This post arriving in my inbox is soooo timely for me.

Just last week I tried to express to my husband my sadness and despair around the quality of our conversations. We had gone out for lunch and the people we were meeting were an hour late so we sat down to have a cup of tea while we waited. I noticed, for this hour, his attention was predominantly drawn to the screen showing music videos in the cafe. I started to feel resentful. My need for connection and fun were not being met by his attention being elsewhere. At first I self-empathised.

BUT then I noticed my thinking kicked in. Just staying with self-empathy was not enough to change the situation I was not enjoying. I told myself I still needed “him to want to want to communicate with me”.

“This happens a lot. I can’t remember a conversation for ages where he has been joyfully engaged.”

“Why do I have to put all the effort in to starting/keeping a conversation going?”

“The least he could do when we are together is “be here” and talk with me.”

Then came thoughts about

Well, I’ll sit here and wait and see how long he can “not talk to me”

As you can imagine the hour passed with me feeling increasingly resentful, despairing and with a growing sense of disconnection.

What I had not done was envision how I wanted this situation to be and taken control of it myself.

I hadn’t taken self-care to the next level which is actively taking responsibility for getting what I want. I could choose to change my experience in the moment. That is not to say I still couldn’t do with some empathy around all of the thoughts above – and I can take the next step in self-care and make a request for that with some of my empathy buddies (or journal it).

AND I can take care of the moment where I want a nice time with my husband by making it a nice time. Noticing where he is at (tired, distracted, uncertain?) and connecting there first. I could have changed the environment – invited him to come for a walk while we wait (reframe, create energy). Once I connected to my need to take care of myself, in addition to my need for connection and ease,  a number of strategies (more useful than the one I chose) may have arisen.

Please enjoy LaShelle’s posting. I have!

About this talk

Why do people succeed? Is it because they’re smart? Or are they just lucky? Neither. Analyst Richard St. John condenses years of interviews into an unmissable 3-minute slideshow on the real secrets of success.

About Richard St. John

A self-described average guy who found success doing what he loved, Richard St. John spent more than a decade researching the lessons of success — and distilling them into 8 words, 3 minutes…

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I found this sentence inside a blog written by Susan Piver. She was talking to Stephen Mitchell about the difference between positive thinking and wishful thinking.

Susan wrote,

I asked him if, in his lifelong study of the core teachings of all religions, he’d ever come across this idea. I wrote down what he said, because it was so excellent. Here it is:

The teaching of every one of the great sacred texts is that control is an illusion. When you understand that ultimately you are not the doer, you can step back from yourself. That is the only path to serenity.  In other words, letting go of the illusion of control, and realizing that you never had it in the first place, allows you to live in the most dazzlingly intelligent, beautiful, and kind reality that you could ever have imagined—and beyond what you could have imagined.

"All I have to do is relax, to allow the world to dazzle me instead of the other way around."

STOP. STOP READING NOW.

GO BACK AND READ THAT SENTENCE AGAIN AND SAY IT OUT LOUD. TAKE SOME TIME TO PAUSE AND ALLOW YOU BODY-HEART-MIND TO PROCESS THAT SENTENCE.

WHEW!!! What a relief.

An underlying, background striving tension just  slips away and long, deep breaths get sucked into my body where the tension used to be. I’m going to make this my modus operandi for a while.

I am Cheshire-cat-curious about what will come!