Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 450 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! Thank you for hanging out with me! First of all I want to thank you so much for sharing these episodes when you find them empowering, that’s the highest compliment you can give me and I appreciate it so much. Our goal is to put in the work to remember that we are here to grow and learn but most of all to enjoy this life we have. I hope you are enjoying it. But it’s not always rainbows and butterflies, right? Sometimes we have to deal with things that are hard, none of us are immune. And when those hard things happen, it’s easy to be so stressed that you start seeing the problem in everyone around you. Our tolerance goes down for each other, have you ever noticed that? But there’s a much better way to handle the stressful times.
There’s a quote by Alexander Dugin that a “common enemy unites us”. When I think about that quote, it’s so true. Having a common enemy will often unite people. Just think about 9/11. The country united by way of a common enemy or threat of some sort. When you have a common external threat, your energy and attention is focused on working together to protect yourselves from the outside threat. A common enemy can be a good thing, but sometimes we are fighting the wrong enemy
I have a good friend who we often will talk about her work, so she has had this nemesis on her team at work for a while, so I know this persons name very well because she has had problems with them for the last year, nothing major just little annoyances here and there. Well in the last few months, the tide has changed and all of a sudden they are big friends, sending texts, making jokes and just having a really great work relationship. I asked her what changed and she said “Oh we both are not loving some of the decisions our new boss is making and it’s kind of bonded us”. I said “oh that saying “having a common enemy” is true, huh? She laughed and said yep.
Isn’t that true though, a common enemy can bring complete strangers together…for instance, years ago, my friend Donna and I were out of town for a design job, driving in a massive thunder storm with tornados and hail. We literally couldn’t see where we were driving, in an effort to try to make it to my friends house, I ended up in some random street not knowing if I was on the street, or in the grass, we were actually outside this house and the people were standing in the window and could tell we were in trouble… the frantically waved us to come in, to get out of the car and into the safety of their home. They had no idea who we were but they knew we were in trouble, we could all be in trouble but us being in the car was especially bad so we bailed the car and ran into their house. A common threat bound us together. Ive seen videos of people in grocery stores during storms huddled together in a safe room, the common threat bound them together.
I was thinking about this because I mentioned in the last episode about Eric being diagnosed with Afib and it has been kind of shocking and very stressful because there were so many unknowns. Anytime you get an upsetting diagnosis or something stressful is gong on in life…..There’s a lot of uncertainty and fear that can come with that. Eric had a friend tell him recently that everything was awful right now at home and he was like whats going on? And his friend said our oldest is leaving for college and we are taking it really hard, you can imagine. When you have something like that going on, things can feel unsettled and everyone can be a little on edge. And when you’re on edge, little things bother you. Little things can set you off. They can turn into big things quickly.
Eric and I have been babysitting our neighbors chihuahua , his name is Elvis and like most little doggies he LOVES his walks. So I walk him every day but on Sunday Eric went with us. So Elvis walks the way Elvis wants to walk which means its more a sniff fest then it is a walk. A walk around the block can take forever because he has to sniff every little thing and I don’t mind letting him do that but Eric has a different idea about how dogs should walk. I just wanted to let Elvis be Elvis because we only have him for a few more days and Eric thought the walk should be a little more structured, so that turned into Eric and I having an argument. Normally, this wouldn’t be an issue at all but we had such a stressful week that our tolerance level was low. So now everything can become a problem. But I knew a lot of our frustration had nothing to do with Elvis obviously it was about the rough week we had going on.
But Eric was so sweet though, at one point, we had been kind of irritated at each other for a little bit when he just came up and gave me the biggest hug and I realized immediately, we had been making each other the enemy when that’s not the case at all. We aren’t each others enemy. We love each other. However, We do have a common enemy right now. We have a common threat. We have both been kind of freaking out a little bit about this diagnosis that popped up out of nowhere. And understandably so, but why are we making it worse by fighting each other? We aren’t the problem. Instead of fighting each other, we should be fighting the real source of the problem.
When you give yourself a minute and you step back and really look at it. What’s the source of the problem? It’s not Eric and it’s not me and it’s not even really the diagnosis. It’s all the thoughts we are having about the diagnosis. But when you’re stressed and afraid it’s easy to turn on each other when the best thing would be to turn to each other.
The diagnosis, the first child leaving for college, the job loss, the death in the family…these can all be super stressful but when you look at it like it’s us against the problem, instead of you’re the problem or I’m the problem, you start remembering you’re on the same team and when you do that you gain strength from each other. And instead of putting energy into fighting with each other, you put that energy towards researching what you can do about the diagnosis, or energy towards moving your freshmen into the dorm, or whatever is the best way of supporting each other. Studies show people who have support always do better and live longer. So don’t make your partner the problem. Focus on a solution to the real problem together. Now it’s you and your spouse against the problem instead of against each other.
My challenge to you this week is if something stressful happens or is happening, notice how little things might irritate you but remember when you have a common enemy it unites you so instead of picking at each other, say hey it’s a rough week, but its you and me against this thing, we’re a team and teams do better when they work together. Everything really did change when Eric and I started working as a team, and it will for you too. Share this with 3 people who you consider to be on our team. I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days.
