FindingPeace

I feel these illustrations of crab mentality are appropriate to this topic...

Good and evil don't exist in reality, they are only concepts. Things just happen, events occur, whether they are 'good' or 'evil' depends on what positive of negative value the outcome of the event has for any particular person. It is purely subjective. If there were no humans around to judge anything then what would there be? Just reality, being and doing..

I can relate to this topic exactly. I have been with my wife for 15 years but as I have embarked on personal development over the last couple of years I have felt a growing detachment. The biggest issue is that I have to keep my personal development to myself. I can't talk about it, share or even mention it in any way. In fact she is probably largely unaware of it although I did try to encourage her to follow suit...it fell on deaf ears. Unfortunately for me I am with someone who is completely shut off from the very idea of personal development. She sees it as something that isn't realistic and nothing but airey-fairy mumbo jumbo theory and philosophy. She knows better and she isn't going to engage with it... So, as I learn more about development and the concepts that Leo teaches, as well as my own insights and epiphanies I find myself questioning where this will take us. I also find myself questioning the very value of relationships at all. Afterall, how do you have a functional, healthy relationship when you can't fundamentally 'relate' because you are on very different paths? It also asks the question about what sort of relationship an actualized person has and with whom? I am interested to see what insights this thread provides on this subject.

Likewise. All my life I dragged 'stuff' I had collect from one place to the other. It all had sentimental meaning to it. Except that most of it either didn't see the light of day or I stopped noticing it. The problem is, it all become a liability and a stress. The more stuff you have the more you have to store, maintain and protect it. The more you have to worry about loosing. I recently went through all my stuff and ruthlessly started throwing out and selling it. Strangely, as I did this, I felt an emotional weight being lifted. The concept that helped me do this and let go of 'stuff' was from one of Leo's videos. When I considered the concept that the past was not real anymore, that only the 'present moment' is, I had an epiphany. I analysed what all this 'stuff' that I had meant to me - I would look at something and reminisce about it, where it came from, who gave it too me etc. I would also realise that 'things' would conjour up feelings from the past of happiness and contentment. I realised that all I was doing was trying to 'recreate' a past experience in the present moment by 'engaging' with the item. I was effectively feeling that this 'past moment' was more fulfilling than the present moment and so the object would help to preserve that past moment. I made a decision to let go of the past altogether. And I no longer cling to it. Nor do I develop sentiment attachments anymore. It is such a relief. As a consequence I have more space, and it is easier to maintain. I also have less to worry about and protect. So minimalism is my new philosophy. Life is so much more peaceful when you aren't filling your world with 'things'. These things don't make you happy anyway, in fact if anything they provoke sadness or cause stress.

I never got on the 'career' path. As a child I never had any particular inclination towards anything. I loved being outside, in the world, in nature. But that didn't tally with any sort of career path that we were 'encouraged' to pursue at school. I had a knack for technology, computers and electronics so everyone expected me to follow that..which I tried to do. But 3 years in to an Electronics degree I realised that I was doing it for everyone else and not for me. I was struggling to pass exams and focus. My heart just wasn't in it, so I quit. A decision I don't regret. About the same time as that I went on a bit a road trip. I loved being out on the open road so much, with a veiw of the world around me, that I dicided there and then that I wanted to have a go at truck driving. Got myself a licence and a job. Loved it, for about 7 years. My other passion was flying. I had 300hours in gliders and thought about maybe making flying my profession. So I quit trucking and spent 2 years training for an Air Transport Pilot Licence. Which I got. Unfortunately I completed my licence just as the worldwide recession hit. Not many airlines were recruiting and those that were were asking for too much experience etc. Lack of time and money saw my licence expire and I never made it into the industry. I don't have the money to renew my licence now. Besides, I've been out of the game to long to now to be accepted anyway. So now I'm in limbo, wondering where to go next. I have no real drive at the moment. What limited options that are available to me don't fill me with any enthusiasm. So I am left re-evaluating my passions and priorities in life. As I have gone down the path of self-development my world view has changed to the point that I am not sure what holds value for me in terms of jobs and careers. I get the ultimate feeling that there is more to life than careers and jobs. I know we all need money to live, but that too is something I am re-evaluating. It seems that we spend our lives preoccupied with our jobs, letting them rule our lives. I can't help feeling that the priorities need to be elsewhere. Not somehting I can explain right here and now. There is more to all this than meets the eye.

My final thoughts on this topic are this - one of the key focusses to personal development is removing 'negative psychology'. Leo has talked a lot about this in older videos. What I mean by this is chronic patterns of negative thinking, criticism, judgment, victim mentality as well as other behaviours such as lack of taking responsibility and controlling and manipulating people. So to summarise what I mean by 'lower-consciousness', I am talking about people who bring to you and impose on you these very behaviours and thinking patterns that we are trying to develop out of. There is always going to be an incongruence between people with 'negative- psychology and thouse with 'positive' psychology. This is the heart of the issue I was trying to discuss in this thread. I want to thank everyone for contributing to this thread. There have been some very interesting responses to my original post. I always knew this topic would be a controversial one, but that was the point really. Ultimately, as we develop ourselves we should, hopefully, become more open and honest about real-life issues and less defensive or egoic about them. I see this forum as a safe-haven for sharing our insights, feelings and experiences as we journey through self-development, however contentious these subjects are.

Animals live functional lives without brains full of bullshit concepts. Humans have egos, language, long-term memory and the ability to put these things together to form abstract conceptualisations that make our lives more complicated than they need to be and with more suffering thrown on top. It seems to me that animals live life with far less suffering that we do. I envy my pet rabbit that lounges around in the living room all day with complete bliss and ignorance, looking as relaxed and laid-back as I would like to feel! I often look at her and wonder what thoughts are occuring in that tiny brain. Certainly looks a lot more peaceful than most people do..

I second this. I've come to realise that 'news' is deliberately engineered to provoke responses within people that appeal to the 'low self'. So it usually provokes judgment, criticism, dogmas, general unrest and complaint. The proof of this is that most news isn't good news, and people love to complain about 'negative' issues. It makes it popular. In fact so much of it is even engineered out of very few facts that are strung together, spun and conveyed in a deliberately biased and provocative way. I've also noticed how much 'news' is in fact just old news, revamped and resubmitted to the masses with very little added value from the previous version. They can spin out a week's worth of news articles on some occurance somewhere, but never actually tell you anything new or useful by the end of the week that they didn't know at the beginning. It's all very much mindless monkey-chatter. Very clever chatter at that - they actually create the illusion of news when it really isn't! They create stories that relate to the story. They invent hypotheses and theories. So much of it is tenuous at best. And eventyally it become boring and old news, then it fades away. Also, news that is 'accurate' is still largely unimportant to me. Things going on around the world or even in my own country ultimately are of now real, practical consequence to me. I don't need to fill my head up with world affairs that I can do nothing about or which have no immediate impact on me. It's just more stuff to ruminate over. Feeds the monkey-mind. Even politics is of no interest. Governments will do whatever they do. I will adjust my life to work with it if I need to. Most of the time it makes very little difference to my peace of mind or wellbeing. Ultimately as I become more detached from all this chimpery, the events of the world will become of less importance. It's much like Leo talks about when he mentions 'truth' - If it's true then you will be experiencing it. It will be real and there in front of you. News isn't often concerned with circumstances within my immediatae life. When it is, it won't be news, it will be a reality for me. I see news as, to coin Leo's expression, mental-masturbation.

There are no 'rules'. Rules are subjective and in the eyes of the beholders. The moment someone starts a question with "Do men.." or "Do women.." I cringe. It's like asking "Do men like cheese?" or "Do women like the colour pink?". Some do, some don't. We can't assume that everyone falls into a nice convenient pattern of category. No man can answer what 'men actually care about'. To do so would be to generalise, and speak on behalf of, men. Generalising is nonsense. Everyone is different. Maybe some people follow similar themes but ultimately there are no real 'rules of thumb'. This always gets me with dating and relationships. All these rules and generalisations that people create. All these criteria and protocols. The other thing that gets me is that to ask such questions is to try and second-guess the other person on the date and perhaps present them with what you think they will accept. This isn't just pretentious, it is manipulative. You shouldn't have to be guessing what they are looking for, or trying to be it. You should only be being your authentic self. It doesn't matter what the man 'wants'. If it isn't you then it isn't you. No biggy. If it is you, then great. But present them with the real you, and do and be the person that you are. When people come together they can either accept one another as they find them or they cannot. There's no need for pretentious rules and games or hoops to jump through or criteria to match up with, boxes to tick. What nonsense. If I went on a date I would only be interested in finding out about the woman's personality, beliefs and values, passions and motivations etc. Then I could determine if their world-veiw and philisophy integrates with mine and whether we could actually get on in a meaningful way. You either click or you don't. If you don't there's no need to be pretentious and 'pretend' to be something your not just fit someone else's ideology. I wouldn't actually date someone who tried to be what they thought I wanted them to be. Someone who was 'trying to please me'. Only an authentic, open and honest person.

Is there a need to 'erase' a traumatic event? After all, you can't changed what happened. It's in the past. It's no longer ocuring - only in your own mind..over and over, year after year. It is no longer a 'real' thing. Just a thought-story. It's this persistent story that creates suffering. What you can do is move on from it. You can change how you look at it and your relationship to it. You can learn from it and grow from it. Most of all, and this is a hard pill to swallow, but you can accept it. People spend their lives 'fighting' things from their past. Defining themselves by it. Living out their years questioning it, non-believing that it happened, asking 'why' and 'how'. Allowing the rest of their life to become the 'aftermath' of the event. Reality is what reality is. It is our inability to let go of the 'fight' against reality and to accept it, that causes the persistent suffering thereafter. Acceptance, letting go, then moving on in a positive direction is the key. Don't write it in to your self-image. Don't become defined by the thing. In fact be better than that and prove that you can be creative in life regardless of what it throws at you.

I've been thinking about this. I can see it from different angles. Whilst it is true that self-development work should not inherently exclude people from our lives, particularly those closest to us, there is also a truth that some people, no matter how close, will actually hinder our progress. I don't mean this in any nasty way. It is mearly a truth. I know people within my own circle who are toxic to the point of providing no value, and infact causing much suffering, in not only my life but that of others. But that is an extreme example. Personally, my self-development doesn't change how I love or care for people. And for the most part I can continue to relate and interract with less personally-developed people without any problem. My original post was more concerned with specific thinking patterns/neuroses (for example victim mindest, chronic negative thinking, superficial hedonism, anger, judgment, criticism, control and manipulation, and other petty engagements) that those of us that are sef-developing are trying to eliminate. Being around the very things we are trying to improve can be very frustrating. Yet, as I said earlier, we can also use these things as mirrors to our own psychology. Staring at what we don't want to be can help us to not become that very thing. Unfortunately, in my own experience, I have not met anyone else who is receptive to this. Not even my own family or my own spowse. We can't 'help' people who don't ask for it. I have tried, subtly, but unless people see that there is a reason to 'develop' they won't give it the time of day. Most people have no concern for inner work or looking at their own psychology as they don't see that they need to in the first place. I find it sad and frustrating but something I have to accept. Here's the thing - spending your life watching someone self-sabotage their own life and happiness just because they are unaware of the neuoses, insecurities, fears and faulty beliefs that are driving them, watching them when you know exactly what inner work they could do to turn their life around to become more satisfied and happy - it's heartbreaking. What's more is that they also tend to create suffering in your own life because they impose their own less-developed psychology, their own suffering, on to you in various ways. I think this is was I was ultimately getting at with my original post. It creates a conflict of interests that goes both ways - from the point of veiw of the more developed person the lesser-devoped will cause problems. And likewise, it's just as hard for the lesser-developed to relate to the more-developed. This is especially true within close relationships, be it familiy or intimate ones. Although my initial post was from the perspective of the self-improver, it applies equally to both sides.

Would just like to thank people for contributing to this topic. It has been very insightful. It has also given me some peace of mind that I'm not the only one facing these issues. I think the keys to this topic are acceptance and to learn. Accepting others for the way they are, and to learn from them by noticing their ways and asking ourselves if we do or don't have the same ways. We're not superior to others. We're just learning a different approach to life. Yes, other people may cause interference in our development, or cause dissonance or frustration, but that is to be expected. We mustn't judge it or ciriticise it. We need to be patient and understanding. Or, we need to take responsibility and remove ourselves from situations we feel are not conducive to our development. That's our choice.

My ultimate goal - peace of mind, however that is acheived in whatever circumstances. Oh , and to appreciate the beauty of life, nature and existance.

Being authentic doesn't necessarily make you interesting or attractive to anyone else. It does make you more 'integrated' within yourself though. The alternative to being authentic is to lie, and pretend to be something you aren't so as to please others. Sure it may make others like you and want to be around you, but you will ultimately be suffering from not being aligned with your own true self, your value, beliefs etc So the choice is, you stay authentic and aligned with your own core values and behaviours which will have consequenses to the kinds of people who will want to be around you, or you choose to suffer the consequences of being inauthentic and a people pleaser by aligning with other people's core value and behaviours. In any case, why should you follow suit with them, and not the other way around? In the long term authenticity is always the better choice as it will result in less suffering. I can relate to this because I have been inauthentic within my own relationship for the last 15 years. It eventually catches up with you. But I can look back and see the suffering it has caused me. Living pretentiously so as to please others is detrimental to your well-being and self-actualization. Being authentic doesn't necessarily mean being exactly as you have been your whole life. Yes, you grow up becomming who you are today. And yes, that person inside is the authentic you. But you are not a 'fixed' defined image of you. You are a constant work in progress. Who you are is not fixed, or left to chance as to your genetics or upbringing. Most of us have 'faulty' conditioning leading to many of the neuroses and hangups that cause much suffering and dysfunction in our lives. Working through Leos older videos on things like self-esteem, self-image, victim-thinking, responsibility vs blame, happiness etc will iron out the 'bugs' in the system and expose a more authentic you without the hangups. Being authentic doesn't mean not doing personal development and working on your life skills. Relationships shouldn't be left to chance, you should be working on life skills that will improve you chances of a healthy relationship. You can be authentic and still work on these things. The key is not trying to please others. You can still work on yourself, become the 'new improved authentic you' but without accomodating other people expectations of you. If you find yourself having to be inauthentic for anyone, then you're with the wrong person. And yes, there will be consequences to being authentic. But there will also be consequences for being inauthentic too. 'Ugly' is subjective and in the eye of the person judging. It is not a given. One person's 'ugly' is another's 'beautiful'. No person's judgment of you or anyone is truth. Judgment is in the eye of the beholder. In their imagination. It isn't real. Don't believe someone else's judgment of you. Beleive your own, authentic, perception of you. Have you watched Leo's 'How to stop care what other people think of you' video? Last important comment - don't ever be inauthentic or pretentious in a relationship. If there was one place in life you should be truly authentic it is in a relationship. It will cause all sorts of problems if 'adjust' yourself to 'fit in' with your partner and the relationship. The effect could take months or even years to come to the surface but it will cause suffering.

This got me thinking and I started to explore the concepts of the 'present moment' and time itself. Some realisations hit me. There is a profound truth in the statement "A present moment is only there when there is someone to live in it", or more to the point, when there is something to perceive it. I appologise if this gets deep.. The fact is, by the time our brain (or any brain or system) has received the sensory information and 'made sense' of it, the moment has already passed. There is a delay. So the present moment we perceive is always lagging by a fraction. Also, it is the speed at which we can process and make sense of the stream of sensory information that creates the perception of time. Smaller animals with smaller brains tend to have much faster perception and reactions. Why? It is beleived that in smaller neural systems signals travel faster (less distance to cover) so they can perceive time more slowly and hense create faster reactions to the sensory input. This is why it is so hard to swat a fly even though it appears to us that we are swinging our arm really fast. Yet to the fly, it still has time to casually finish pollishing it's eyes and smoothing it's wings before taking off at the last moment and evading the impending hand. To the fly the perception of time is very different (our actions seem extremely slow) and so the present moment to the fly is different to the present moment we are experiencing. I imagine the 'present moment' as a continuous 'burst' of sensory moments that our brains create some perception out of and also create the sense of time. Interestingly, when we are unconscious, maybe in deep sleep, under general anasthetic, coma, passed out or even dead, there is no perceiving, no present moment and no perception of time. Infact there is no time. If there is no conscious awareness then there is no present moment or passage of time at all. You could be put unconscious today, and awakened in 1000 years and you would have no sense of the passing of time. It would feel like seconds or minutes. Which brings in to question the whole concept of time - it has no speed, or measurement. In fact, it may well be infinite, instantaneous. What is time anyway? Just the perception of passing, more importantly changing, events - if everything was static there would, in theory, be no passage of time. Billions of years passed from the beginning of the universe to when you became a conscious life-form. That time passed in an instant. Then, while you are experiencing conscious awarness and perception, time (events) seems to take on a 'speed', except during periods of unconsciousness when it return to being instantaneous. Then, once you die and stop perceiving permanently, the rest of eternity will play out in an instant. It occurs to me that the perception of passage of time is in itself just a manifestion of our conscious awareness and as such the concept of the 'present moment' is aswel. In reality there is no present moment because in order to have a 'moment' a moment has to have duration. How long is the present moment? It isn't any length. It is only a perception in itself. Weirder and weirder... ultimately, reality isn't anything like what we think we know about it. It is weirder than we can possible imagine. It's unlikely we even have the mental capacity to understand it. In fact, as we are a part of reality that is like saying that reality can't comprehend itself. The system can't comprehend the system because it is the system. A paradox. In any case, what is comprehension? A concept? Concepts within concepts within concepts.... If there were no brains to conceptualise then there would be absolute reality just as it is without any understanding or knowledge or questions or present moments or even passage of time.. Sorry, got carried away...will leave it there!

Not sure who you're refering to here. Personally I don't treat less authentic, or lower consciousness (or whatever you want to call it) any differently than I would anyone else. Nor am I specifically avoiding most people. I am, however, expressing an observation about an inevitable rift that occurs when were doing internal work, self-develop and do/become what most people don't do or become. So there is going to be an inherent gap between us and them. Ok, self analysis: that was a defensive reaction, ego stepping in. Notice and move on.. I agree with what people have said about using the interractions of others as a way to learn more about ourselves and others. Using people as mirrors and also just accepting 'what is' and how people are. I figured this thread might throw up some controversy or interesting debate. That was the intention. Afterall, there really is no denying that as we self-develop, and those around us don't, there is going to be some dissonance and internal conflict. It's hard to break away from the 'illusions' and bullshit when we are surrounded by people who are trying to drag us back in to it. The 'crabs in the bucket' analogy comes to mind...

It's extremely hard at times to stay detached from the judgement. I tell myself that I am not to judge or criticise. And I understand why yet my ego still sneaks in there in the back of my mind. This is something I really am working on. It isn't easy. That crafty ego always tries to sneak in. It's like an internal struggle. What I try and do is to just 'notice it', notice how I'm thinking or judging. Without then judging myself for doing it.

Name: Age: 37 Gender: Male Location: Norwich, United Kindgom Occupation: Unemployed Marital Status: Married Kids: No Hobbies: personal development, travel, nature, life, flying Ever since I was a kid I have had the nagging feeling that there is more to life than meets the eye.That life was far more straight forward than people made it. I was always open-minded, less critical and judgmental than others and always trying to analyse everything and everyone, including myself. Always looking for the 'truth'. I guess I began self-improvement when I was about 19 and started becomming very aware of my thoughts, motives, behaviours and interractions with others. I started making changes internally to iron out my negative qualities and improve the positive ones. Just over a year ago I became quite depressed and felt like victim in life. That was when I happened across Leo's 'How to stop being a victim video'. It blew me away. I connected with the concepts and Leo's style instantly. And that one video changed my perception of myself and people in general. I followed it up with 'Responsibility verses blame' and the mind blowing epiphanies just kept comming. I worked my way through every video. And have been captivated by Actualized.org ever since. I finally had the concepts I had been looking for my whole life and could start to see the truth.. Most of all I was gaining peace of mind. Things I've overcome: Depression Victim mentality Monkey mind Improved emotional intelligence Obsessive compulsive behaviours Being neurotic Things I'm working on: The emotion of guilt Communication skills Finding more inner-peace Meditation and mindfulness Removing toxicity and dysfunction from my life Appreciation and acceptance Bringing passion back in to my life Finding my life purpose/authentic self

This reminds me of Leo's 'How we lie' video. The concept being one that had already become aware of. So I am trying to be more honest and open in my comminications and less concerned with what people think. I don't mean being rude, just honest. I totally agree, that the truth is the truth. If only people were less pretentious and more open and receptive. This forum is one place where I'm hoping I can practice complete openness and not lie or deceive. Just be authentic..

This is an even more profound insight than it appears. It explains something I've never been able to put my finger on. There are people out there who feel like 'extras' in someone else's story, and others who feel like the protagonist. Suddenly make a lot of things make perfect sense to me. Like needy people who are needy because without the other 'main characters' the feel empty, non-existant and meaningless. On the other hand there are peope who feel much like they are the protagonist and that others are purely extras. It is true that we should all be telling our own story and be the main character but also we must treat others with the respect of being equally important because although they are our extras, they are the centre of their own story. I've learned something today..

I don't always articulate myself well. I was using the terminology that Leo uses in his videos. I am aware it sounds somewhat arrogant and judgmental. Really, it's just a statement of fact. And yes, at times I am guilty of feeling 'better' than certain people. It is an ego response I am trying to keep in check. I like this. I think this explains it so much better than I did. I think I'll adopt this approach in future.

I think I understand, although I'm not sure I can articulate an answer.. The past and future are illusions because they only exist within our memory and imagination. In fact our concept of the future depends on our memory of the past otherwise we have no point of reference to even conceive a future.. this has actually been proven with people who have memory problems. With no memory of the past one can have no concept of the future. Strange but true.. The problem with our species is that we spend so much of our time 'in our own heads' - running thought-stories and simulations of the past and future as well as abstract fantasies and musings. Becomming mindful is about getting out of our heads and into the present moment. Easier said than done. Even as we take in our present-moment surroundings and practice mindfulness we are still compartmentalising and labeling everything via our ingrained system of beliefs, world-view, knowledge etc. We still see from the place of the ego. We can only assume what it is like to be completely enlightened. But my understanding is that the key is shedding the ego, the concept of 'self' so that we perceive reality in the present moment without the fog of our ingrained 'mental filter' telling us stories and creating labels.

Lower consciousness results in more egoic behaviour. More emotional behaviour. It is also contained within many of the illusions that self-actualising is trying to shed. Higher consciousness results in less ego, better emotional intelligence, less of the bullshit illusory stuff. Fundamentally actualized.org and Leo have been committed to illustrating this very concept and showing us how to raise our consciousness and why we should be doing it.

I like this. Likewise I use the time to reflect on myself. If you've seen Leo's 'How you exploit others to grow yourself' video I pretty much do that. Use others as a 'mirror' to see where I can improve myself. Also likewise, having better advice to give that others don't want to hear. So true. Likewise. I'm not saying that I judge people. For the most part I can entertain interraction with people. However sometimes there are people who are excessively low-conscious and perhaps toxic (chronic negativity or egotism for example) that I really don't have time for. I don't blame people for it. I know it's not their fault. It's just frustrating when it demands a lot of time and attention from you. Patience is something I've always had, but am still working on further. As for the cave idea... I was thinking a nice log cabin overlooking a pine-forest valley with a lake at the bottom...lol. If I could..I would...

Sounds familiar.. The key issue here is the inability to have clam, impartial, open and honest channels of communication. I have a similar problem with my own spouse. It is a tricky one. Usually the result of one or both people responding to situations in highly emotional and egoic ways. True to a point. Also people are talking from their own perspective without a care or consideration for the other person's. Comes back to the ego. This kind of situation boils down to an ego-game. The biggest ego bullies the weaker one in to submission. I totally get the bit where it is implied that "you don't care..you're heartless..." or the "if you love me then you would/wouldn't...". I've had this. It's an inevitable clash of different levels of consciousness between the 2 people. The higher-conscious mind wants to be rational and level-headed, the lower-conscious mind wants to be egotistical, defensive, selfish. Unfortunately the low-conscious minds tend to believe and feel everything they say - "you don't care" means "you don't care what I think and feel because if you did we wouldn't be having this argument." it also says "I don't care what you think and feel because that is of no benefit to me..". All comes back to communication skills, which themselves come down to other issues within the individuals' psyche and a fundamental incompatability issue. How do I deal with it? Firstly, I've learned to improve my boundaries. So if the other person is talking to me in a disrespectful and overly emotional way then I will call it out. Tell them I'm not going to engage with it until they can be more rational. Secondly I don't play in to the ego battle. I listen, I acknowledge. I don't react to the information until I have thought carefully about it. I try to resist giving any egoic or defensive response. I may not agree with or like what I hear but I don't dive in with a counter argument or criticism. I try to get a picture of what the other person is thinking and feeling and try to respond with something non-provocative but constructive. Main thing I do is practice acceptance. Some peope just can't communicate. After time you get to know how someone thinks and responds to situations. Fighting it is pointless so accepting it is the next best thing. Sometimes, just accepting what they say, taking the flak and letting them have their moment of release without engaging in it yourself is the most constructive course of action. Give it some time and usually things return back to normal. Not the most functional way to have a relationship but sometimes it's a case of picking your battles carefully. Most importantly don't feed in to the battle. Control your own reactions. Respond with statements of facts, not with accusations, criticisms or judgments. Avoid the ego defenses. Keep it objective and not subjective. Also, perhaps it is time to get together and address the communication issue that you two have. Doing this, in itself, shows that you do care and want to improve the nature of your relationship.