Former Community – We Moved
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Bel's thoughts
Quote from Matthew Whitewood on October 25, 2023, 8:36 pmQuote from Bel on October 25, 2023, 7:58 pmThree/four weeks ago, I went with my parents to the bank for the inheritance matter.
And after I had told my mom on the phone to not play any moves this time, my dad still made a joke to try to provoke me in front of the bank director.
Which I handled by totally ignoring him and continuing to talk.
After we came out of the bank, my dad was crying - no doubt for having "lost control of his son".
It was the second time that this dynamic played out.
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My mother phoned me yesterday to invite me to have dinner with her and my dad, after months I didn't talk to them (apart from the "bank episode").
I refused.
I told her "I'm not going to come to dinner with you two. Leave me alone".
And I hung up.
A part of me is proud that, for the first time, I didn't justify, I didn't give a motive, and I didn't plead with them - which in the recent past, only gave way to an onslaught of gaslighting.
But another part of me is very sad.
I cannot tell you how much I resonate with your post.
My father and mother would complain that I don't want to meet them.
But I feel so much healthier without them in my life.A part of me is proud that, for the first time, I didn't justify, I didn't give a motive, and I didn't plead with them - which in the recent past, only gave way to an onslaught of gaslighting.
But another part of me is very sad.
I think it's healthy to be proud of drawing healthy boundaries to protect our emotional well-being.
I would feel proud in a similar situation as well.At the same time, sometimes our family members disappoint us.
The flux of emotions can be challenging to handle.
Thank you so much Matthew for your kind message.
It's heartwarming that, at least for the moment, this is the healthy choice.
I only just read your post Bel and it really struck a cord.
I'm really glad to hear that you're putting your emotional well-being first and foremost, as difficult as it is distancing oneself from ones parents.
Stay strong, stay healthy - keep the eye on the ball of your own life.
Quote from J Les on October 26, 2023, 1:47 pmI only just read your post Bel and it really struck a cord.
I'm really glad to hear that you're putting your emotional well-being first and foremost, as difficult as it is distancing oneself from ones parents.
Stay strong, stay healthy - keep the eye on the ball of your own life.
Thank you J Les, I assume you're in a similar situation, so to you as well.
Touching back
I was at the supermarket and bumped into a guy.
He was with his girlfriend.
We both looked at each other and said "Sorry", then I turned around and started going.
But, just as I was going, after I had turned, he touched me on the back.
So I turned around, and touched him on the arm.
Then I went away.
I returned my landlord's will, that I was keeping for him as a favor, to my heavily power-moving landlord.
When I texted him to inform him, he replied "Thank you" and nothing else.
I finally started to rebalance this landlord-tenant relationship as well; and, more rebalancing to come if needed.
I have a hunch today that my continuing to put "I remain available" at the closing of my work emails is an unwitting (continued) mistake.
While so far I toned down the lenght of the statement and even eliminated it sometimes, I continued to put it there in specific cases.
But now I think my putting the sentence there, even in those specific cases, was just an insecurity on my part.
Because:
- as an external lawyer, it's just implied that I am available and interested in further work
- thus, putting it there in writing subcommunicates I fear not being "called again" at the end of one project.
I believe I'll start experimenting with removing it altogether.
Cooperative emotions vs confrontational emotions?
Yesterday I had a bit of an argument with Bella in a store.
She was asking for my opinion on some Halloween props, and what I liked didn't coincide with what she liked or thought was appropriate for the situation she had them in mind for.
I felt her getting a bit irritated, and I felt that her irritation was unreasonable: she had asked for my opinion, and I had given it to her.
EDIT: True, when I felt her irritation, I thought the reason was that my opinions didn't coincide with hers, and I started getting a bit more "flexible" in my opinions on the items she liked. This was probably a mistake.
But still, all the thing felt unreasonable from my perspective. END EDIT
Later, I spoke with her about it.
She told me this:
Bella: What I was really looking for, was for you to say something like "Don't worry, it's just this store that has nothing good. Let's get out of here".
This got me thinking.
While her question to me was "Do you like this? Or this?", the real question was "Can you hold a higher-level frame for me where you take charge of this situation?"
In other words, thinking out of the box (which is something that so far has always been very difficult for me) could have been the real solution.
This got me thinking to all the situations which I could have resolved had I been able to think "out-of-the-box".
TPM also teaches that most times the real solution is to reframe the situation in a cooperative way, for example when a woman is confrontational.
Which is exactly what was happening in the above instance.
I guess it's a skill that so far I've not developed enough.
EDIT: By self-reflecting on this, I realize that my real mistake here was assuming that her irritation was due to the fact that I liked things she didn't like.
So I unconsciously tried the "solution" of modulating my "likes".
But I assessed the problem wrong.
What I should have done was probably to surface the irritation and the cause, which could have led me to address the real issue:
Me: Babe, I feel you are starting to get a bit cranky. Is there a particular reason for this?
Bella: Yeah, you're right. This store has nothing good and the party is near.
Me: Let's get out of here and go elsewhere.
This solution requires treating Bella's moods as "cooperative emotions", not as "confrontational emotions" toward me.
I guess this is an important mindset shift.
In other words, one can maybe learn to consider the moods of a woman as an unconscious guide to better the relationship for both, instead of taking them for "challenges to leadership or manhood".
Just a stub post to maybe explore in more detail later:
At a certain point in the path, one can shift from "I need to identify and avoid assholes" to "I let assholes self-extract out of my life".
The shift is from
"I need to do something to avoid being played"
to
"I always check disrespect and abuse, and treat everyone as he or she deserves. And if one bad person keeps pushing me, no worries, soon he will self-select out of my life since he'll not like how I always put him in place".
Quote from Bel on October 29, 2023, 9:55 am(...)While her question to me was "Do you like this? Or this?", the real question was "Can you hold a higher-level frame for me where you take charge of this situation?"(...)
BOOM! Bel, this here alone made me review every single relationship I've ever had. Thanks for sharing, man, invaluable post!
Thank you for your kind words, Kavalier!
