Other People’s Business

Letting Go, Life 0

Many of us think our most meaningful work has to do with minding other people’s business.  Why is it so hard to let other people have their own journey?  Why do we persist in interfering in other people’s lives, especially when we reap so few benefits? . . .

How sad that we perceive our own well-being as so tied to the decisions, even occasional whims, of others.  But we do it, again and again, and our lives are never better for it, at least in the long run.  In the short run, trying to help a loved one live his or her life may seem like the right thing to do — it may even be engaging for awhile — but taking charge of our own lives is as much work as any one of us needs to experience.  The work of someone else’s life belongs to that person and God.

— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 11-12

Empowering Yourself

Forgiveness, Letting Go, Marriage, Relationships 0

Recognize that what your partner does is a problem, but it’s not the problem.  The problem is how you react to what your partner does.  If you make your partner the problem, all you can do is hope that he changes or try to get him to change.  That’s a disempowered position.  As you increase your ability to respond to the negative things your partner does, you are going to empower yourself and increase your own self-esteem.  This single concept is the driving principle behind almost all books on improving relationships.

— Ellyn Bader, PhD, and Peter T. Pearson, PhD, Tell Me No Lies, p. 141

Boundaries in Marriage

Letting Go, Marriage, Truth 0

Remember that a boundary always deals with yourself, not the other person.  You are not demanding that your spouse do something — even respect your boundaries.  You are setting boundaries to say what you will do or will not do.  Only these kinds of boundaries are enforceable, for you do have control over yourself.  Do not confuse boundaries with a new way to control a spouse.  It is the opposite.  It is giving up control and beginning to love.  You are giving up trying to control your spouse and allowing him to take responsibility for his behavior.

In a marriage, as in no other relationship, the need for revealing your boundaries is important.  Passive boundaries, such as withdrawal, triangulation, pouting, affairs, and passive-aggressive behavior, are extremely destructive to a relationship.  Passive ways of showing people that they do not have control over you never lead to intimacy.  They never educate the other on who you really are; they only estrange.

Boundaries need to be communicated first verbally and then with actions.

Making It Happen

Letting Go, Life, Peace 0

Stop trying so hard to make it happen.

Stop doing so much, if doing so much is wearing you out or not achieving the desired results.  Stop thinking so much and so hard about it.  Stop worrying so about it.  Stop trying to force, to manipulate, to coerce, or to make it happen.

Making things happen is controlling.  We can take positive action to help things happen.  We can do our part.  But many of us do much more than our part.  We overstep the boundaries from caring and doing our part into controlling, caretaking, and coercing.

Controlling is self-defeating.  It doesn’t work.  By overextending ourselves to make something happen, we may actually be stopping it from happening.

Do your part in relaxed, peaceful harmony.  Then let it go.  Just let it go.  Force yourself to let it go, if necessary.  “Act as if.”  Put as much energy into letting go as you have into trying to control.  You’ll get much better results.

— Melody Beattie, The Language of Letting Go, p. 206-207

Letting Go of How Others Live

Letting Go, Peace, Relationships 0

Our spouses, our friends, our family, our neighbors, even the strangers crossing our paths, must be who they are, not who we think they should be.  They must make their own mistakes and, through what they learn, have reason to celebrate their own successes.

There are many reasons for letting go of this futile behavior, but the most important ones are that we will never succeed in controlling others and never experience peace in our own lives if we are always focused on how other people are living or how we think they should be living.  If we want to be peaceful, we must let go of how others choose to live and take care of business in one life only: our own.

— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow, p. 9-10

Listening

Letting Go, Marriage, Relationships 0

Go on the presumption that your partner has a bigger picture.  You may not see it now, and it may not be logical, but it will make emotional sense if you can allow yourself to hear her story.  You have a better chance of learning that story if you can continue asking questions like, “In addition to anger, what else do you feel? . . . And what else?”

Don’t get stuck on getting your point heard.  In Seething Stalemate, you tend to put the bulk of your energy into coercing your partner to hear your side.  Once you give that up, you’re likely to obtain clearer focus of what the argument is really about.

— Ellyn Bader, PhD, and Peter T. Pearson, PhD, Tell Me No Lies, p. 141

In Charge of No One But Ourselves

Letting Go, Life, Parenting, Peace, Relationships 0

It bears repeating:  We are not in charge of others!  Not their behavior, their thoughts, their dreams, their problems, their successes, or their failures.

Even the children we parent have their own journey to make, and our so-called control over them is, in fact, an illusion.  We can set an example for them, we can suggest a set of behaviors, we can demonstrate a code of ethics, we can even require that they live by certain “house rules” while under our roof, but finally it is they who will decide who they want to be and what they want to do, regardless of our efforts.  And for that we will become grateful in time.

I say: Let’s celebrate the fact that we are in charge of no one but ourselves.  It relieves us of a heavy burden, and a thankless job, one that never blesses us.  Taking control of every thought we have and every action we take, and being willing to relinquish the past while savoring the present, will assuredly keep us as busy as we need to be.  Doing these things, and only these things is why we are here.  It’s only when we live our own lives and manage our own affairs, freeing others to do the same, that we find the peace we seek and so deserve.

— Karen Casey, Change Your Mind and Your Life Will Follow: 12 Simple Principles, p. 8-9

Recommitting

Forgiveness, Letting Go, Love, Marriage, Relationships 0

A good relationship is worth the effort of letting go of an annoying trait in your partner and being as kind as possible to this person you are connected to.  Those two ideas are central to your marriage vows.  A marriage is a choice to recommit to your partner every day.  Every spouse, whether recovering from a brutal betrayal or simply dealing with a sloppy partner, decides every day wehter to get up and dance with that partner again.  Every marriage goes through periods when each partner is not sure about continuing it. . . .  Forgiveness is based upon a continual recommitment to your relationship.  Forgiveness comes after grieving your losses, and it allows you to move forward in your relationship with happiness and a positive attitude.  This is true whether the losses were big (your spouse is a drug addict) or little (your lazy partner never does the grocery run) or somewhere in between — as when you accept the fact that you married a slob, you have grieved the neat person you should have married, and you have recommitted to the lovable human being you chose to be with.

Recommitting is an ongoing process; you have to recommit every time your lover says the same dumb thing again and you react with your same exasperated sigh.  You have to recommit when your lover is late yet again, or leaves a cheap tip for the third time in a week.  If your partner does something annoying but ultimately insignificant, acknowledge your dismay or loss for an instant and then connect right back again.  Try saying something to help put the annoyance in perspective and get back in the game.  You could remind yourself that “she’s worth it,” or “it was no big deal.”  Most of the time you don’t even need to let your lover know he or she has done anything wrong.

— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 199-200