Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 389 of the wildly successful lifestyle! I’m on the beach watching the waves and feeling the breeze and it’s wonderful. October is my favorite time at the beach. Cool at night, low 80’s during the day. I get so inspired by the ocean. Nature in general inspires and invigorates doesn’t it? I read somewhere that it’s because we are nature, we are organic beings just like nature so being in nature feels like home. Ok. Enough of that. Haha.
I talked this last week about our yorkie Kenzie and how she had been in the emergency hospital but she is doing so well. She is on medication 3 times a day. Funny story…the medicine she is on is viagra. That has been the one humorous part of this whole deal with Kenzie is viagra is literally the reason she’s alive. Turns out pulmonary hypertension is the original use of it so there’s that.
But this week we had scheduled to go to Florida with my husbands sister and her fiancé for her birthday and with everything going on with Kenzie I really was going to stay home. But she was doing well and our housekeeper Mayra who is like family to us, and kenzie knows well said she would stay at the house and take care of her. To which I thought ok she will be fine with Mayra but then when it comes time to go I’m really having anxiety about leaving but Mayra assures us she has it covered and I wrote out everything she needed to do so off we go on our 7 hour drive, the first few hours I tortured myself checking cameras worrying she wouldn’t get the medication right and what if Kenzie started having problems again to the point where I was making me and Eric my husband pretty miserable. After we got pictures and she gave her the medication on time I realized that I had been making myself miserable and why? If I didn’t trust Mayra then we wouldn’t have left her in charge of Kenzie. So was I going to make her a nervous wreck checking on her every hour or was I going to trust her? Because we did trust her but I wasn’t acting like it. I was driving us all crazy because I could t let go. Once I realized that I told Eric that I’m letting go because if we didn’t trust her we wouldn’t have left and now it’s my job to let go. Which I did. Our weekend turned out beautiful. Mayra took amazing care of our girl and my ability to let go let Mayra feel confident that we trust her which also empowers her. The way I started off was making her nervous and probably making her question if she could do the job or if we maybe didn’t trust her afterall.
We do this don’t we? As parents we give the kids a little freedom but then we are nervous wrecks, I think it’s called helicopter parenting right? When we give someone our trust, we are empowering them to do something when we are constantly checking up on them, we cause them to question themselves and their ability. When we decide to trust it’s then on us to let go, unless of course they break your trust and then you have to take a different stance of course, had Mayra missed the first medication time I would have been calling in for backup help. But I never had to do that and I knew I wouldn’t but sometimes we get so in our heads about what could go wrong that we make ourselves and everyone else crazy.
We each have a responsibility to do the best we can with what we’ve been given and that includes when we make the decision to trust someone we honor that unless they do something to break it. It also includes if someone trusts us to do something, we do it. if we don’t that’s on us too.
I went for a walk early this morning and as I walked by the pool something caught my eye and it was a frog that was trying to get out of the pool unsuccessfully might I add so I reach down and helped him out and he seemed to be in distress so I thought we’ll maybe I should put him I. The shade somewhere but when I went to pick him up again he jumped several times, I was freaking him out…so I thought ok you know what I did what I could for him, he has to take it from here. One morning I walked on the beach there was a fish that washed up on the sand with a wave and I wasn’t sure he was going to make it back in so I scooted him back to the water. I wanted to pick him up again and really put him in the deeper water but again I thought no he can swim from where he is, now I’m just scaring him so I trusted that he had it from there. Now I will say that on my way back I checked and the frog had gotten off to safety and the fish was nowhere to be found so he must have done the same. Letting go and not needing to hover and worry and fuss is not only empowering to us, it also empowers the ones we have decided to trust.
It’s our job to decide if we trust or not. But when we do trust..can we then let go?
I was disempowering Mayra by micromanaging her taking care of Kenzie and making myself and Eric crazy in the meantime.
Sometimes when you have an expectation that someone will fail, they live up to it so you’re kind of setting them up for failure. How much better would it be to set them up for success by Expecting them to succeed?
Are there areas where you say you’re trusting but not letting go? Could it be with your team at work? Your Kids? Your spouse?
My challenge to you this week is to think about that are there areas where you’re driving yourself crazy or disempowering someone else by saying you trust them but not allowing them the opportunity follow through without your hovering? Trust is a gift that works both ways. Share this with three people you trust. I love you guys. I’ll talk to you in a few days.
