Resisting Reality Part 2

A real life example/template for dealing with your own shit. 

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Transcript

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Hey, my friends, I want to talk about not putting the key to your happiness in someone else's pocket. I've noticed this in myself, and I think a lot of women get socialized to do this, but we kind of like base what we are allowed to think or feel about ourselves off of what other people say or do, or we want someone to say certain things or not say or do certain things because we think that if they just did things differently, then we would feel differently and there wouldn't be a problem. I do this sometimes with my partner. I did it just last week. He has all these boxes full of his stuff sitting in what we call the game room. It is not actually a game room. It is a storage room for all of his boxes we have just for the last few years, very optimistically, called it the game room. And said that the game room was its future state. Well, I've suddenly, like, become obsessed with working on that room, like I plan on painting it this week, starting with the ceiling, because the previous owners of the house had painted the ceiling green, and I want to paint the ceiling to match the rest of the house. So I had to clear all his boxes out of that room, and I've temporarily put them in our bedroom. And I do not like seeing them in there. When they were shut off in the game room, I didn't have to see them, and it was out of sight, out of mind. Now they're in the bedroom, and they are top of mind. And I was very upset, and I just wanted him to get rid of all of what I see as junk, like old mementos from when he was at school, and old textbooks and stuff like, I just think no one needs this. And I was wishing he could just get rid of it, and I was feeling really frustrated, and I called him a hoarder, and, like, complained a whole bunch about these boxes. And I finally asked myself, like, why do you really want him to get rid of this stuff? Like, why do you care so much? I realized that I wanted him to get rid of the boxes because I thought that our house would look and feel so much nicer and neater and tidier, and I wouldn't be embarrassed if someone saw it, and we would just be happier. I thought we can never be happy if there are all these boxes. And so I was becoming almost panicky about wanting them gone. And so I was complaining about the boxes and trying to manipulate him into getting rid of the boxes, and saying mean things about having the boxes, like calling him a hoarder, and threatening to cry because of the presence of the boxes, and being all dramatic and telling myself that they depress me, and just wallowing and fixating on the boxes. But the result of that was that I was making us unhappy and just using the boxes as an excuse to do so. In reality, the boxes actually have nothing to do with whether we are happy or not. I know that because I have been happy in the last five years, and the boxes have always existed during that time. It is only when I give over the key to my happiness to the boxes that I become unhappy. When I am thinking that I cannot be happy while the boxes exist, I make myself and him miserable. The boxes aren't doing that. I am doing that. It's me. So I have a choice here. I can continue to believe that I can't be happy while the boxes exist. Or I can ask myself what I think I would get to believe if the boxes were gone. Like poof, I got my wish. The boxes are gone. What would I be thinking? I imagine I would think things like, our house is so nice, this is a nice place to live, and I would be happy. But then I'd have to ask myself, What's stopping me from thinking that now? Like the boxes aren't actually part of the house. So why can't I just think that the house is nice and this is a nice place to live? And I realized that the reason that I was so unwilling to let go of the idea that I couldn't just be happy while the boxes were here is because I was afraid that, since he likes to have stuff in boxes, and I don't, it meant we were incompatible. It meant that this wasn't the right relationship for me. So no wonder the boxes are such a big deal. I was giving them both the key to my happiness and the viability of the relationship. That's an awful lot of importance for some boxes. So of course, I was trying to get rid of them. I want to be happy and I don't want to be in a wrong relationship. So I was actually desperate to get rid of the boxes so I could believe that I was in a good relationship and could be happy. The problems come though when we try to control other people, because that doesn't work. Even if someone gives in to what you want occasionally, they aren't always going to, and no one likes to feel controlled or like they don't have a choice. But I was resisting this reality by believing that I could make him get rid of the boxes. We've talked a lot on here about the problems caused by resisting reality. When we resist reality, we don't actually solve our problems. When I'm trying to manipulate him to get rid of the boxes, I'm not actually solving my real problem of wanting to be happy and be in the right relationship. What I should be doing is deciding to be happy and deciding if I want to be in a relationship with someone who likes to have boxes of stuff, because that's who he is. He's not going to change. I have to decide if I am okay with that or not. And do I want boxes to be in charge of my happiness, or do I want to be in charge of my happiness? Those are the things I should be focusing on to actually solve the problem that I'm having. Trying to control the wrong variables is often a side effect of resisting reality. And by wrong variables, I mean things that are not actually in our control. And anytime you try to control something that you don't actually have any control over, like other people, it is a guaranteed recipe for frustration and misery. And we almost always do this when we think we need other people's permission to think and feel the way that we want. That is when we try to manipulate and control other people. Because you could want your partner to stop treating you badly so that you could believe that you are someone worth treating right, or you could just believe that you are someone worth treating right and not stay with that person. But if you think you need your partner to treat you right in order for you to believe that you are someone worth treating right, then you are going to stay in that shitty relationship and do all kinds of things to try to get them to treat you differently. And it won't ever work, because how they treat you is based on them and not you. It's not something you can control. But while you think you think you need them to be different, you're going to try to and it will be miserable. And I think that sums up how a lot of us were in our toxic relationships. Ultimately, you are going to have to decide if you want other people to dictate how you get to think and feel or if you are going to decide for yourself. For me, I don't want to leave that up to other people. And the objection a lot of people have right around here is that they can't just think or believe something else. But you actually can, and I have a technique for that. If you would like to learn that technique, you can use the link in the show notes to book a session with me, and we can go over it. All right, my friends, until next time be well.