The Action Hour
The Action Hour
Blaming, Bullying & Bulldozing
Had a recent bout of anger come out and I decided to dive in to see where it came from.
Like most problems in our life, this one stemmed from an overall feeling of not being good enough.
Instead of addressing it, I projected these negative feelings and insecurities onto someone I love.
Freedom comes when we own these weaker parts of ourself craving attention and care.
Through self compassion, forgiveness and care I can stop putting so much pressure on myself and start paying attention my needs.
Instead of blaming the world for my problems and pushing them onto the people around me, I can become a psychologically complete human being.
In this case I get to recognize that I am an imperfect human being, doing the damn best I can out here.
So are you.
Let's own these parts of our psyche so they no longer ruin our life.
No matter how we grew or what we observed, we are responsible for our actions moving forward.
Own this fact and we become free.
Tune in to see if you might be doing the same thing as me.
Welcome to the action hour. My name is Jesse Simpson and I believe there's never been a better time in the history of the world to be alive. I'm on a mission to bring you the insights, ideas and inspiration you need to uncover your greatness and take action on your dreams. If you want to start a business, write a book, take a big trip, or level up to a higher state of living in the world, mentally, physically, spiritually, or financially. The stories found in the show will provide the action steps and energy you need to succeed. No matter what you are going through or where you've been, you can at any time, break that cycle and transform your life. This show is going to show you how to do it if you've got the itch to act, now is the time. Allow the inspiring stories within this show to serve as your guide. This is the action hour buckle up and enjoy the ride. Welcome back to the action hour. Thanks so much for tuning in. I got a question for you. Have you ever had road rage? Just can i, a while back probably about a month ago now we're driving on the I-4 the interstate over here in Florida. They call that die 4 for, apparently it's one of the most dangerous interstates in the country. There's always all kinds of people that are blowing by you going like 30 or 40 over. I've probably been there before but it seems it does seem a little bit more people drive a little bit fucking crazy here here in Florida, that's for sure. Maybe similar to California, I don't really know, but either way, just gonna I was driving on our way back from Tampa one day, and she started like shaking the steering wheel, and she got over real quick and was like shaking the steering wheel, and you could tell she got a little bit flustered. Like babe, what is like what's going on? And apparently, there was a person behind us that had been tailgating us, and she was getting sick of it. She kind of even tapped on our brakes a little bit. I was like, what are we? What are we doing right now? And all of a sudden, I'm like, babe, pull off the side. Calm down. It's okay. And she's explaining to me, this guy's been tailgating us and I'm like, okay, it's not worth it. Like, let this guy pass who gives a shit. And all of a sudden, this guy pulls up and he gets right even with us. And I look over at him. And I'm like, fuck you motherfucker. I was like, well, that escalated quickly. And then he gets in front of us and she goes right behind him and he slams on his brakes. We're going like 70-80 miles an hour down the I-4, and she has to slam on her brakes so she doesn't run into him. And pretty much that it was like, okay, let this go. It's not worth it. It's never worth it. On the road, road Rage is never worth it. Like people lose their lives over this kind of stuff. You know, in the fire service and first responder world like the most dangerous place is on the freeways. People are crazy folks or distracted. They're listening to something like this podcast, if you're listening this podcast, make sure you pay attention to the road, both hands on the wheel ten and two Baby let's go. But either way, it just brought up in inside of me this like automatic reaction. And that person went on whatever we went about our business and I was kind of joke with Jessica that she had road rage. But it was funny to me how that's like how quickly I was angered. And I said fuck you motherfucker and I was waving my hands around out of out of nothing, you know, and I kind of laugh about it now. But recently, I had the same reaction as an anger and yelling towards Jessica. So this is a bit of a confession, I want to dissect it a bit because I know there's people out there listening to this that can resonate with the story. And I want to talk about the idea of psychological projections. I want to talk about our shadow, I want to talk about these things that are kind of running beneath the surface that lead to these bursts of rage these these outbursts where we lose control of ourselves, I think it can manifest in anger in rage in an outward expression. A lot of men I think go like this. But it can also result in like depression. So if there's sadness, or there's other sort of things that we suppress inside of ourselves, then we just like give up and we become depressed and can get off the couch. So think about this from both sides of a different of the same coin. Alright, they can manifest in different ways in our life, whatever sort of coping mechanisms, or whatever you saw growing up is most likely what you're going to now do as an adult. So in my household growing up, I saw a lot of yelling there was yelling all the time. My mom loved us so much and she was she was amazing. She, she loves us unconditionally. But there was a lot of emotional distress. There was a lot I mean, we filed for bankruptcy twice. My mom was under a lot of pressure from the childcare she had started. She, I mean, my older brother, her oldest son had cancer, he got at the age of 14, there was just a lot and she was a single mom raising four kids, you know, Jesus, that's enough right there to make someone go crazy. And so she was doing the best she could, but in a way, the kids are always then, given the stress, you know, we if we can't manage our stress, if we can't handle ourself, we projected onto the people around us not only get too far down the rabbit hole, I'm not blaming my mom for anything, because at this point, I'm 32 years old, and it's my opportunity to take full responsibility for the way I grew up. But the point of this psychological projection, this defense mechanism is where our ego defends itself against our unconscious impulses or qualities. Alright, so it's like denying a part of yourself these impulses to be angered to be anger to feel something, or these different things that we want to avoid or suppress or neglect inside of ourselves. A lot of times, at the root of this is a feeling of not being good enough feeling of inadequacy. Now, if we take this back to the story that I mentioned, with Jessica and I, we were we were, we were, basically I was blaming her for how I was feeling. And what I noticed is the week leading up to this big kind of yelling match that I that I had, was that I wasn't feeling much of anything. And like internally, like I was, like, tired, like I couldn't taste anything. It was just sort of a weird time for me. But either way, I noticed in our conversations, the week leading up to this one, I was like picking at, it's like I was like trying to pick out and trying to feel something even if it was negative. And what that all culminated in was, at the end of the week of this sort of like picking at her was this explosion of anger of me projecting my own feelings of not being good enough of what onto her, these feelings of not being good enough are being projected onto her. Now, so if you've ever done any sort of blaming, or bullying, bullying is a perfect example of what a psychological projection is. All bullies are just feeling not good enough, you know, they don't feel good inside of themselves. So they project those insecurities onto other people. They bully other people make them feel bad, so they can bring those other people down to the same level as them. That's what bullying is. And that's a perfect example of projection is, but know how no matter how you grew up, or where you learned how to respond, whether you yell or you get depressed, and you go inside your room and never come out again, it doesn't matter. At this point, our job is to break the cycle. If you're listening to this, and you have any of these sort of different parts of yourself, first recognize the fact that it's okay. Own those parts of yourself bring these to the light shadow work is is not dark work, it's bringing what's in the dark to the light, it's light work. And if we can just offer ourselves a little bit of compassion, a little bit of self forgiveness, we can slow down a bit. And own these different parts of these fragmented parts of our psyche, instead of projecting them on to other people. So let's say that I wasn't feeling not good enough. And my tendency in relationships is to, when I get close to someone or I'm feeling a certain way, then I will it negative, if I'm feeling a certain way that's negative, then I will not be able to own that part of myself, I won't be able to tune into myself, I won't be able to sit down, I won't be able to haven't in the past, at least, I haven't been able to sit down and write about it or meditate on it or feel the the feeling or lack thereof of what's going on in my body. Instead, when I feel this discomfort, I blame other people. And what I need to recognize is that these sort of limited ways of thinking, being, act in the world are stemming from these early childhood experiences. As a way of protecting ourselves from emotional and physical wounds. As kids, we developed these rigid ways of thinking, which seriously limit our ability to have fulfilling relationships, careers, and really find peace within ourselves. Because that's where everything starts and ends. inside of ourselves. We become rigid and resistant to change and we become psychologically stuck in this sort of thinking feeling acting cycle. As if we are that inner child still today. So to make sure you're not stuck in the sort of broken inner child feeling not good enough and then projecting those insecurities on the people around you. I want to offer three B's to think about and if you're doing these things, there's a good chance that below your level of awareness. You are projecting your feelings of not being good enough, you've disowned parts of yourself that you have been shamed out of from when you were a kid, or any number of different things that are just like you're unwilling to face or recognize within yourself. And the three B's are blaming, bullying, and bulldozing. Alright, so I've already talked about bullying. If you're bullying someone you're making them feel less than is because you feel less than. So check yourself, look in the mirror and recognize the fact that you need to stop pushing your problems on other people. No one likes a bully. But at anytime you can look in the mirror, sit down and uncover why you were feeling like you have to belittle other people. So do that shit, if you're a bully, cut it out, look at yourself in the mirror. Now blaming this comes up often in relationships, as in how I wasn't feeling good about myself. So I was blaming my wife and I was picking at her. And I was picking up these little things and saying she was making me feel this way when reality is, I'm not feeling good about myself, because I'm not giving myself some compassion. I'm not giving myself the time and energy, the space that I need to tune in, to listen, to uncover what I need, what I want, what I desire, and then get that for myself. So the easy way out, is to just blame other people, blame our circumstances, blame the world, blame anything and everything but ourselves. When in fact, we are actually completely and totally responsible for our life. The problem is, we're unwilling to face that. But once we are willing to sit down with ourselves and really own these parts of ourselves, on our feelings, how we feel towards something or ourselves, that feeling of not being good enough. And we do what we need to do to show our self love and compassion, then we can overcome that. Now the third B is bulldozing. I want to tell you about a story a man about a guy I met. It's been about a year ago now. He was a firefighter he was a on the city council, he volunteered on these on the board of directors for a couple of nonprofits you seem like on the outward, a very successful guy. But we were connected as after he reached out to me because his wife was leaving him. They had four kids, and they had been married for like 14 years. And when I got to talking to this guy, he just seemed completely oblivious. He seemed completely oblivious that all these years, he had just been only living his own life what I would call bulldozing through life plowing through life, and without any consideration towards his wife's needs, wants desires, her dreams, prospered as kids don't he just wanted to make himself look good, which is why he was serving on all these different boards. And all this sort of stuff, this sort of external version of success. It was his childhood dream, actually to do all the things he was doing, which is fine. But the problem is, he was just plowing through his life. And he didn't even take note of any of the cues along the way from his wife when she was begging, when she was asking, she was pleading from him to show her a little bit of an emotional connection. I mean, ultimately, that's why that's why women cheat. Because they don't feel any emotional connection. Women cheat too, no emotional connection. And the case with these, this couple, she was like a speaker like 10 or 12 years ago, she was Miss Rhode Island or some shit like that. She wanted to then go on this speaking career. But she ended up meeting this guy who I was talking to, they got married, they settle down, but she always had this drive to do her stuff. She wanted to really travel the world and all these sorts of things. But she ended up having four kids and wasn't able to do that. But all the while her husband is just like living his dreams. And he's just doing everything that he wanted to do as if she is his servant. Again, this is what I would call bulldozing. And I think it's very common for a lot of men to get on this path and think that we can just plow our way through life without any regard for the people around us or the environment. You know, we could go down this rabbit hole with like corporations and this sort of stuff, plowing through life, destroying everything in our way. And if we come back to ourselves, and we realize we are good enough, and we come from a place of wholeness and completion, that we don't have to fucking bulldoze through life, we can keep our head up and be aware of what's going on around us. If he would have been coming from a place of wholeness and completion and not having to prove himself to the world. Then his wife would have not left him because he would have been connected with her. They would have been raising a family together instead of him just doing what he wanted to do. Alright, so this is another form of projecting, we're projecting our own our own dreams without any concern for the people in situations and in our environment around us, we have to take into consideration all these things that are a part of our lives. Because if we don't, there are three paths, you know, let's consider life being a mountain, we can climb up a mountain, and realize, we climbed up the wrong one, if we were bulldozing through life will climb up their mountain, and realize we climbed up the wrong one, and there's no going back. Maybe we'll look back. And we'll realize that it's the people we love our wife, our husband, our kids, our family, our friends, whatever, laid out in a trail of tears behind us, you know, these people were there, they were trying to support us, and they wanted us to be happy. But we just completely abandon them. This is a result of a abandoning ourselves, feeling not good enough, trying to prove ourselves to the world, we project that onto the world around us. Or the third mountain we can climb. If we don't own these parts of ourselves and come from a place of wholeness and completion is we end up at the mountain, the top of the mountain, surrounded by a bunch of fake and phony friends who just will their their selves serving, they are around us because we can provide something to them. Money, attention, fame, whatever it might be. But as soon as we lose those things, and we start to break down, which is inevitable, as in this guy's case, those fake ass friends disappear. So if any of these three Bs, blaming bullying, or bulldozing is going on in your life, the key to cutting this shit out once and for all, to become free from it once and for all. So you're not driven by this underlying feeling of not being good enough is to learn to love and accept yourself, as an imperfect human being, is to embrace your feelings and your faults, offer yourself grace and self compassion. Take care of your needs and forgive those that have wronged you forget, I can forgive my mother. Because I know she did the best she could. Because she is an imperfect human that was doing the best she could to love her four children. And that puts the ball in my court. I'm completely responsible for the way I acted towards my wife just the other day where I was blaming her for the way I was feeling. There's probably a little bit of this bulldozing in there as well, where I'm just like plowing through and I'm, I'm not taking time for myself, I'm not considering her needs, you know, which is what led to the fight in the first place. So recognize the fact that you are an imperfect human being take some time for yourself, stop putting too much pressure on yourself, give yourself some time to relax, and enjoy it. And when you can do that. You can bring to light some of these, these disconnected, the shadow parts of yourself, these things that you're ashamed of. Because really, whatever bothers you about another person is likely a disowned part of yourself. This is where the blame comes in. You say it's the fucking Democrats, or the Republicans, or Trump or Biden, or whatever. That's why you feel this way. And that's completely bullshit. We were all parts of the same hole. And if you start taking time for yourself, and you get away, you enjoy the world, you enjoy some friends, you make it a point to take care of yourself. And you take full responsibility for your actions, then you can really start to shift your life in a positive direction, you no longer have to project those disowned parts of yourself in the world around you. Because you've own them. You've integrated them, they call it integrating your shadow. Now for me, I'm taking full responsibility for my actions. And I'm committing to only saying uplifting positive and constructive things to my wife, and to all others. I'm becoming aware of the fact that when I'm negative, when I'm saying things that are harmful to other people, it's a part of myself that I have not owned. If it doesn't serve the betterment of the conversation, I'm committing to not saying it. I want to speak love and light and always see the best in people. I want to build other people up including my wife. Isn't it interesting how the people that are closest to us, bear the brunt of our insecurities until we own them. And that's the opportunity here. The opportunity to forgive yourself. I get it forgive myself from that loss of control. learn the lessons that I need to learn, come back to myself. Stop putting so much pressure on myself and recognize that I'm doing the goddamn best I can just like every other person around me as we're all just doing the best we can with the the knowledge, the experiences, the skills that we have here and now. And if we can move forward from this place of wholeness and completion, and we own these, the our weaknesses, and we own these parts that have been shamed out of us from when we were kids, do we can start to be psychologically complete human beings, and stop projecting our insecurities on the world around us. That's the opportunity here. So if this episode resonates with you, I would love to know what it is like, what is it that you're working through? What are you projecting? Are you a bully? Are you blaming? Are you bulldozing through your life? And when are you going to slow down and start to show up for yourself, fill your cup up first, so you can be present engaged for the people around you, for the causes that you care about. There's a reason for all of this. And if these projections are coming up in your life, it's time to own them. Forgive yourself. Give yourself some compassion. Forgive the people who have wronged you, so you can have back your life. This is freedom. Ladies and gentlemen, freedom. Freedom awaits when you own these parts of yourself, you learn to love yourself, show compassion to yourself. You stop fucking beating down your kids and your wife. That's all I got for you. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for tuning into the action hour. I hope you have an amazing day. I'll see you on the next episode.