Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2008 6:19 am
So my downstairs neighbor has been playing his music super loud at all hours for the last few weeks. My fiance and I sometimes just sit in our livingroom marveling at how someone could play music that loud and not realize how rude it is. However, neither of us were willing to do anything about it. We'd never met our neighbor before plus we'll be moving out in a couple months...so don't cause waves right?
Well, after listening to Session 8 on how it is time to stop avoiding situation and start getting out there and facing our limitations I decided I HAD to say something. I HAD to face my fears and stand up for myself. So on my way home from work a couple days ago I listened to the tape on assertiveness then turned it off and practiced what I would say all the way home.
Getting through the "what if's" was very very hard. I walked up to our neighbor's door and turned around a couple times. I kept thinking, "What if he's way older than me? I'll feel so childish complaining about the volume of his music"; "What if he's got a terrible temper and yells at me?"; "What if he's crazy and kidnaps me?" .. okay, I know that last one is nuts, but it truely went through my mind. That's when I realized just how ridiculous I was being.
I decided to be more realistic..."So what if he gets mad, he's the one being rude, not me and we'll know we are making the right decision by moving" and I also tried some positive what if's..."What if he's my age and turns out to be really nice and we make friends with our neighbors?"
So I marched back to that door, took some deep breaths and knocked before I could change my mind. I stood tall (well, as tall as I can for 5'2"), used eye contact and made sure to use "I" statements. He was totally cool about it. He apologized and said it was no problem.
Now my negative self was telling me that even though I was assertive, it didn't mean he would follow through. But later that night we heard him turn on the music and instead of it shaking our stuff and making it impossible to hear our own music/TV, it was at a perfectly acceptable level.
I am so proud of myself.
Well, after listening to Session 8 on how it is time to stop avoiding situation and start getting out there and facing our limitations I decided I HAD to say something. I HAD to face my fears and stand up for myself. So on my way home from work a couple days ago I listened to the tape on assertiveness then turned it off and practiced what I would say all the way home.
Getting through the "what if's" was very very hard. I walked up to our neighbor's door and turned around a couple times. I kept thinking, "What if he's way older than me? I'll feel so childish complaining about the volume of his music"; "What if he's got a terrible temper and yells at me?"; "What if he's crazy and kidnaps me?" .. okay, I know that last one is nuts, but it truely went through my mind. That's when I realized just how ridiculous I was being.
I decided to be more realistic..."So what if he gets mad, he's the one being rude, not me and we'll know we are making the right decision by moving" and I also tried some positive what if's..."What if he's my age and turns out to be really nice and we make friends with our neighbors?"
So I marched back to that door, took some deep breaths and knocked before I could change my mind. I stood tall (well, as tall as I can for 5'2"), used eye contact and made sure to use "I" statements. He was totally cool about it. He apologized and said it was no problem.
Now my negative self was telling me that even though I was assertive, it didn't mean he would follow through. But later that night we heard him turn on the music and instead of it shaking our stuff and making it impossible to hear our own music/TV, it was at a perfectly acceptable level.
I am so proud of myself.