I am curious about some things and I will express that through a few questions :
How do you perceive or define assertive element in yourself ?
How often people get verbally defensive around you ?
Do people say you come across as angry or argumentative ?
How do you define and experience integration to e8 ?
Feel free to add more questions if you are interested in the topic.
I’m adaptable to difficult situations, never really complaining, calm when other people are upset. I’m not sure if this has always been the case, but from watching many family members die and being influenced from the Stoics and training in martial arts, I’ve disciplined my mind to be this way. I have always been interested in psychology too. One of my favorite books is Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. After being sentenced to a concentration camp in WWII – with his manuscript burned, his wife taken from him, his friends murdered by the Nazis – he found meaning in his response to some of the most tragic circumstances. People like that are models for my behavior. I want to eventually get a PhD in Clinical Psychology, working with a more humanistic approach toward integration, so I’m curious about stages of emotional maturity, assertiveness being a multi-leveled characteristic, or skill, that can be cultivated.
From a subjective perspective, people often come to me for advice. I’m the level-headed one who can calm my friends down, put their worries in perspective, and deal with traumas as they happen. I have had to deal with my friend’s alcoholism, for instance, especially when he wanted to kill himself.
On the other hand, I have trouble learning what my feelings are. I process what I feel for months before I make decisions, or as they say in transactional analysis, psychological positions. This is possibly because I’m using my rationality to understand my feelings, which is strange, because by the time those feelings are recognized, they have gone through my mental-filters. I don’t experience them in a raw way like a lot of my friends. This can be bad, too, because I might rationalize poor habits, such as smoking. I try to be aware of when I'm playing tricks on myself.
While I might seem outwardly relaxed, in my mind, I’m asking questions, analyzing, and intuiting how I feel. I try to examine an issue from many perspectives before arriving at a more definite choice, but at the same time, that choice will be attached to possibilities, which act as back-ups or alternatives for my choice. I don’t like to be locked into one outcome. And before that outcome, I want to know what all the consequences will be. Even after I’ve made a choice, I’m still evaluating, questioning, and revising my former models. My conclusions are open and tentative. They’re never absolute.
Once I do reach a position, I can be more assertive about that. Having boundaries in relationships, for instance, are important to me. These boundaries can be about self-care, such as time to myself, when I should exercise, how people should treat me, how I should treat people, what I will eat, and whether I should smoke. If somebody violates a boundary repeatedly or wants to play manipulative games with me, after I have given them many chances for redemption, I’ll cut them off. I believe in developing healthy relationships, based in trust and openness and evolution, not on emotionally immature games. This spreads from romance to my friendships to how I treat myself. I am compassionate toward myself first. That compassion is reinforced through my habits, how I talk to myself, how I act toward other people, especially when they are difficult or in a crisis.
Over the last few years, meditation has helped me to stay aware of my emotions. I am more sensitive to how my body reacts to unhealthy foods, toxic people, obligations, lack of sleep, conflicts in relationships with friends and family, and so on. By being attuned to the processes of my mind-body, I am better able to detect the beginnings of patterns and deal with them. That also is a product of experience, reflection, adaptation, and many mistakes.
All in All: I’m assertive when it’s necessary, but I’m not naturally assertive. I tend to let things go until they negatively affect my time, space, emotional resources, and so on. Every situation is evaluated based on its context, so the degree of positive/negative effects will differ. For example, talking to a friend about a break-up is different than somebody asking me to drive them around. To take the last example, if they ask me to drive them to the store because their car is in the shop, I wouldn't mind. If they expect me to drive them around for a few months, then that will interfere with my schedule. In that case, the situation would change based on their intentions, their circumstances with their car, and my own availability. I will help if I can, but I don't want to be taken advantage of. There will be set boundaries to avoid being manipulated, but not an assumption beforehand.