The secret intentions behind others' bad behavior (and how to avoid them yourself)

Dive into the psychology of human behavior and uncover the power of positive intent. Discover how the subconscious mind influences actions and explore practical tips for understanding and harnessing intentions in everyday interactions.

*This is the written version of 'its not you' podcast episode 47

In NLP (NLP is neuro linguistic programming), there is a presupposition that says all behavior has a positive intent. I believe that when this is really understood and embraced, we can start to separate ourselves from being offended.

And truly embodying the fact that people do things for themselves, not to you. And when you are at that place, that's where compassion takes place of anger.

And I'm not talking about fake, liberal, virtual signal compassion. I'm talking true from your heart compassion. Where you know that the person who is, let's say, attacking you, is coming from a different belief system than you.

And also, there's underlying reasons and rationale as to why they're behaving that way. And they have nothing to do with you.

Sometimes their behavior is a protective mechanism that they learn from childhood.

If they feel attacked, they're going to attack back.

It doesn't mean they are being attacked. But if they feel they're being attacked, it's going to trigger something from their past and cause that knee jerk protective reaction.

Another example, for instance, of negative behavior with a positive intent could be things I've talked about on other episodes.

There's a positive intent for somebody to seek revenge on somebody. With the positive intent is for that person to unload their frustrations and perhaps let you feel the pain they've been feeling.

To them that is their positive intent. And again, although something was done to you, it has nothing to do with you.

Times are tough right now for a lot of people. A mother, who is having a hard time feeding her children might feel desperate enough to go into a store and steal milk and cereal, for example.

That is illegal. But her positive intent is to feed her children. She's desperate to feed her children.

The shop owner is going to think that she did something to them (the shop owner). Which she did, but not because of the shop owner. She did it because of her love for her children.

Let's say you're someone who experiences people talking over you where you feel like you're being dismissed. Like what you say isn't important. If you were to take the emphasis off of yourself and think, okay, so what is the positive intent of that person?

Well, we could conclude, perhaps, that this person was never heard as a child and is taking every opportunity as an adult to be heard.

Now, here's something else I want you to consider.

Notice that she is doing to you, and probably others, what she did not like done to her. And this is a big piece of a puzzle of misunderstanding.

It's really easy for us to point fingers at other people. But in order for something to bug us or to trigger us, we also have those same capabilities.

We just don't see it, or we don't want to see it. Here's another, albeit a bit different, of an example.

You had agreed upon plans with someone, and they didn't follow through. You got a hold of that person and they're like, "Oh, sorry, I meant to call you. I intended on it, but I got tied up."

Okay, so you're angry because they didn't fulfill their part of the bargain. Fair enough. Their intention was to message you because that's what you agreed upon. It didn't happen.

But what about those times when you set intentions for yourself - whether it be self care, take time just to read a book by yourself? You set an intention to spend more time with your children. Set an intention to stand up for yourself more, and you don't do it.

And then you feel miserable after. So here we have a bit of a dichotomy. You are ticked off at the person who didn't follow through with their intention because it affected you.

And yet you do the same thing with yourself.
Now, I'm not suggesting getting more angry at yourself, like the way you're angry with the other person.

What I'm suggesting is - when we can look at a situation and realize we too are capable of, or, we do the same thing, that kind of lowers the temperature of things, leading to a little bit more compassion.

Now, I know what you may be thinking.

And that is, "Okay, great. I have compassion, and I don't say anything or I get over it. It just gives them more power to keep doing it again and again."

To which, I would say, not at all.

It's the exact opposite. Because with compassion comes strength. If we are fired up all the time, you're literally giving your energy and your power away to other people.

And that's where we lose at life. When we can look at something with compassion and let it go, it literally means it doesn't bother you.

You're able to see, perhaps things from their perspective, because you can reflect on your own situations where you may have done the same thing, and you let it go.

Now, do you invite that to keep happening? Well, it won't matter to you. At the end of the day, it won't matter to you. If they keep doing it. It won't matter.

I mean, at some point, you're probably just gonna stop, taking their calls or making plans with them, but it won't matter. That's one of the things that people don't really understand.

We get caught up in, 'what are we gonna lose? What if I lose that friendship? What if I lose, you know, my sense of worth or sense of self because I keep letting them do it?'

If something doesn't bother you, you aren't losing anything. You're gaining your strength and power back. And that is what brings you back home to yourself.

So now we've got a couple of ways that we can look at someone else's behavior. Remembering that every behavior, (or all behavior) has a positive intent.

So you could look at it through your own personal experience and say, 'Whew, I've been known to do that, too.' Or you could look at it from the standpoint of, 'Okay, this person talks too much. Maybe they weren't heard as a child, and they don't understand that they're doing to me what they hate.'

And I'll give you a perfect example of that.

Anybody who's left-leaning is throwing out pejoratives like, you're racist, you're Islamophobic, you're nazi, you're a transphobe, a bigot, blah, blah and blah.

And I'll tell you what. These people are emotionally weak. And, they absolutely fear being called the same thing that they're calling you.

I'm going to repeat that.

They are emotionally weak.

Weak.

So when you get offended by their slander, you willingly hand over your power to them. That's what they want. Because they are so weak, they are looking for power.

Don't give it to them.

And that's to also say, they're not doing it to you. They're doing it for themselves. They need power. And this is the only way they know how to get it.

Now even in this instance, you could also reflect back on your own behavior.
And look at times when...

Did you call people names?

Or did you label people or judge people based on your feelings of weakness? And with their reaction, you gained power?

See, these are different ways that you can step into or embody compassion. And much like forgiveness, you're not doing it for them.

You're doing it for you.

You couldn't care less what they're doing and how they're running their life. But when it doesn't affect you anymore, because of that compassion, you are protecting your mental and physical health.

So you're doing this for you.

And you know what else you can do for you?

Set positive intentions throughout your day in order to get your life to run the way you want it to. When you set positive intentions, then you're not just living through your old programming of action-reaction.

When we set an intention, we're making it very clear to ourselves that this is what we want and this is what we plan to do. As you can see through what we've already talked about, if you don't have an intention, you're just kind of wandering around with no meaning and direction.

Just reacting to situations that happen to you.

Look, believe it or not, intention is one of the most powerful forces in life.
It smashes through confusion, overwhelm, and sets you on the path that you want to go.

But you need to be clear about that path.

It's quite a magical thing, actually. When you set an intention, how the universe kind of brings all that you need to you to fulfill that intention.

And it probably has something to do with your reticular activating system as well. Which is when you are honed in on something, you see it everywhere.

You know, if you're going to buy a new car, you're going to see that specific kind everywhere. Or if you're newly pregnant, suddenly you see pregnant people everywhere.

When you set an intention, things show up for you to be able to fulfill that intention. Now, when you don't fill that intention, that in itself is intentional, and you feel awful.

And I know that you know this to be true. I know that you've intended on doing things. You didn't do it for whatever reason, and you felt awful after. And right there, that just shows you how easily and quickly you can feel good.

When you set an intention and you don't live by it, you feel bad.

When you set an intention and you follow through, you feel good. Now, let's go back to the NLP supposition that all behavior has a positive intent.

So if you have set intentions, you had every intention to do x and you didn't do it.

Ask yourself why?
And what was the positive intent behind you not doing it?

The answer may not come easily to you. I mean... it may. Either way, follow through on trying to find the answer so you can better understand yourself moving forward.

And speaking of moving forward, I'm going to share with you the best two times to set an intention. Now, setting an intention can be done every minute of every day.

If you set an intention and you don't follow through with it, and you are immediately aware, "Oh, crap," I didn't follow through - you can immediately set another intention.
This is all your own personal, private stuff. All right?

But the two best times to set an intention are:

1. First thing, when you wake up in the morning, the moment your eyes open.
2. The moment when you're about to doze off to sleep.

Both of those times, your brain is in the theta brainwave, which accepts the information you're giving it because your filter is gone.

So in case you don't know, when we're in the beta brain wave, which is our waking state - when we're walking around talking and stuff, we have filters.

And nothing passes to the subconscious unless it passes through that filter.
When the filter is gone, anything that goes into the mind gets dropped to the subconscious.

So when you set a positive intention, it gets dropped to the subconscious, and then the subconscious will work on your behalf to make that a reality.

So, for example. Before going to sleep, you're setting the intention to wake up before your alarm clock. And your subconscious mind will wake you up before your alarm clock.

You could set an intention to remember your dreams. And you will wake up remembering your dreams.

If you were to say that same intention, just walking around during the day, the likelihood of it happening is much lower.

Now, at the risk of going slightly off topic, but not really... I want to go back to the subconscious takes everything you tell it at face value and accepts it when you're in this theta brainwave.

So that goes without saying. It is critical that you mind your inner demon during these two times at the very least.

Okay, if you've got no filter, whatever you tell your mind - is going to accept it. So if you're lying in bed tossing and turning and saying how miserable of a sleep you're going to have, or how miserable you feel because you're such a terrible mother, guess what is going to happen.

It's almost like your mind, your subconscious says, "Your wish is my command." And it will give you just that.

And the same goes for when you wake up in the morning. If your first thoughts are dread for the day or miserable thinking, that's how your day plays out, does it not?

Now, morning and night aside, you can set intentions all day, every day. It's entirely up to you.

But here are some examples:

You could set an intention the minute you sit in your car to have a safe, easy ride to work. Now, someone who would say that would be somebody who generally doesn't have a safe, easy ride to work.

Maybe safe, but it may not be easy. They may be plagued with horrible drivers who are constantly cutting them off.

I'll leave that as the example. And now what you'll find is when you set a clear, decisive intention that you're going to have a safe, maybe even drama-free ride to work. And nobody is going to cut you off.

It's going to magically stop. Now, what might happen is you might witness other people getting cut off, but it won't be you.

That's the life force power that intentions have.

You could set intentions for the next book you read to pick out certain things that interest you. So when you're reading, what you set your intention on is what's going to jump off the page to you.

You could set intentions for spending more time with your kids or making sure each kid gets a hug before you leave the house. Every time you leave the house.

The truth is, we set intentions all day, every day anyway. Just some of them are kind of...unconscious.

They're just done out of habit... or necessity. So, for instance, you could set an intention after work to go to the grocery store. Or if you have a dog, you set an intention every day, probably twice a day, to take your dog for a walk.

And speaking of going to the grocery store and taking your dog for a walk, I can almost certainly guarantee that those are two intentions that you fill every single time.

So with that being said, how about if you create a list of different intentions that you want to set?

Or if you don't want to do a list, just have them in your mind, and play with it. Have fun with it. The best learning we do is when we have fun with it.

So if you're going through your day, ponder "Ooh, what could I, intend before I go to sleep today or first thing when I wake up in the morning"?

Make it fun, make it exciting.

So play with the small intentions until you work up a habit for them and then start working for, for the bigger ones. Like the bigger dreams you want to set for your life.

Because when you work with the small ones, you'll be able to see with clarity how everything unfolds.
And there's no resistance to big things. It's like the difference between asking for $5 or $5,000.

If you ask for $5000, you may have resistance to believing that you could get it, where $5 seems pretty easy. So when you start small and watch how all these intentions start to unfold and become a reality, then you're going to have less resistance when you want to set bigger and more grand intentions.

So go play. Go play, would ya?

Have fun setting positive intentions. And I guess I should also add - keep the language of the positive intentions - positive.

Towards something that you want, not something that you're trying to avoid.
You want to say that you intend to have a dreamy night's sleep tonight versus I intend to not toss and turn tonight.

Keep the language all in the positive.

If you'd like to break free from fear and insecurity so you can get your mind and life back on track while acquiring inner peace click here.