How do you Change Someone's Personality?

QUESTION:

Do you have a book that can change someone's personality?I am estranged from my grown son and his family because he is so negative, insulting and hard to get along with that it just doesn't seem worth the effort anymore. Whenever my wife and I are with him it's so stressful. He is critical, and arrogant and treats everyone like he knows everything and they don't know anything. For instance, I spent a lot of time and effort to paint the family room. I was kind of proud of it and when I showed it to him he tells me that it's the ugliest color he's ever seen. That kind of thing.

ANSWER:

It's hard enough to change yourself much less trying to change somebody else. Sometimes, by changing your own reaction to them, people may change because you yourself have changed. However when people are difficult to get along with, and are constantly abusive and critical of the people around them it's hard to meet their behavior with love and acceptance. You could if you can take a different view of the relationship.

Here I might suggest reading "the Ten Paradoxical Commandmants" for inspiration.

One thing that helps in dealing with difficult people is to realize that their negative behavior all comes from their own repressed fear. We all have a lot of repressed fear from our past and most of us never try to get in touch with it and let got of it because it's hard work.

So what happens is that people with a lot of repressed fear are always on the verge of feeling intimidated somehow. They don't know they are afraid and they don't know that, because of their own fear, they need to feel like they are always in charge or "one up." Because of their own unacknowledged fear, at any moment they feel at some kind of a disadvantage. If something goes wrong, they are not afraid, the other person is wrong or stupid. They themselves are never at fault. They can't be at fault because it is too fearful for them.

These people don't take advice or criticism very well, if at all. In the end, only love works. But it's kind of like hugging a porcupine until you get the hang of it. We all should remember that being unreasonable is not evil.