I had a cat a decade or so ago. Her name was Kiki. She had a relationship with me that was very similar to my clients’ relationship with me.

I could say love and hate, but it would be a lie.
I could say need and resentment… that is the closest I can get to wording what was the essence.

My cat was a stray kitten when I adopted her. I already had another cat, a huge tomcat. But occasionally I invited the tiny and scrawny kitten to eat. She ran in and ran out several times. Took a bite and then ran. I guess to make sure that she wasn’t imprisoned.

And then, at some point she moved in with me.

At some point I took her to the vet to spay her… and she never forgave me for that. She hid in the basement for many days before hunger forced her to come upstairs.

In a way she was the ideal cat for me: she snubbed me during the day, and she warmed my bed during the night.
Until at age 13 she lost her sense of self.
I am writing you to teach you something. This is not just a nice story about a cat… So listen up.

I’ll talk with human words, words that will teach you something. Accurate about humans, may not be accurate about cats.

She used to pee and poop, and all was well. But at age 13 first she lost her control of her peeing… and peed in the bed.

Soon after that she considered her poop not hers… and ran from it… shrieking like a banshee.
She didn’t HAVE pooping, pooping chased her.
OK, back to humans: I found out yesterday that my clients have a deep resentment towards me.

What they resent is something I said about them. Mostly to them, occasionally to someone else.

What I said felt like an invalidation, an indictment of you. You are a liar, you are this, you are that.

Of course language is to blame, but I should know better. But I didn’t know it is taken as indictment.
OK, so what is happening under the hood?
Taking what anyone says, even what YOU say as indictment is not working, and whenever something is not working, there is something in the invisible that you either don’t know or you have forgotten.
You are your self. the owner of aspects of you. Your actions, your behavior, your attitude are your ’employees’.
So when due to language deficiency I call you a liar, I am not talking about your self. I am talking about your behavior. Your employee.

And as far as your behavior goes, I am not insulting you. And I am not putting a label on you. I am not indicting you. I am talking about something that is within your power to own or change.
It is yours. But it is not you.
You wouldn’t consider that you are your hand… No, you tell your hand what to do… it is an employee of yours. You are the owner. If you want your hand to do different things, you would tell them that, and that would be that.
But, probably because of sloppy language, you think that your behavior is you. That your attitude is you. You think that YOU need to change.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with anyone, and you are

Read the original article: If you feel like I have slighted you, can you learn from me?