Spam Filter For Your Brain - Episode 119
One of the most common life lessons that I need to learn again and again and again, I seem to have a phenomenal ability to forget, is that I'm not going to improve any of my relationships as long as I'm waiting for someone else to change.
My instinct seems to be that if a difficulty arises or some kind of confusion or friction arises, my default is hoping that the other person's going to stop doing that thing, so that I can feel okay. And the truth is that people rarely change their behaviour. And they're really doing it because of you, they're doing it because of them, their life stories, their life experiences, whatever's going on for them, whatever's going on in the weather, their genetic history, their socialisation and a thousand other things that have absolutely nothing to do with us.
But somehow, I feel that if they could just stop doing that thing, I would feel a lot better, so can they just change their entire personality and life disposition for my benefit? Turns out it doesn't happen very often.
The reason why I think it's really important to be reminded of this is because when we are hoping that other people are going to change their behaviour, the basic thought pattern, if we strip it all back to basics, is if you do something differently, I'm going to be able to feel something differently.
And I can take charge of my own emotions without waiting for that person to change. And actually, the chances are that that person changing something isn't going to make me feel any differently because my emotions are in my body, and they come from thoughts in my head. It's not possible for them to sort of strip me open like a game of operation and replace the bits that are going on within me, it is down to me. But when we are hoping that other people are going to be able to manipulate our own emotions so that we can have a nicer life experience, we don't have very much agency or authority over our own lives and our own wellbeing.
Hoping that someone else is going to be able to do that for us is perfectly natural. Because frankly, if everybody else did all the things that we wanted them to, we think it would be less effort for us. It just doesn't work like that. And it is very natural for us to sort of lean into this idea that hopefully if they just stop doing all of the things, we can feel nicer. But actually there is another way that's possible without othering people, without rejecting them for what they are doing or who they are. And it enables us to take a little bit of our power back and it is just recentering on how do I want to respond to this? Who do I want to be in this situation? Not please stop doing that, so I can feel a different emotion.
When we pause and we work out who we want to be in this situation rather than why they need to damn well stop it. We can have the chance to be able to go, okay, well, I'd rather be feeling this, someone who is feeling that might be thinking this kind of thing, and therefore I could start practising that thought for myself now, irrespective of their behaviour, I could think something like, they're probably trying their best, everyone's trying their best, or I don't have to be here if I don't want to, or that's your personality, we don't have to be friends, but I am choosing to be here right now. What it enables me to do when I keep getting back to my story is I stop getting lost in why other people aren't doing the thing or are doing the thing. And it recenters me on what I actually want in my life. Most of the time it's to feel more kind to that person. But sometimes and occasionally it's I don't want to be treated like that. I don't want that behaviour in my life.
I can't make that kind of clarity and decision when I'm all up and lost in the idea of the fact that they shouldn't be doing it and all of the reasons why they shouldn't be doing it. When I refocus on what my desires are and my boundaries and my choices about what my life actually contains, I have a lot more joy, freedom and air around my life. It feels a lot lighter. Weirdly, stopping trying to control other people is not as stressful as trying to manipulate them all the time into me feeling better about myself.
So just noticing that we can choose what we want, not spending our time focusing on other people's behaviour, whether they're right, whether they're wrong, it all comes down to us. What responses do I choose in any situation? What responses would you like to choose in any situation that is going to give you a feeling of liberty and freedom that no amount of trying to trap yourself under someone else's behaviour, mood swings or attitude is ever going to allow you.
So this is your little dare this week to see if you can pause sometimes and try and work out not why they shouldn't be doing that, but whether it's something that you want or not. And who do you want to be in this situation?
I'll speak to you next week.
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