How to stop being a push over & live on your terms

If you’re anything like me, you’ve made the mistake of ignoring your thoughts and feelings in favour of someone else’s. Just to please them.

Perhaps you’ve said yes to things you wanted to say no to, pretended to like what someone else likes in hopes they’ll like you more or capitulated in the face of someone else’s dominance for fear of upsetting them.

There's a term for this; self-sacrificing, and it leads us nowhere but feeling inauthentic and decreasing our self-confidence. As if we’re “distrusting” or “discounting” ourselves in favour of others.  

So I wanted to find out why we capitulate to others, at the expense of ourselves, and if there’s anything we can do to stop it.

And it turns out there’s a psychological concept which explains everything as to why this happens and what we can do about it.

But before we explore that concept, let’s begin by covering why we capitulate to others in the first place.

Why do we capitulate to others?:

The word capitulation means:

• The action of ceasing to resist an opponent or demand

The etymology of the word comes from the Medieval Latin capitulatus meaning to surrender to an enemy on agreed upon terms.

In the context of relationships, we might:

• Capitulate to the demands of our parents to study a university degree we have no interest in.
• Capitulate to the pushiness of a salesman to buy something we don’t actually want.
• Capitulate to the neediness of our partner to text them where we are and what we’re doing 24/7, when deep down such requests make us feel like a child.
• Capitulate to the pressure from our friends to go to a music event we have no interest in.

When we capitulate we submit. And when we submit we usually do so because we don't want to face the potential arguments, distress or conflict which might arise from us admitting what we actually want or don’t want. But this is precisely what puts strain on our relationships and creates a feeling of inauthenticity when we interact with others.

If we don’t feel as if we can be “our authentic selves”, our relationships will be a source of anguish and pain rather than joy and support.

The reason we are so prone to submit to others is because of our childhood. Not particularly because of any specific trauma we experienced, although that can of course be a huge factor, but because of the nature of how we humans grow up; we don’t grow up differentiating ourselves from our parental figures, instead we become heavily dependent on them. So we enter adult life reliving our childhood experiences of being intertwined with others, and projecting ideals onto those we socialise with, because we don’t know any different.

For example:

• If you were raised by a domineering father you might project that ideal onto your boss at work, capitulating to his excessive demands in the same way you would capitulate to your dad when you were a kid.
• If you were raised by an overbearing mother you might project that image onto your girlfriend whenever she bombards you with messages, growing annoyed at her “overbearingness” which to her seems like harmlessly checking on how you’re doing.

This reliving of our childhood experiences causes a mismatch between our psychological programming (from childhood) and adult experiences. After all, in the eyes of others it would be easy to conclude “but why don’t you just say no to your boss when he asks you to work longer hours?” or “why don’t you just appreciate that your girlfriend cares for you?” because the inner-child which torments us lies within our unconscious, outside the view of others.

Psychotherapist Dr. Lisa Firestone says:

“The more we recognize and stop acting from the point of view of this destructive, internal enemy, the more ourselves we will become.”

However, capitulation isn’t always a bad thing. The ability to let others take the lead as you assume a more laid back role is a brilliant quality.

For example:

• If you were to invite me to your home town, it would make sense for me to capitulate to you in order to allow you to lead our day trip to the town centre because you know the area best.

So too the inability to allow others to lead can cause unnecessary power struggles where two individuals are trying to gain control.

In their book, Rapport - the four ways to read people, Emily and Laurence Allison personify the characters of someone socially capitulating as a mouse, and the figure of someone dominating as a lion. They go on to explain each animal has a good and bad side.

For example:

• A good mouse lets others lead
• A bad mouse is too submissive and timid
• A good lion gives others certainty and direction, acting with boldness and good leadership
• A bad lion is bossy and tyrannical

Other forms of capitulation include:

• Co-dependency = when we become overly reliant on someone else (much like a child and a parent)
• Fusion = when we intertwine our identity completely with someone else’s (think; the boyfriend and girlfriend who have to do everything together)

The core issue for the person who over-capitulates or is co-dependent is they fear detaching from the person they’re co-dependent on. They might have difficulty separating their own feelings from others’, or look to their family to define how they think about issues, feel about people or interpret their experiences. But paradoxically, they also fear becoming totally enmeshed with them.

So now we’ve covered the dark side of capitulation, let’s cover the psychological concept which will steer us away from excessive capitulation and closer to inner-authenticity.

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Self-differentiation:

Considered the grandfather of family therapy, Murray Bowen coined the term self-differentiation to describe our ability to separate our feelings and thoughts from others. In other words, self-differentiation involves “a setting apart of oneself as distinct from others”.

In the context of family, differentiation is the process of freeing yourself from your family's collective psychology to define yourself. This means being able to have different opinions and values than your family members whilst still being able to stay emotionally connected to them.

To gauge how self-differentiated you currently are, consider these questions:

• Do you mostly work on letting go of problems rather than solving them?
• Do you let feelings fester until they explode?
• Do you feel pulled to match other people’s emotional state, such as when they’re in anger, crisis, or sadness?
• Do you say what you know others want to hear?
• Do you agree to things you have no interest in doing?
• Do you demand, directly or indirectly, compliments and praise?
• Do you seek to control others instead of controlling yourself?
• Do you concern yourself with the needs of others but disregard your own?

If you answered “yes” to most of these questions, then you’ve got some work to do.

Self-differentiation is a way of being whereby you are able to affirm yourself without cutting-off others or fusing too much with them. The self-differentiated person resists getting caught up in other people’s problems which deal with their issues and emotions, resentment and anger.

Murray went on to clarify that self-differentiation involves giving up the illusions of others. Because subtly, as adults, we seek other people to fulfil the needs we didn’t get met as a kid. For example, you might want your girlfriend to meet the needs that went unfulfilled by your mother when you were a child.

So we become more self-differentiated when we resist the urge to change others so we feel better. It involves a ‘turning up’ of yourself and seeing how your self is an active participant in your relationships, which function much like living organisms.

In the words of Lisa Firestone PHD:

“A person with strong self-differentiation is able to set appropriate personal boundaries without feeling guilt or shame. A person who has poor self-differentiation goes running to accommodate others, often at the expense of their own happiness, comfort or time.”

Additionally, what the non self-differentiated person does is say yes to others, when they mean no, in order to prove they are good children siblings, friends, spouses or co-workers. And what they fear is the potential emotional complications and entanglements of what might happen if they said no.

However, by experimenting with saying no when we genuinely mean it, we gift ourselves the opportunity to say yes to ourselves, and to realise; the repercussions of us saying no are never as life-threatening as we expect.

In fact, when we turn up ourselves, it’s as if we’re discovering a whole new person with thoughts, feelings and perspectives of their own. We literally reawaken to an inner other who’s been trapped all this time.

An important thing to note about self-differentiation is it doesn’t involve becoming an asshole who only cares for themselves at the expense of others. Instead it means you take the same view of yourself as you do of others in your relationships. That is; you recognise you are a real person with thoughts, feelings, needs and desires which, if gone unexpressed, diminish the relationship’s ability to flourish as well as your ability to flourish individually. And you do so while maintaining your connection to the other.

Congruence:

To illustrate this point further, allow me to briefly outline a concept which Canadian psychologist Carl Rogers introduced called congruence.

Rogers believed in order for relationships to flourish it was imperative that both people enter the relationship without a facade. Through doing so they fostered an environment of congruence where both people were fully able to express what they felt.

Congruence involves a harmony between:

• Your experience
• Your awareness of your experience
• Your communication of your awareness of your experience

For example, incongruence manifests like this:

• *yawns while checking her watch: “tonight was great! Very interesting indeed.”

So the term of “turning up yourself” involves a tapping into what you actually feel - and being able to communicate this to other people in full honesty.

Note; when you are communicating your feelings to another person, don’t label your communication as facts.

For example:

• “You’re really annoying.” < “When you do that, I feel annoyed.”
• “You’re completely wrong.” < “I feel irritated by what you’re saying.”

So now we’ve covered what self-differentiation and congruence are, and before we cover how to become more self-differentiated, let’s cover the 5 most common characteristics of the self-differentiated person.

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The 5 traits of a self-differentiated individual:

1.) Solid sense of self

Differentiated individuals prefer others to see them accurately. Meaning they choose to maintain their beliefs and attitudes in the face of pressure to conform. Nor do they tone-down themselves to avoid conflict.

2.) Seeking understanding rather than agreement

Differentiated people understand they won’t always see eye-to-eye with others. So they don’t waste time trying to agree with someone when they don’t or vice versa. They don’t keep peace for the sake of it, if there’s a problem they are quick to try and resolve it.

3.) Ability to self-validate

Naturally we seek validation from others based on how we look, live or think. Someone with low self-differentiation would tailor their actions in order to please others whereas differentiated people understand, although validation feels nice, they do not have to depend on others’ validation for their self worth.

Again, differentiated people don’t aim for everyone to agree with them.

4.) Ability to self-soothe

Self-soothing is anything you do to regulate your emotions.

Differentiated people don’t aim to self-soothe through the use of substances, reliance on partners or unhealthy coping mechanisms. Nor do they expect others to be able to help them with their daily stresses, anxiety or other emotions. Instead they possess a healthy tool kit of ways they can self-soothe.

5.) Tolerating short-term pain for long-term growth

Lastly, differentiated people are willing to prioritise short-term discomfort for either personal or relationship growth. Self-differentiated people move forward even if they have to take a step backward in order to do so.

How to become more self-differentiated:

So becoming more differentiated is crucial for your mental health, self-discovery, confidence levels and relationship quality. And although becoming more self-differentiated is a daily practice and life-long pursuit, here are 3 ways you can increase your self-differentiation.

1.) Increase Your Willingness to Self-Confront

It’s easy to say no to something when doing it would go against your values.

For example, if you value honesty, then not speaking up when someone does something that upsets you would violate that value. So even though voicing your concerns to this person might spark fear of conflict, you’re likely to speak up with more confidence because by doing so you're upholding a value of yours.

Consider this equation from James Smith:

Something I want to express or say x my personal values = saying it unapologetically.

But in order to discover your values you must first introspect and consider what matters to you.

To help you discover your values, check out this short video here.

2.) Don’t Change Based on Who You’re With

The idea of showing your true self to others can be daunting if you’re not used to doing so.

But consider: would you prefer others to approve of a fake facade or your real identity?

Second, experiment.

A topic related to this is social anxiety, and often people who are socially anxious overcome their anxiety by experimenting with what might happen if they did something differently.

For example:

• What might happen if I held eye contact?
• What might happen if I didn’t cover my face when I blush?
• What might happen if I didn’t rush to fill a silence?

Then, more often than not, the socially anxious person realises there aren’t devastating consequences to their experiments.

They might realise, after all:

• When I hold eye contact people don’t find it weird.
• When I don’t cover my face people don’t call out that I’m blushing.
• When I don’t rush to fill a silence it doesn’t feel awkward at all.

So the same logic applies to becoming more differentiated.

• The next time someone asks you to do something you don’t want to do, see what happens if you say no without providing any explanation.
• The next time your partner bombards you with text messages, see what happens if you tell them you don’t appreciate it when they bombard you.
• The next time you’re at a social gathering and want to leave early, see what happens if you get up, say goodbye to everyone and leave.

Without evidence that, despite your most pessimistic thoughts, your differentiation doesn’t lead to death, you’ll struggle to break free from your excessive social capitulation.

3.) Think long-term

People can sit in the status quo of unhappiness for years. Itching to break free but never doing so because of fear of conflict.

Many people rely on therapy or ranting to friends as a crutch instead of tackling a problem head on.

So the next time you’re faced with a relationship difficulty you’d usually let slide; take a moment to consider the consequences of not addressing this issue.

For example:

• If you don’t tell a close friend how their behaviour is affecting you now, you’ll have to experience them doing this thing numerous times over the next few years.
• If you don’t address how your partner doesn’t greet you with warmth when you get in from work, you’ll have to experience a cold greeting everyday for the rest of your life.

You don’t have to enjoy conflict. But preferring short-term conflict over delayed long-term conflict is a much better approach.

A good thing I learned from my friend Rocio is: your relationships are only as strong as your willingness to have difficult conversations. I try to always bear this in mind when it's time to embrace conflict.

In summary:

• Capitulation is the process of submitting to someone else
• The worst sides of capitulation are; co-dependency and discounting ourselves in favour of others
• The good sides of capitulation is it sometimes allows us the humility to let others take the lead
• Self-differentiation is where we recognise we are separate beings from others with our own wants, needs and likes which ought to be taken seriously
• Self-differentiation involves a ‘turning up’ of yourself while still maintaining your connection to the other person

The 5 most common traits of self-differentiated people are:

1.) A solid sense of self

2.) Seeking understanding instead of agreement

3.) Ability to self-validate

4.) Ability to self-soothe

5.) Tolerating short term pain for long term growth

To become more self-differentiated:

1.) Increase your willingness to self-confront

2.) Don’t change based on who you’re with

3.) Think long-term

Thank you for reading & good luck.

Lew x