Let Our Loved Ones Be Who They Are (Day 19 of 30)
Do you have an “instruction manual” for how people in your life should behave so you can feel happy? Of course you don’t tell them about this guide. It is just assumed they should instinctively know how to treat you properly and will of course comply because they care about you.
Doesn’t everyone have Jedi mind reading abilities these days anyways?! 😉
I never realized I had a “manual” for the loved ones in my life until Master Coach Brooke Castillo taught me about it and showed me how much pain it was causing me! 🙈 What do you mean my husband working long hours isn’t the source of my problems?!
Many of us believe that we would be happier if someone in our lives would just change. So we spend years trying to change them, causing suffering and exhaustion.
But guess what, people don’t change unless they want to. They don’t like to be controlled either. I don’t blame them. Do you? Think about your kids, the minute they sense control or manipulation they swing into resistance and rebellion mode. Adults are the same!
Manuals are a huge cause of suffering because we hand over the power of how we feel to someone else. But other people’s behavior has no impact on us emotionally until we think about it, interpret it, and choose to make it mean something.
Examples of Manuals
Some common examples of “instruction manuals” from my life and my clients include:
He should help with the kids more
He shouldn’t travel so much for work
He should spend less time at work
He should be more emotionally available
She should send a thank you note after everything I’ve done for her
She shouldn’t always be late for our coffee dates
She should remember my birthday
She should know what I like
These are simple examples but most manuals we have are complicated and pages long. We rarely share it with the other person and when they don’t comply, we make it mean they don’t love us or that they don’t care.
Consider Dropping the Manual
I’ve learned that if I can drop the manuals for the people in my life and learn to enjoy them for who they really are, we all win.
It doesn’t mean I can’t have expectations and make requests of them in hopes that they might comply. For example, I can ask my husband to take the kids to the park on a Saturday morning so I can have some quiet time alone. If he agrees, it will be easier for me to think loving thoughts about him. But if he says no, I don’t hang my emotional well being on the outcome. I could choose to think he is a jerk and feel angry, or I choose to think it means he doesn’t love me and feel hurt. Or I can choose to think he has had a long week too and it has nothing to do with me, and feel neutral about it. It is my choice.
As a parent, interacting with our kids it is a little different. We are responsible for teaching them how to navigate the world, so we may set a consequence when they don’t follow through on their chores. But we must also apply the same principle of not attaching our emotional well being to the outcome. Otherwise, it is called emotional manipulation which is not a healthy way to raise children or be in a relationship with our partners. For example, we never want to say “if you don’t do xyz, it means you don’t love me.”
So I challenge you to drop your manual with a loved one this week and see what happens (or one aspect of it!). What I expect you will find is that you will regain emotional agency over your emotional life and your relationships will improve dramatically. Let me know how it goes!
✨See you tomorrow for Day 20 of 30 lessons learned from 2019!
#relationships #lifecoaching #30daychallenge #lessonslearned #relaunch #returntowork #careerbreak