by Barbara Rose, Ph.D.

Emotional shoplifting is when you steal truth from yourself and/or fail to disclose truth to another person with whom you have an intimate, personal relationship. Each time you stifle your feelings, you are literally shoplifting, stealing and sabotaging your self-esteem, your trust within and for yourself, as well as dramatically reducing the trust another person can have for you.

When you hide your real feelings, you are engaging in emotional shoplifting.

When you lie to yourself and give yourself all kinds of justifications about why you should remain in a relationship with another person that is far from satisfying, each time you are literally stealing another shred of self-worth that you have within.

When you choose to remain in fear, afraid of speaking up honestly, you are emotionally shoplifting from yourself.

The price people pay for this is a great one. I know because I used to lie to myself, live in fear, accept the status quo and all the while I was robbing myself. The result was very low self-esteem and a lot of misery.

There are unseen laws about integrity, truth, honesty, self-love and compassion just like there are laws in society about stealing.

Emotional shoplifting causes you to suffer and at times it can very well feel as if you are in a prison without bars — an emotional prison. This is the price we pay when we steal from ourselves. The good news is that it can be immediately turned around with conscious effort to live with pure truth. The result is inner joy.

Below are some guidelines to recognize the warning signs of emotional shoplifting.

How Can I Recognize the Warning Signs of Emotional Shoplifting?
When someone is speaking to you and you begin to feel a knot in your stomach, this is a clear signal to let you know that what is being said to you does not feel good to you. Constructive dialogue is far different from guilt trips, a threatening tone, blame and downright verbal abuse.

When you feel bad inside after another person either verbally or non-verbally communicates to you, this is the time to speak your truth. If you do not, you are emotionally shoplifting from yourself and you will continue to suffer.

When you are neglected, ignored, disregarded, insulted, harassed, put down, ordered around, or are coerced to live according to another person’s tune, rather than your own – if you go along with this, you are engaging in emotional shoplifting. Every degrading remark that you tolerate is another account of emotional shoplifting. Every time you go along when you truly do not want to, whether out of fear, or insecurity, you are actually stealing more of your truth.

When you feel frustrated and alone while trying to come to an understanding with another person and he or she is not meeting you halfway, honestly, the more you try to change another person, the more your emotional shoplifting goes on the rise. Everybody has disagreements. The key question to ask is can you have the kind of relationship where each of you truly communicates for a win/win solution where both of you are equally satisfied with the outcome? If it’s always one way – either your way, or their way, you will come to find that there is not much genuine satisfaction within the relationship because either you or the other person is not relating authentically and from the heart. As a result, a battle of wills develops and this is one battle where there is never a winner.

The only way to turn it around is when you decide it’s time. Ask yourself what is more important to you, being bullied around or relating authentically to people? The former is emotional shoplifting. The latter is emotional freedom and inner peace. The choice is quite clear, and no one can make your decisions for you, but you.

What is Relationship Bankruptcy?
Relationship bankruptcy is when it feels like there is nothing left, except perhaps a dim hope that it could be better. The relationship has an invisible wall that guards mutual love from being expressed, both in words and actions. Trust, joy, respect, care, consideration and a deep trusted friendship become a distant memory, if it was ever there at all. When you feel as if the one you are with isn’t really your dearest and best friend, you are experiencing relationship bankruptcy.

How Can I Turn Around Emotional Bankruptcy?
The only thing that will ever turn this around is really speaking so purely and honestly from your heart, with the intention to bring all of the care back up to the surface in the relationship. You should also be willing to admit where you may have fallen short, rather than only blame the other person.

Alternatively, if you are with a person who is abusive, the only one you can truly turn around is yourself and the greatest favor you could ever do for yourself is to walk away from the abuse and never look back.

A couple must share an equal desire for the relationship to work. If one is willing and the other is not, not only is the relationship bankrupt, but the door is locked, which prevents even the smallest improvement from happening.

A great part of the problem must be acknowledged and that has largely to do with the role you played in allowing this situation to happen in your life. It’s far too easy to blame the other person. If there is harsh treatment from the other person or an emotional wall of stone that the other person has put up to block you out, what are you still doing in this relationship?

Honesty with Yourself
Take heart, what may seem like gloomy times are actually your seeds for restoring your truth which reinforces your inner resolve to live only with the purest thoughts, feelings, words and actions. The key is to uproot the lies by first recognizing what they are.

Once something is uprooted from your consciousness, it can then be transformed. The most important thing for you to remember is that in order to have a great relationship with another person, you must first learn how to have one with yourself. This means that all self-deception, wallowing in negativity and emotional shoplifting must cease, permanently! Then and only then can you begin the inward journey to turn it all around.