Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 531 of The Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! Thank you guys for being here and also thank you so much for the 5 star reviews. Reviews are very helpful for the podcast to be seen by more people so thank you so much.
I was walking down the steps the other day to leave the gym and the husband of one of my clients said hello as he was walking up the stairs, I was looking right at him but completely lost in thought. It didn’t hit my consciousness who it was or that he had said anything until I was already past him. As soon as I realized it I yelled his name and said I’m so sorry I was completely somewhere else when you said hello! He laughed and said “I get it”. But I wonder if for a minute he thought “hmmm that was a little rude”. When I had no intention and would never consider being rude to someone, but he wouldn’t know that! That is how misunderstandings happen!!
Our relationships with other people can be complicated right? Especially when we have to deal with all those thoughts flowing through our head. The way I see it, Our relationships have three dimensions. The one that we have, the one the other person has and the one that is reality. Sort of wild if you think about it. I love this topic so much because I feel like it’s universal. Left to their own devices our brains can cause us a lot of trouble, if your brain runs rampant creating thoughts about why someone said or did that thing that annoyed you and how it felt like a personal attack, you’re not alone.
I read a post the other day from a guy who is pretty successful. I follow him on ex and he had this post and I thought that’s so good and it’s something we all do and I talk about it a lot but he said this. He said there was a guy in my network who I thought didn’t like me there were a few interactions where I had felt self-conscious about what I had said. My wife and I didn’t get invited to a cocktail party at his house. I talked it up to he didn’t like me or maybe jealousy or something that I said who knows, but it was bugging me then the other day I turned around at the grocery store and he was walking towards me. He had spotted me and walked over to me. He asked me a bunch of questions about business. It was a very engaging conversation. He wanted to get lunch next week. another example that it’s all in our head. That insecurity creeps up. But most of the time it isn’t what you think. Don’t read into things. Be yourself and enjoy life.
This post was really relatable to me because I used to do this all the time I would create things in my head about what friends were thinking about me or maybe even what strangers were thinking about me. The crazy thing is, I wasn’t even aware of those thoughts at all at the time, I’m only aware of them now looking back because I’ve been working on being aware of everything that I think now, but I wasn’t aware at the time and it was making me kind of miserable.
How about you? How aware are you of the thoughts that go through your head, I wonder. Seeing the amount of engagement that guy’s post got led me to believe it’s an even bigger problem than I thought. I know this to be true for me and it’s true for you too; If you’re not aware of most to all of your thoughts then you are probably making yourself miserable without knowing it.
What if I hadn’t of noticed that I completely ignored my client’s husband as he said hello and I looked directly at him. Maybe he wouldn’t have thought anything about it or maybe he would have done what I may have done and replayed it over and over wondering what I had done to upset that person so that they didn’t want to say hello. All the time it being just a big misunderstanding because I had a million things running through my mind at the time. Thats why its so important to give people the benefit of the doubt even when it seems like they slighted you to your face. We have no idea what other people are going through, they may be dealing with things that have their minds going 90 to nothing, completely zoned out and we have the option to take it personally or to let it go and chalk it up to “you having no idea what’s going on in their life” and they may have no idea they upset you in the first place.
My husband and I were getting our nails done recently, yes he goes with me and we get our nails done together. We actually have fun and LOVE the little shop where we go. They are all Vietnamese and so so fun. We have a really good relationship with all of them. The last time we went my husband paid the bill with Vivian who had done my nails and added a tip for both girls on the credit card, but then he took cash out of his wallet and gave Tina the girl that did his nails an extra cash tip because it was her birthday. Well as we were driving home, the shop is about 15 -20 min away when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that he seemed to be in deep thought, he then pulls out the nail receipt from his wallet and all of a sudden he says, oh no, can you turn around and go back to the nail shop right now? When he signed the rcpt electronically the tip didn’t take. He said he was going over in his head why Vivian had looked a little shocked when he signed the rcpt and then went out of his way to give his girl Tina a cash tip. He thought her response was weird and so as we are driving he kept replaying her look in his head, thinking something was off, so he double checked and sure enough. No tip to them at all. So I quickly turn around because now I’m horrified too. Imagine how that looked to poor Vivian! We got back to the shop and he ran in and explained what happened and gave them both cash for their tip and apologized. Vivian said “you drove all the way back for that”. He said he could tell she was relieved because she said I wondered what happened! You see that was an opportunity where Vivian could have really read into that, kind of rightly so. Hopefully she didn’t but it’s ok because it all worked out fine in the end.
I’m reading a book called the lazy man‘s guide to enlightenment it’s very short and I haven’t finished it and I’m not ready to recommend it yet because the writer is kind of quirky but he does say that every single one of us has the opportunity to determine the outcome of their own life , well that’s how I interpret what he says. What he actually says is this: We are equal beings and the universe is our relations with each other, The universe is made of one kind of entity: each one is alive, each determines the course of his own existence.
The more you’re aware of the thoughts in your head, the more you will see why your relationships are the way they are, why you wear the clothes you wear, why your bank account looks the way it does and basically everything else about yourself too.
Each of our lives is self centric. OK so we’re the center of our own world. I’m the center of my world, my husband is the center of his world. My client is the center of her world. It’s so important to keep that in mind because sometimes the way our mind works we think we are at the center of everybody else’s life because we’re the center of ours. Have you ever heard that that a liar thinks everyone else lies a cheater thinks everyone else cheats a marijuana smoker thinks everyone else smokes marijuana that kind of thing so You’re the center of your universe so of course you think everyone else thinks the same way. But that’s just not true they’re the center of their own universe. You’re the center of yours. Everything they do is based on their needs and their experiences and their thoughts everything everything you do is based on your needs and your experiences and your thoughts. And even if someone seemingly slights you, you get to decide what thoughts you’re going to have about that, remember they may have NO idea they did anything in the first place.
The more we take responsibility for every thought and action we have, the better off we are. What you put out into the world is truly what you get back. It’s one of the Universal laws. Any thought that someone is against you pits you as a victim, any thought that someone intentionally hurt you pits you as a victim. Any thought about someone else period that doesn’t serve you, hurts you. Not them, YOU.
My challenge to you today is to let go of any thoughts about other people that don’t serve you. It’s not about them, it’s about you.
