if I had some idea or hope or was even advised that this person was the same way with other people. I think more often than not there are a lot of people who are very savvy and have some idea how far they can go with one person as opposed to other whether it's a family social or professional situation.
This is why parents arer keen to shut down a child's "but you didn't ask him to clean up......" or any permutation thereof.
Whether you take something personally or not, it will be your personal choices -- comunnication skills (verbal and non verbal) and so on -- that will make the situation work for you.
I wanted to add that I feel it's important to acknowledge that we all have different "ingredients" in our stories, and I do not mean to imply at all that what I'm aiming for is what others "should be" aiming for. Not at all! When I get done exploring this topic I may end up right back where I began after all. But I do want to thoroughly explore it.
I don't know if this is what coyote meant, but on the topic of smearing I can tell you how it used to be for me and how it's developing now. When first limiting contact with my ILs, with whom we share multiple social circles, I had a lot of fear of what they would be saying about us. I think much of that fear faded because we found our friends and family to be unchanged in their behavior and attitudes towards us, so there really wasn't a "cost." But partly I came to have a much more solid sense of who we were, where we stood, and why that mattered. Basically, rather than my energy, thoughts and fear being "other" centered, we became centered in our own lives, marriage and family.
As it became about what was healthy for us, what worked for us, what was necessary for us, what everyone else thought started to fade away. It simply didn't matter. And as it faded away, so did a lot of the fear, energy and anger. They could think as they wished. We weren't there to defend or refute. We were simply living our lives, as best as we could, and they could think what they wanted.
Ironically, this week I was given the challenge by T to "find my jurisdiction" in prep for contact with my parents again. He thought it would be hard for me, which is like waving a red flag in front of a bull for my stubborn self, and I found I was suddenly very, very clear about our boundaries.
*In our family, our home is a safe zone. If someone is unable to be kind to any single member of our family, that is certainly their right and we will not invite them into our home.
*In our family, we spend time with safe people. If someone is a chronic liar, destabilizing in their interpersonal relations, and not trustworthy, we are only willing to spend very limited public time with them a couple times per year. Anything more is simply not healthy for our family, and we only allow that much for the sake of the extended family.
*In our family, we do what is best for our family, our marriage, our children. We are not ruled by FOG. We understand that this may upset people in our lives who think they should have greater access to our family, but we make the decisions for our family. If some type of contact isn't good for any person in our family, then we will not have that kind of contact.
So, for sure I have gotten furious and anxious and upset when our PD parents have tried to work their way around our previously spoken boundaries. I felt so much anger and frustration and even hate at times that the people who were "supposed to" love us were instead disrespecting and undermining us. However, one thing about boundaries (I think, someone correct me if needed) is that they help ME figure out where MY boundaries are also. Which means that I don't need to feel personally hurt when someone disrespects my boundaries. I have certainly accidentally disrespected other people's boundaries, and if they were kind and gracious enough to point them out to me then I could start learning and respecting them. If someone continues to disrespect MY boundaries, then it says something about them and not much about me.
Just me thinking out loud...
