Hi Laura, thank you for the Christmas podcast. Feel this is something I need to focus on. I had been trying to work through the questions- how do you want to be/ feel etc, they can act like x but then just when I felt like I could do it I was thrown a few curveballs and have lost it. Angry/ upset/ sad/ grumpy. Right before Xmas.
The first was when I saw my mother yesterday and she said to me ‘I think you should join weight watchers’ this upset me enormously and I already know I’ve stacked on weight this year due to a back injury which has left me unable to undertake my usual training let alone walk for fitness and I’ve been eating to deal with this at times and the pain.
Then my 2 year old whose always been a terrible sleeper has started to wake up to 4 times a night again and is up at 5.30am each day. I felt I had a handle on this with the help of a sleep psychologist but we’ve gone backwards. My husband does not help in the mornings or through the night and I’m exhausted. I’m done getting up at 5am everyday when my husband sleeps in and gets a block of sleep each night.
Then he expects to have time to ride and says I do have time to myself when Im with the children in school holidays or at work !! I feel completely misunderstood and unappreciated. I feel he is completely self focused and unsupportive. Then I yell and get angry and resentful.
I know I need to adjust my expectations to have no help and no support from my family or husband and stop causing myself pain but I just can’t seem to free myself from the attachment to how I feel things should be or how I want them to be.
Thanks O
Hi O
We dealt with your Question on the last call but I know you had to leave early to get kids to swimming lessons so wanted to post a response here too – this was a common question for a number of you – on the topic of managing family at Christmas and other peoples behaviour.
What was common for everyone was the tendancy to think that the other person was the cause of their frustration/hurt/anger.
It sounds reasonable when we say:
“Mum made me feel angry”
“Kids made me feel frustrated”
“Partner made me feel unappreciated”
But I doo’t believe this is ever true – and this is a good thing.
No-one can make you feel anything – that is always on you, on how you decide to think about the situation. This is a GOOD thing. Otherwise you would have no way out of this situation without having to change your mum (and kids, partner and everyone else in the world).
This is the same for out circumstances, we say ‘work is stressing me out’. Work isn’t doing anything to us, it is the way we are thinking about it.
Too often our thinking is to blame and resent our circumstances – this not only feels terrible but it never gets us anywhere – so we spin our wheels, resisting what is, feeling angry and resentful and tired because we are trying to win a war we can never win.
We think partners SHOULD be appreciative all the time and they are not
We think kids SHOULD be well behaved
We think work SHOULD be easy and calm
We think mum SHOULD be polite and kind
Lots of rules.
No one tends to oblige us.
We make up stories for how other people should be.
Reality is that no one ever sticks to all of our rules.
We spend A LOT of time wishing other people were different, resisting and raging at people when they are not what we want, gossiping about them, ruminating about them….spinning our wheels – RESISTING what IS…and this keeps us stuck and powerless
‘Mum shouldn’t have told me I need to loose weight’ – but she did – ‘but she shouldn’t have’ – but she did….around we go
So HOW DO WE FEEL BETTER AND GET UNSTUCK?
1: GET OUT OF THEIR BUSINESS
you know you are in someone elses business when you are thinking about how they should be
when you are resisting a reality
– raging that someone runs late
– complaining that a client changed things last min
– resenting fact someone didn’t keep their word
– feeling angry about what IS – your weight, fact you drank too much, your health
2: GET BACK INTO OUR OWN BUSINESS
here is where you have power
– how do you want to think about this person?
– how do you want to feel about this person?
– how do you want to show up?
Ultimalty we all have 2 options when it comes to others:
1. try and make them be someone they are not so we can feel happy, this approach has a very low success rate – OR
2. let them be who they are and manage our own lives
The latter is the choice I encourage you to make.
This is the best choice – because you can have total control over how you feel WITHOUT having to change the universe and everyone in it
I also want to mention what I think is a deeper issue for you personally. Your mum’s comments, the kids, your husband’s behaviour are not the real issue here.
Here is what I mean. Your mum’s comments triggered in you a thought you were already thinking, a feeling you already were feeling.
You felt angry and upset about your weight long before she even arrived at your home.
This issue is the sense of having no control over your body.
No control over your weight and eating.
The self belief that you can’t manage pain without over eating.
The question you have to ask is:
Do you believe you can manage how you feel and not overeat?
Do you believe you can manage your health and weight despite your circumstances and pain?
Do you believe you can live life and be the wife and mother you want to be?
If not, why not?
Write down what comes up here.
Because those are the thoughts we need to clean up. Look at how that thinking is serving you and ask yourself if you want to keep thinking this way? Who would you be without these thoughts? Is there any good reason to keep these thoughts?
Much love to you my friend, you have got this.
L