Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 296 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle Podcast! As I record this, it’s the holiday season so for a lot of people that means spending more time with family……YAY right?
Family can be such a source of joy and also a source of pain. Don’t we all know it? Regardless of the size of your family. In the book Ive been reading, Awareness I talked about it in episode 295 but in it the author talks about being so awake and alive that no one has the power to make you feel good or bad, you give no one that power. Your happiness lives and dies with you. Ok, that is very enticing but it also seems a little far off for me. I would love to get there. A good place to start and the place Im starting is just recognizing when I have thoughts that don’t serve me. About anything and everything.
This has been kind of a topic for me lately because Ive been confronted head on with everything family for reasons I have talked about in my latest episodes. I have really had to manage my mind and 90% of the time, Ive done really well. I still have moments but Im aware of them, and they ability to get on the other side of them has to completely lie with me, even if and when I feel as if Im wronged. It doesn’t matter, and I will show you why and how I know that in this episode. When we spend more time with friends and family… it’s more important than ever for us to realize we have the power inside us to change how we look at anything. That old wonderful saying from Wayne Dyer “Change the way you look at things and the things you look at change.” Im knowing that more and more every single day. My happiness and my sanity lies with me and your happiness and your sanity lies with you. Sometimes someone does something and you feel you would be justified to be angry and resentful, we are humans not robots. But never forget the saying. Resentment is like swallowing poison expecting the other person to die. You’re hurting yourself. The damage is done to you, by you so you’re the only one that fix it also.
When I was 17 I had a rash on my face that wouldn’t go away. I was mortified and didn’t want to go out where people would see me. I wanted a fix. And I wanted it fast. My regular dr didn’t know what it was so he sent me to a specialist. I’m sitting there in his office waiting for him to come in and as soon as he did, he looked at immediately said “fluoride”. I was elated he was so confident, he told me with no hesitation, take this medicine and it will be gone in 3 days. And it absolutely was. So I went to the dr for a problem I had and he gave me medicine for me which fixed the problem.
Now. Had the dr said I see you have a problem and for your problem, I’m going to prescribe this medication for your mom or your sister or your friend. No of course not. I had the problem, I had to take the medicine.
Someone else taking it would not change anything in me, they could take all the medicine they want but my problem would still continue.
That’s exactly how everything is. We walk around this world wishing someone else would change so that we feel better. But them changing isn’t going to do anything for you, you may be temporarily appeased but you’re still the same so the problem is going to show up somewhere else in another way.
Wishing someone else would change so I would feel better is how most of us go around and it’s because that’s the way society trained us, as a kid, if you don’t get an A dad is gonna be disappointed, if you don’t act this certain way, Mom will be sad. So we lived our early life expecting that we are responsible for how our parents or siblings feel. When that simply isn’t true. They are responsible for themselves and I am responsible for myself. It seems so simple but it can be very very very hard to live by because it is hardwired in our brain, so we have to find a way to circumvent it. It’s important to know this because……..
When you don’t think you’re the problem. You’re never going to be able to fix the problem. Because you’re counting on someone else to change, which of course you have no control over.
I realized something over the weekend, it was actually during one of my morning meditations that I realized it without a doubt. And I have talked about it in my podcast before but it came to me in such a real manner that I was blown away. Here it is. I get to choose exactly what I make something mean. Now, Ive known this and have applied it and for a while I thought it meant because I don’t know what the other person means, I can’t read their mind, I don’t know why they said what they said or did what they did, THEN I get to make it mean whatever I choose. But it hit me during the meditation that it also includes when I was actually slighted. I get to choose what that means.
I will give you an example so it becomes real for you. For many years because the majority of my family does not celebrate Holidays, we would have a family get together on the day after Thanksgiving (because my parents and two other siblings don’t celebrate Thanksgiving) where my mom would cook a big dinner usually a turkey with all the fixings that go with it. We all looked forward to the day after Thanksgiving and it was so so fun. Well that tradition came to a screeching halt when my younger sister decided she wanted nothing to do with the part of the family that were no longer part of the religion. So for the last several years, we haven’t done that. So this year Im at my parents house on Monday a few days after Thanksgiving and I find out that my mom had indeed cooked a big Turkey dinner with all the fixings on the day after Thanksgiving but only invited my two sisters that were part of the religion, not me, not my baby sister, not my brother.
When I found this out, I felt deeply hurt to the point that I felt myself getting angry. So, I pulled my husband into the back room because he is always the voice of reason and calm and I told him how I was feeling and I was passionate about it. He was very understanding and he made me feel seen and heard, which is very helpful in an emotional moment. Once I talked with him for just a minute, I realized that I had a choice. One I could confront my parents and tell them that really hurt my feelings, and cause them to feel bad or I could look at it in a way that serves me. Im here now, mom cooked a wonderful steak dinner, they are doing the best they can. They are having to walk a tight rope because they would without hesitation invite everyone and would love it but they also know that that’s not what my sister would want and they love all of us so they just have to alternate who comes when. My heart goes out to them, that’s the way I choose to look at it. No need to say anything for them to change, I simply changed my thoughts about how I was going to look at it.
That puts the power directly in my own hands. Everyone comes into every situation with their own agenda. Everyone. I cannot possibly know what my parents or siblings are living because Im not them, I haven’t had their exact experiences. They are all honestly doing the best they can. I don’t know what their brain is telling them about any situation. I only know what mine is telling me. And look, I mean don’t take abuse, but don’t read too much into things either. So be honest with yourself, are you being a sensitive Sally? Are you making situations worse by making them mean something worse than they do?
Sometimes and Ive been guilty of this, we dramatize things to justify our anger or to get attention, or to get sympathy whatever it is you feel you need. But then we have to keep having those same awful thoughts in order to keep the drama going, which keeps you all torn up. We all know someone like this. But how much better would it feel to empower ourselves and choose to think a thought that serves us, that empowers us? Im all for that.
My challenge to you this week is to notice when you get your feelings hurt, how you want to make it all about the other person. That puts your power in their hands, I want it in YOUR hands. No matter what is going on, I challenge you to ask yourself this question…How can I think about this in a way that empowers me? No matter what it is, How can I think about this in away that empowers me? You answer that and You’ve changed everything, I love you guys Ill talk to you in a few days!
