I was recently talking with one of my kids about quitting. They were unhappy in a certain situation and had all the reasons why. I listened as they explained and when they finished I said, I totally get it. I wanted to quit on you and your sibling more times than I can count.
The easy answer anytime we are challenged is to quit or walk away. That said, if you can come back to me with a list of reasons that have nothing to do with everyone and everything outside of you, a list that is not blaming anyone else, one that is owning your decision, I'll reconsider.
Of course, this got me thinking about dating and relationships, my divorces, our knee jerk reaction to blame the other people and not take responsibility for our feelings. Tune in todays episode, Emotional Edging where I share a few tips and practices on how to feel emotional discomfort and not react.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome back to another edition of The Sex is Great… It's the dating that has us questioning everything. Plot twist this week! I'm not talking about sex or pussification. Sad, I know! But we are talking about feelings, which is another one of my favorite F words. So yay for us. More specifically the feelings that you have when you're uncomfortable and want to change the entire world outside of you, the people, the places, the things that make you feel this discomfort.
And you want to change it because if everything outside of you would get just right, then you would feel just right.
I was talking to my child recently and they're attending their third year of college, but they're doing a double major. So they have five years total and they're just not into it right now.
And I won't bore you with the details or speak on their behalf, but to summarize the conversation, it went something like; the school isn't doing this; I don't like this; I'd rather do this.
I listened, and I listened some more. When she was finished, I said, Look. I totally get it. I can't tell you the number of times I wanted to quit on you and your brother and on being a mother because it was hard; because I didn't like it; because I'd rather be doing like, I don't know anything else, but you know what?
You just, you just got to persevere. You got to hang in there.
And I did learn this lesson, this insane, crazy lesson of what it is to put in time doing something that you don't maybe want to every day. As a parent and as an individual who committed to actively parenting and showing up for them day after day when I didn't think I had it in me.
I think that's the biggest thing. It wasn't just that. I think we all have those days. Yes, I don't want to do this, but more than anything, the challenging thought was, I don't even think I have it in me, like the energy and the exhaustion. That thought would happen, but in my mind, there was never an option to leave.
Despite the absolute frustration and running on empty, and yes, the very real disappointments when my sweet, sweet babies would lie to me or betray my trust, I learned to let go, not hold these things against them and truly forgive. And in many ways I look back and I'm like, man, those little fuckers, they broke me, so to speak.
And because of it, I'm a much different person than when I started. And I mean, I think that happens with anything over time, but I didn't have that experience in my romantic relationships. My marriages were. My two marriages, the time from beginning to end of being together up until divorce, were both seven years probably.
And when the going got tough, this girl got going, I'll tell you. I didn't have the, ‘there's not an option’. I had oh so many options in my mind.
I do believe though, and this is what I want to talk about today, that there is a way to quit things and end things or walk away from relationships, jobs, school, what have you, that is clean and it's okay. This is what I told my child. When it's not because of anything or anyone outside of you. You are done.
Not done because the professor said this or didn't do that; or the work is not interesting; that things aren't going your way; it isn't easy.; there's frustration. I believe that we can reach a place where we know that the experience or the relationship that we are in, has completed itself.
When we're not abdicating our feelings and blaming the external world for our problems. When you have reached that place, and this is what I said to her, then you can talk to me about it and I'll listen again.
It got me thinking a little bit more on the subject as it pertains to dating and being in relationships because all those uncomfortable feelings that start rising within and the instinct is to get the people outside of us to do or behave in a particular way so that we can feel comfortable and/ or not want to quit or leave.
I was thinking about all of the conditions, the many, many conditions that we place on the people that we're espoused to, along with the plethora of unspoken expectations invisibly lobbed onto those around us, all so that we can feel good in any given experience and again, just stay.
That if this person would call me, I could feel happy.
If this person would want what I want, I could be at peace.
If this person would just take out the trash, I wouldn't have to be mad at them or my marriage.
If they would just do their part. I wouldn't want a divorce.
If this person would just fill in the blank, I wouldn't have to feel fill in the blank.
And rather than sitting with these feelings of not hearing, not getting, having to take out the trash ourselves, we exert this energy towards the other people. We make these attempts to engage them. We make demands on their character. We begin to spiral and ruminate about it all when we are not hearing from them.
Why they don't want to be with us. We insist that they show up differently. Some of us kind of try and contort ourselves to be someone we're not in hopes that they will want to maybe show up differently. We manipulate and move all the pieces. Attempt to arrange everything and everyone. And then we blame the world for how we feel.
We blame ourselves for not knowing how to be in a relationship and question what's wrong with us for not being in one. In addition to not wanting to feel what is when life is presenting us with sad challenges or any negative challenge, really, we don't want to experience it.
We're greedy little creatures, aren't we?
Give me all the good, but not the bad or the negative or the uncomfortable. There's this sense of entitlement that I don't want to say we, I shouldn't speak on behalf of the collective, (I can certainly speak on behalf of myself!) I have or have unintentionally lived from, that bad things should not be happening.
Okay, a lot of us believe this. I do feel like there's a collective ‘bad things shouldn't happen’ belief. People shouldn't be this way. We're meant to be happy. When things get hard. We get resistant, avoidant, and sometimes a little self righteous. We're constantly judging circumstances outside of us as good or bad, and the thoughts that create the feelings within us drive the actions.
So, again, those are those basics, right? Circumstances are happening and those are totally neutral- until each of us individually has a thought about them. Once we have those thoughts, here come the feelings and those feelings are what fuel your actions and create your results.
When we're in relationships and dating and things aren't going our way, there is this sense of conviction.
This shouldn't be happening. Why is this happening? This should not be happening.
And the brain wants to offer solutions that are, you know, very, very straightforward. Quit, leave. Use words to make this stop. Stop them. Forgetting that the brain is always going to go right there because that's an easy answer.
In the ‘absolutes’; yes, no, leave, stay, black, white. It's seek pleasure, avoid discomfort and be efficient. The brain is, if you're not accessing your imaginary tool in there, it's not going to be very imaginative and come up with a lot of solutions. We don't consider that the resistance to feel the feelings that are coming up as an indicator that growth is close or that the negative feelings can exist and not fuel our experience.
We can pause in the pain before taking any action and just allow what is. We often can't see that we are focused on everything and everyone outside of us. We are unable to focus on what's going on inside of us and see our role in any given situation and take responsibility for our part in the experience.
We can’t accept that we are choosing much of the drama that is being created, masquerading as victims to others behaviors, and taking delight in said drama because humans. Frankly, we're bored otherwise.
It's never, I met a guy and it wasn't a fit.
My husband didn't take out the trash, I did.
I texted him and never heard back.
I left.
That job wasn't for me.
I'm done with that.
It's never that simple or straightforward. It's sentences at the start that turn into paragraphs with all sorts of beautiful descriptive adverbs and adjectives detailing a plot worthy of primetime TV.
I mean, honestly, can you imagine yourself telling somebody that you left your marriage and you simply just said, I was done.
When anyone asked, you just kind of half smiled and responded, It completed itself. And the feelings in your body matched that language. The texture had a neutrality to it. Perhaps a contentment. There's just no story or drama.
I believe the person hearing it would hardly be able to handle themselves. They would just be like, wait, tell me more! Who decided? What happened? They would want to know who was at fault, right?
I remember when I wanted out of my first marriage, oh god did I ever want to, I would actually fantasize about this person having an affair that would have just been so awesome for me- and this is a little Diversion right now from what we're talking about -but it was me trying to control the outside world because I was so uncomfortable in my marriage. I didn't know how to resolve for that or own it. So my thinking was if this person would just fuck up or do something, then I would have a excuse I could be like, oh, yeah!
No, he had an affair! Oh, you guys, it was, it was bad. We had a yoga instructor and I think I was like, low key trying to set them up! Sort of, you know, just planting seeds like, Oh, I saw the way you two were talking... Like, it seems like you really get along!
This was my husband and I'm just like praying he would have an affair. Which he never would have. But me me wanting to leave for me was not enough. I had to have something- I couldn't just quit. It had to be, he caused this.
Even though ultimately I did leave. The irony being now that I can see like the laundry list of reasons that I had could have absolutely been worked through.
I can see very clearly how the things that I accused him of doing to me, and listen, at the time it did feel very, it was very true and he would agree if he was alive. He would be like, yeah, no, I was totally controlling of her…
but what I didn't see was just how controlling of him I was, too.
That's what is just so wild to me now that. I'm able to look back at both my marriages and see my role. Him trying to control me and have me act and show up in a certain way that wasn't in alignment with how I wanted to be.
AND I WAS DOING THE SAME THING!!! I was trying to shape him into someone he wasn't. Be a man that he wasn't. The more he didn't do what I thought he should do, the more I demanded of him. I needed him to be different so I could be happy in our marriage. I needed him to believe what I believed, make as much or more money, work this way, work out with me, be with the kids, eat this food, talk this way, dress in these clothes, accept me, how I dress, how I act, how I want to do, what I want to believe. You need to do all of it.
All my focus was on him, with the exception of the moments when I was making it about me. And my God, all the words coming out of my mouth at the time were like, you're trying to control me. And I'm like, here's your slim fast. So ridiculous.
What I did was manipulate. Tried to manipulate who he was and when he wasn't willing or able to play the role I wanted, I insisted he didn't get me, wasn't for me, and that this relationship just wasn't going to work.
Similar theme did play out in my second marriage, but that time around not only did I do all the above, but I then would take my grievances to my friends and talk about how shitty he was.
Can you believe this? I would ask and they would reply, I cannot. Then we would just like, pour wine down our throats.
All of my energy was spent trying to resolve and control everything outside of me, when the real work and repair was an internal job that I ignored. Completely ignored it.
That's that's self righteous part I'm talking about. I was also laughing at myself, which I do often, over the fact that I would walk away from one partner because they were making me, quote unquote, maybe miserable and instead I opted into dating lots and lots of people who also made me miserable and I'm like, huh?
So I could have just had like, one person bother me for my entire life, but instead I have opted into just like a whole bunch of different types of people bothering me inconsistently. At least if it was one person, by the time I probably had finished my first cup of coffee, I'd be fucking over it.
But you know, this is what you learn when you're out here on the streets. So it's like, who really needs 31 flavors of ice cream? It's all fucking ice cream. It's all fucking ice cream, you guys. So, the real joke is, it has little to do with the other person. The miserable person here is me- or you, we are what needs to be worked on...
Brooke Castillo from the Life Coach School, as you know, I'm obsessed and went through it, love her, teaches that we all have this thing called The Manual. Think about a manual for your espresso machine or any sort of like operating equipment, it lists all the things you need to do or not do to make sure that it's operating at an optimal level. If you don't do certain things maybe it won't turn on or maybe it'll break or possibly electrocute you.
She says, her definition,
A manual is an instruction guide we have for someone in our lives about how we would like them to behave so we can feel good and be happy.
We generally don't tell the other person what's in our manual. And we usually don't even realize we have it or see the pain it causes us. We feel the other person should just know what to do and how to treat us. And while it may seem justified to have expectations of other people, it can be very damaging when your emotional happiness is directly tied to their behaving a certain way.
That's good. That's good. I wish I'd heard that a long time ago. The reality is, I think we all know, hardly anyone is reading operating manuals. We're a little too busy adding to and editing our own and controlling the people outside of us. When we drop our manuals though and forget about how others should be acting, we kind of get our power back.
I know it sounds counterintuitive, but let's go back to the basics. I already said it once bears repeating. We say it in almost every episode. Our feelings are caused by our thoughts. What people are doing outside of us has little to zero effect on us until we think about it and assign it a meaning.
No one can actually make you feel any certain way. When we believe they can we give our power over to them. When we tie our happiness and our emotional well being to the people outside of us or the circumstances, we set ourselves up to be let down. It is what they call a disaster!
Yes, we do have people in our lives that want to and can bring us happiness .But can they honestly do that and sustain it 100 percent of the time?
Absolutely fucking not. Should we expect that of other people? Absolutely not. I want that so desperately- for someone to just be like, let me make you happy forever.
But what's so cool is that I don't need somebody to do that because I can, you can. It's not someone else's responsibility to make you happy.
It's yours, only yours. And that’s great news! This doesn't leave you at the mercy of other people or your circumstances as the world goes around and around and around. You get to decide what happiness means to you and control your thoughts of what is happening and what you're making it mean. Does this mean you're going to choose to think great thoughts all the time and be happy?
No. Impossible. What I want to do is offer that you practice keeping things as factual as possible. The good old all math, no drama approach. And I want to offer that you sit with what you're experiencing emotionally until it's neutralized before you say anything to the other person before you quit.
Before you air any grievances, meet your edge and get edgy. When thoughts like, they shouldn't be acting like this, this shouldn't be happening, they shouldn't not have done that to me. When those things come up, pause and watch the emotional patterns that are flaring up. Just stay there and surrender to what is arising in that moment.
Is it uncomfortable? Yes. Are you going to want to run? 100%. Sit with it. Let it play out eternally, internally, not the thoughts. Don't keep thinking all the thoughts about the stuff, but just the emotions and be with them. Give them some time to dissipate without taking action. Let them neutralize before you take it up with the outside world.
It's really, really amazing. And it's honestly like probably just going to last a couple of, look, they say one thought can produce a feeling that lasts, it lasts on average 90 seconds. That's not long, but we are thinking the thoughts so quickly that you're probably looking at 10 minutes to an hour. Then sometimes some of these things are a bit bigger.
It could be a few days, a few weeks. I recently had something happening in my life that I, I had so much to say. I had so many things to say and I didn't say anything. And I waited weeks. And I sat with it and the, the emotions that arose in the beginning were that of like, I'm going to let them know that this is how that is.
And I was like, bitch, you're going to back down for a second. You're not going to let anybody know anything. And there was just this oomph in my body like, Oh, like take, like go, go, go. And I didn't. And after a day or two, I was like, wow. Okay. So it's shifted. And then it became less and less. And God, was I grateful that I sat on it and that I pause and I just let myself feel what I needed to feel while this person did what they were doing in the world.
Cause I wanted to be like, you need to stop that. Here's what you need to do. Because I was feeling It's, you know, little, little loss of control there. And when we finally had the conversation, it was, how do I say, quite revealing of my character, um, in a good and bad way, because I allowed for this. person to come to me.
That was good. Uh, and then I got to hear what they had to think of me. That felt bad. But again, I just sat with it and listened and I didn't try to control their narrative or what they're saying or my narrative about me to them. And it was a really incredible learning experience. Um Even though it was uncomfortable, but by meeting that edge and sitting with it for as long as I allowed myself to do that, I got to know myself just a little bit better and I didn't cause a bunch of drama and disruption, like further disruption and discord between this person and I.
And I was able to keep a sense of peace for myself. From the start to the converse, from the start of like, I want to say something to listening to this person. A few weeks later, I was able to create peace for myself in there. And that is what this is really about. Y'all like, I'm not suggesting here that.
We become doormats and that, um, we don't have boundaries, but you'd be surprised how much of what you want to air as grievances are not boundaries. It's about us trying to control what's going on with the people outside of us because they're making, we are convinced they are making on us.
We want to poke holes in our stories when things are coming up, but kind of like interrogate yourself, question yourself, is this true? Is this thought true? Do I, is it possible I'm missing something? How can I know for sure? When we start to feel this discomfort internally with what is around us externally, and again, like I said, you're going to want to quit, control, or rearrange the circumstances and the people, places, things.
That's your, that is your indicator right there. Call it your red flag, like, oh shit, I have some work to do on me. I need to put a pin in it. Now, does this mean like you're just supposed to suffer? No, a little bit, but there's a lot. It feels like suffering because you're uncomfortable, but there's a lot less energy going on when you're not when you're not trying to control outside of you and exerting it that direction.
When we just start to accept the fact that we can't control other people and we just start feeling the feelings and remind ourselves that these are our thoughts and perspective on this situation, we gain clarity and when we start accepting that our life is not going to be good all the time and it's going to be half bad, we get to drop this resistance and feel into bloom.
What is a very normal part of being human and then we can allow for things to rise and process. We can focus our energy on the one thing we can control ourselves. We can drop the manuals and make or take a u turn. Meaning don't focus on the thing outside of you. Turn around. We don't blame anyone for us wanting to leave or quit anything.
We want to take responsibility. We're not defaulting to being the victim of our circumstances and other people. That's not the story that we want. It's not empowering. You want to own your decisions. You want to be willing to experience your edges of discomfort, that somatic rockiness that comes from challenges and commitments that you've made.
Just admit that you're challenged and you don't have to do anything. You don't want to, that you can be done with something and someone just because you are no explanations.
No excuses.
That's actually a possibility and that's the hardest part. I think for people to to Embrace is that I don't have to do anything I don't want to I have absolute sovereignty and autonomy in any given situation But can I own that and I think what comes up for a lot of people is?
You're not sure if you're gonna be able to own what that feels like or own that I walked away from this person and taking the responsibility for it. That's why we want to abdicate and blame others because then we don't have to be responsibililty if things don't work out. That it wasn't our fault.
And the last thing I'll say about this is that when you stop to consider what it looks like to control other people, what you're doing, and then imagine people doing that to you, is that not just the worst feeling someone trying to control how you act.
What you say, blaming you for their emotional state, for how they're perceiving a situation. I think we can all agree. It's not cool, right? And we forget we're all adults. We're all adults. We get to do what we want. We get to say what we want. We get to feel how we want. When we come back to that and we just, when we flip it on its head, like, Oh shit, this thing I'm doing to someone else, if that was me, Oh, that would be horrible.
I would not like that. I would not like that. So that's what I have for you today. That’s my final little piece about that, and I hope it was helpful. Until next week, if you have any questions or comments, slide into those DMs. You can find the full transcripts for this on the sub stack on my column.
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You are experiencing this on the occasion of they're not doing the thing. I would need them to do to make me happy My agenda is not working out so that will be there for you. All right until next week. Take care!
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