People often give lip service to rational thinking and the Principle of Emotional Responsibility. They will agree that adversity in and of itself is insufficient for causing emotional upset when they are successful at using the ABC model and the Principle of Emotional Responsibility. However, sometimes a person will argue that under some conditions some people really do “push our buttons.” They argue that the person is “so bad” that unhealthy emotional upset is understandable and worse inevitable. When I get this argument from people I hold my ground. I show them that their escape clause from the Principle of Emotional Responsibility is doing them great harm. By carving out exceptions to the Principle of Emotional Responsibility they are setting themselves up and handing power over to other people. Don’t do this! Yes, some people may be better at getting under your skin or in your head than others but the Principle of Emotional Responsibility still applies. You might find it hard not to awfulize about their despicable behavior but that does not mean that person “causes” your upset. Work on applying the Principle even when other people are particularly difficult. This is when you need to hold yourself to task and control what you can control. You can always control how you think about the nasty things other humans do to you. You can choose to be strongly annoyed and displeased with their behavior so you can with a clear head think about the best way of behaving towards them and their misbehavior towards you.
Hold your ground! Stay responsible and keep your emotional poise! To do this forcefully rehearse this line till you use it effectively:
“I make myself disturbed over what this person does to me. My upset is making me play right into their hands. I can choose NOT to disturb myself by no longer holding my self-defeating rigid attitude that they MUST not do what they are doing. I will never like their misbehavior but upsetting myself by defining it as awful or unbearable will only cause me to disturb myself and render myself unsane. It is bad behavior but it is bearable. I want to control my emotional destiny and take back the power. I will hold myself accountable for my disturbed and self-defeating emotional reactions no matter how nasty they treat me. I cannot control them but I can control me and how I think and react to them. No escape clause for me!”