Is Someone Taking Advantage of You? Here’s The First Thing You Should Do Before Confronting Them

by Margaret Paul

There’s someone in your life who is getting away with something, and you don’t like it.

It could be that someone you work with has a more senior position than you, even though you do a better job.

Or one of your siblings has always been “the favorite” even though they’re far less responsible and considerate than you.

Maybe, you have to co-parent with an ex who tries to bribe your child’s love with the latest toys or fancy vacations.

Whatever the details of your particular situation, the bottom line is that you feel that this person is having their cake and eating it too. And it’s just not fair!

How dare they?

You feel shortchanged in life as if the good guys are bound to lose.

Sometimes, the unfairness feels like a cruel joke. But you’re not laughing. Instead, you alternate between trying to let it go and feeling intense rage bubble up. In fact, if you stop to really think about the situation and build it up in your mind, you wouldn’t even be able to stand to look at this person the next time you see them.

This doesn’t feel good. You don’t want to go on this way. But you wonder if you have any control over the situation. Are you just supposed to accept that life isn’t fair?

Let me tell you the story of one woman who was standing in your shoes.

“I Don’t Want To Pay For My Sister’s Mess Anymore”

Eleanor and her husband were looking forward to a weekend break by the ocean. They decided to invite Eleanor’s sister Janet and her two young children.

When Janet asked how much her share of the beach bungalow rental would be, Eleanor and her husband told her not to worry about it. After all, both of them had jobs and had not gone through a nasty divorce and custody dispute as Janet had.

The much-anticipated weekend finally arrived, and everyone was having a lot of fun at the beach. However, there was one little thing that bothered Eleanor: Janet’s kids kept tracking sand and dirt into the bungalow. Eleanor knew a cleaning service would be coming after they left, but she still felt the need to sweep the floor, so she did. It bothered her a little that Janet did not think to clean up after her children herself, but she just decided to take care of it and call it a day.

Everyone went on their merry way home. Except that was not the end of it. A few days later, Eleanor received a notice from the rental owner that she was dinging her $150 for damages. One wall in the kids’ room had to be painted because someone had scrawled on it with markers.

Eleanor felt a familiar heat of anger rise up in her. One thing was sweeping the floor of the tracked in sand and dirt, but this? And after they had already let her sister come on vacation for free?!

Should she talk to Janet about the incident? Should Janet have to pay for the damage?

Eleanor didn’t know what to do. She wanted to quiet the rage boiling up within her, but would confronting her sister really solve anything?

Luckily, Eleanor remembered she had learned Inner Bonding—a six-step self-healing process I developed with my friend and fellow therapist Dr. Erika Chopich.

Inner Bonding helps you get to the bottom of any painful or unpleasant feelings and gives you an action plan on how to resolve those feelings through a process of self-discovery and self-love.

Instead of immediately calling up her sister and get into a potentially ugly confrontation, Eleanor decided to go for a walk first—and put Inner Bonding to the test.

Inner Bonding In Action: What Your Pain Is Really About

As soon as Eleanor made the choice to do an Inner Bonding process about the situation with her sister, she automatically catapulted into steps 1 and 2 of Inner Bonding:

She took responsibility for her feelings and moved into an intent to learn.

By intent to learn, I mean that she decided to be curious about why she was responding to the situation this way, and she was willing to challenge her assumptions about her sister.

This is in sharp contrast to what she was doing before, which was to try to banish her feelings by assigning immediate blame on her sister.

Whenever we are trying to avoid our feelings or are blaming someone else (even if it’s truly their fault), then we are in an intent to control—not an intent to learn.

And whenever we are in an intent to control, we are guaranteed to feel bad—because we simply can’t control anyone but ourselves!

Now, here’s where the magic really starts to happen:

Once Eleanor took responsibility for her feelings and opened up to learning, she created the right conditions for Steps 3 and 4 of Inner Bonding, which would provide real transformation for her.

Getting In Touch With The Little Girl Who Felt Wronged

As Eleanor continued on her walk, she was now ready for Step 3 of Inner Bonding: dialoguing with her true self—her inner child—and her wounded self.

Everyone has a wounded self—it’s the young child or adolescent in you who developed certain false beliefs to cope with the pain and uncertainty of life.

Eleanor, moving on to Step 3, asked her inner child what was making her so upset about the situation with Janet.

Almost immediately, she heard a wise voice from within her:

“Hey, I know you think she’s getting away with something…”

Eleanor was stopped dead in her tracks. Instantly, she knew what she was really upset about.

See, Eleanor was 10 years old when Janet was born, so not only was she displaced from the role of the only child after so many years, she also had to deal with a sometimes annoying toddler who was always “getting away with things”.

That wise voice that was speaking to Eleanor was actually her higher guidance—the loving adult within her who is always connected to spirit.

Suddenly, Eleanor saw that her inner child’s pain had been running her reaction to the situation.

And by exploring this unresolved inner pain, she was comforting her inner child and taking responsibility for her feelings—instead of throwing the blame on Janet.

This immediately calmed Eleanor down, making room for Step 4 of Inner Bonding: dialoguing with her higher guidance.

Immediate Relief And A Clear, Empowered Course Of Action

Now that her wounded self was not running the show, she could see the entire situation with newfound clarity:

Her sister wasn’t getting away with anything.

It was just the opposite! Janet had endured a rotten marriage, a financially-devastating divorce, and was a frazzled single mother.

As she continued to walk, Eleanor felt a softening within her and towards her sister. Compassion for both Janet and little Eleanor overflowed.

Steps 5 and 6 were a cakewalk after that: She knew that the loving action she would take was to do something loving for herself that day instead of focusing on this situation.

She also decided to pay the $150 in damages and keep that information to herself. She and her husband were able to afford it anyway, and the peace of mind was invaluable.

She felt a sense of relief wash over her, and her anger and resentment dissolved. She felt peaceful inside, and her inner peace let her know that the action she was taking was loving to herself and to her sister.

That’s the power of Inner Bonding. And it only took a few minutes.

Learn To Free Yourself From Emotional Pain Anywhere, Anytime

Had Eleanor not known about Inner Bonding, she likely would have continued to stew about the situation with her sister, creating unnecessary stress which would affect her emotionally and physically.

Fretting about events we can’t control and ignoring the pain of our inner child leaves us feeling drained, depleted, and in a fog because we’re unable to concentrate on anything else.

Instead of Inner Bonding, Eleanor may have felt the need to dump the situation on her husband or her friends, thus creating unnecessary burdens on her relationships. She would have been looking for other people to take responsibility for her own feelings, which is always taxing even on people who truly want to help us.

And had Eleanor not taken just a few minutes to do Inner Bonding, she may have hastily called up her sister and created an even more awkward situation, one that could have severely hurt the closeness she shared with her sister.

In short, Eleanor would have created many more problems for herself!

And what about you?

Do you feel like someone else is getting more love, more attention, or just more leeway to get away with whatever they please?

Maybe you have to play second fiddle to a sibling.

Or you do so much more around the house or with the kids than your spouse does.

Or you’re not given the credit you deserve in your career—while someone else is allowed to shine.

Whatever your particular situation, feelings of being taken advantage of or getting the short end of the stick can be healed with Inner Bonding.

And, miraculously, when you heal these unresolved emotions on the inside, usually the situation completely changes on the outside—so that you do finally feel seen, appreciated, and deserving of all the good you long for.

Inner Bonding is fast, powerful, and it works.

That’s why I decided to make it even easier for anyone to practice it—through my book Thriving At Last: 6 Steps to Miraculously Transform Your Life… From the Inside Out.

Thriving At Last is a comprehensive, easy-to-read, step-by-step manual that not only gives you the theory and “why” of Inner Bonding, but it presents you with therapeutic self-reflection exercises that take you through this process in real-time.

You can use Inner Bonding whenever you feel anything other than peace inside.

It will quickly help you identify the underlying reasons for your reactions and then discover a clear, empowering action step so that you can feel better about the situation.

The more you take responsibility for your feelings and comfort your inner child through Inner Bonding, you’ll start to notice that certain things just don’t bother you like they used to—even in situations that at one time seemed totally unfair.

The Eleanor that set off on her walk was not the same Eleanor who came back home.

There’s enormous power in knowing that no matter what’s happening around you or what other people are doing, you have everything you need within you to feel completely at peace.

Blessings,

P.S. What other hidden pain is your anxiety, rage or sense of “unfairness” masking?

It’s time to uncover what’s really behind your blame, judgement and criticism so that you can feel more compassion for yourself and others. You’ll never be free of the internal struggles you’re feeling now if you don’t get to the bottom of WHY you’re hurting, and take the actions necessary to be loving to yourself. That’s what my 6-step Inner Bonding process can do for you. Find out how in my complete “how-to” manual for

Inner Bonding here: