Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 512 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! It feels good to be here with you guys.
Have you ever said yes to something or someone when you really wanted to say no? And then you kind of resented them for it?
Maybe you said no to someone or something and then you felt guilty about it and considered changing your mind so they wouldn’t feel bad.
Maybe, like me, you often feel like other people’s happiness or lack of is somehow your responsibility.
I used to be really bad about it.
It’s just in the last few years that I have been ok with letting other people be responsible for their own feelings and also taking full responsibility for mine. My older sister stayed with us for a week near Christmas time and she doesn’t celebrate Christmas so I for a while worried that she might be offended, but then I realized that she’s a grown adult and she can handle her own feelings. I have to handle mine too. Yes, it’s awkward for me when we have Christmas up in our house and yes, I am able to handle it. No-one died of awkwardness. The other thing is guilt. There have been times where I have said NO to an invite and I know the other person is disappointed and I fret over that for days. Why am I still doing that? I asked that myself that question and the Universe popped a meditation practice just for me this week. I was thinking about that question this last week and guess what….of course the Universe always delivers….Jeff Warren had a meditation on the calm app about boundaries. In it he mentioned how he had said yes to do something when he wanted to say no and now he’s all grumpy about it….and then he said no to something else and he felt guilty about it and I thought “welcome to my world”. But during that meditation he said how often times people just can’t handle the feeling of guilt and so they over commit to avoid ever saying no. If you’re a people pleaser or a wannabe recovering people pleaser like me, It’s like you can’t win sometimes,…when you say yes you feel bad because you didn’t honor your own preference, but when you say no you also feel bad because now you feel guilty about possibly hurting someone else’s feelings. It can be maddening. But in reality I don’t get to control other people, I only control me and my stuff. The other people have to manage their own stuff. It’s when you try managing everyone that things get hairy. I had several people for a dinner party recently, lots of different personalities. So on top of cooking, I am trying to make sure this person feels included and this person doesn’t say something that offends this other person, some love dogs and others don’t so I am also trying to herd the dogs because my house is dogs welcome always and everyone knows that, but me trying to manage everyone’s feelings had me feeling extremely upset when my sweet adorable niece came up and said “you seem stressed, can I help you with anything? I thought I had been hiding my stress but apparently not, I realized in my effort to make sure everyone was comfortable I was obviously stressed which was doing the opposite of helping people feel comfortable! I said you know what? You’re right, I’m going to just focus on enjoying everyone and not controlling them and as soon as I calmed down, weirdly so did everything else. Without knowing it, my energy was affecting the energy of the room. It was a valuable lesson. When I stopped trying to manage everyone and just relaxed and had a good time, things just got calmer. Now maybe it was just because I was creating the stress in my head because it didn’t seem like anything outside of me changed, but a lot inside of me changed. I let others be responsible for their own good time and just made sure I was a good hostess. I took responsibility for me and let others take responsibility for themselves as well. That’s the reason a lot of us have trouble saying no or why we feel stressed in certain situations is we are so worried someone else is going to feel a certain way that we try to overcompensate which just ends up making it all worse and we don’t even realize it! Often times we want everyone to act or be a certain way and so we are trying to pull all of these strings or maybe it’s just one person who you are trying to manage so that you feel the way you want to feel. It’s a fools game because you never win. It’s not and never will be your job to see to that other people are always happy or always having a good time or never feel left out or always have everything they need when they need it…But sometimes I feel like I think it is.
Now, I know this about myself and so I actively work on it. I’ve been reading a book lately, I’m almost finished with it called “Boundaries” by Drs Henry Cloud and John Townsend.
In the book they tell a story of a girl named Tina. Tina resented her husbands coming home 45 minutes late to dinner every night. She had a hard time keeping the food hot, the kids were hungry and crabby and their evening study schedule was thrown off. Things changed when she began serving dinner on time with or without her husband. He came home to refrigerated leftovers that he has to reheat and eat alone. Three of four times of that happening prompted him to tear himself away from work earlier. Tina set a boundary (eating with the kids on time) which kept her from feeling violated and victimized. She got her needs and the kids needs met and she didn’t feel angry and resentful anymore. She took responsibility for her feelings and let him take response for his. At first when I read that I thought well of course, who wouldn’t get mad, he isn’t respecting her and the family but then as I read on I realized she had her wants which was to eat on time and have the family on a schedule and he had his wants which was to have dinner on the table and his family waiting for him. Even in marriages, we aren’t responsible for the other person. She had to set her own boundaries and let him set his own. They both had to be ok with the consequences of their own wants. That way no one feels resentful.
Sometimes we think other people are the reason we aren’t happy or the reason we feel lonely and sometimes we think we are responsible for other people feeling happy or feeling lonely when neither of those are true. We are only responsible for our wants, our feelings and our happiness and every other person is responsible for theirs. No matter the situation if you stay centered and focused on doing what is right in your heart for you then the others around you will have permission to do the same.
My challenge to you today is to manage no-ones feelings but your own. Selflessness is sometimes manipulation just as selfishness is sometimes self love. Do whats right in your heart to be the best you can be and make the best decision for yourself without trying to manage other people in your life. They may resist your boundaries but that is an issue for them, not you. Take control of the one thing you can. YOU. Share this with three people who inspire you already. I love you guys I’ll talk to you in a few days!
