Our Pettiness Is Two-Way (So Is Our Love)

She had an insight that blew her mind.

It was in a recent workshop on How to Resolve Any Complaint. She shared that an area of her life where she had been struggling was in her relationship with her son-in-law. Her complaint: "He shouldn’t treat his wife like that."

She had really great reasons for her complaint. She was justified in her complaint.

We all always feel justified in our perspectives. We then take it one step further and our perspectives become justifications and conditions for who we are being in our lives.

We can be guarded, defensive, and resistant - and have solid reasons for it.

We can be judgmental, arrogant, and angry - and have solid reasons for it.

We can be close-hearted, cynical, and resigned - and have solid reasons for it.

Here’s what the workshop participant realized about her relationship with her son-in-law: she was being judgmental, defensive, and righteous, all the while blaming him for how she was being.

We have so many reasons and excuses for how we’re showing up in life. It's convenient that it’s always due to something out of our control - some external circumstance, some other person, or some fundamental flaw in us.

It’s convenient because it puts the responsibility of who we are being on someone or something other than ourselves.

What this workshop participant saw was that while she was complaining that “he shouldn’t treat his wife like that,” she was treating him poorly! She was judging him. She was criticizing him. She was withholding her love and kindness.

She was limiting her own experience of love, support, and compassion with her own judgmental way of being. She was also limiting her ability to positively impact him and contribute to his life.

In other words: she was drinking a poison and hoping his behavior would improve.

When we adamantly stick to our perspective of the way things are, we hurt not only the other person - we hurt ourselves.

As long as she blamed him for the relationship, she was also treating herself poorly - she set herself up as a victim, she had a small view of her daughter’s ability to stand up for herself, she kept her own love locked up inside.

Our pettiness is two-way. We put on a petty way of being, and we hope that it changes someone else. Meanwhile, we’re stuck with a petty way of being! We do this to ourselves.

💥 When I’m judging my wife as being unkind to me, I’m being unkind to her.

💥 When I withhold my love from my wife or my kids out of some defensiveness or self-righteousness, I lose the experience of love.

💥 When I’m critical of colleagues or friends, I’m cultivating self-criticism too.

Our pettiness is two-way. Our judgmentalism is two-way. Our cynicism is two-way. We sell out on others, and in that very act we are also selling out our own experience of life.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that all the good stuff is two-way also…

❤️ Love is two-way - when I love others, I experience love.

❤️ Kindness is two-way - when I’m kind to another, I experience that kindness.

❤️ Generosity is two-way - when I’m generous with another, I experience the fullness of that generosity.

We humans are complex creatures, but our experience of life is quite simple: who we are being determines the quality of our actions, the quality of our relationships, and the quality of our life. Start with who you are being, and everything else follows.

Being petty gives us a petty life. Being judgmental gives us a bunch of judgments. Instead, try on some of these alternative ways of being with the people in your life and with yourself - unconditionally:

Creative

Compassionate

Generous

Loving

Kind

Interested

Forgiving

Patient

Engaged

Enlivened

Vital

Peaceful

Excited

Committed

Passionate

Powerful

Gentle

Curious

Courageous

Empowered

Inspired

Open-minded

Collaborative

etc...

Thank you for engaging with my work. I’m honored. 🙏❤️

💌 As a transformational life coach, I help people live their best life by breaking through their limitations to feel amazing and create a life they love. If you’re interested in finding out how I can support you, reach out and let’s talk.

The Access to Extraordinary Relationships

Each of our relationships exists in three places. If we modify or alter a relationship in any of these 3 places, the relationship will be impacted.

Mostly, we're unintentional about our relationships in these three places.

Our relationships exist in our thinking about the relationship

I’m thinking about my relationship with my wife, my two boys, my parents, my siblings, my dog, some of my students, some of my colleagues, and some of my former colleagues.

Right now, I’m sitting at my computer typing this blog out. These people aren’t in the room with me, yet my relationships with them exist right here.

They exist in my thinking about them.

My relationship with my 14 year old had been a bit strained early last year. My thoughts about it: He should clean up after himself. He should talk with me as much as he used to. He shouldn't be so much more interested in his friends than he is in me.

I then had a new thought: "Oh, his teenager-hood isn’t just about him growing and changing as a boy. It’s also about me growing and changing as a dad too."

This new thought altered my relationship with him. I felt more positive when I thought about him. I felt more gratitude and love for him and for us.

When I changed my thinking about my relationship with him, the relationship itself changed.

💬 Change how you think about a relationship, and the relationship will be impacted.

Our relationships exist in how we talk about the relationship

When someone tells us about a relationship, we can’t help but form a mental image or imprint of the relationship in our minds. How we talk about our relationships create images and imprints in the minds of others.

How we talk about our relationships literally creates the relationship in the minds of others.

What kind of imprint do you want to leave in the minds of others? An imprint of a complaint, or an imprint of a possibility. An imprint of a judgment, or an imprint of a commitment?

Most of us know someone who only has complaints about their marriage, their boss, their parent, or their child. These complaints affect us. It may make us feel better about our own relationships, it may open up old wounds, or it may leave us feeling sad for this person. Their relationship, as they've described it, leads us to feeling this way.

Their relationship exists in how they talk about it, and it impacts us.

If we’re struggling in a relationship, we can talk about it like it’s a fixed entity - like the other person is a fixed and unchanging person and that we are a fixed reaction to however the other person is showing up.

Or we can create it differently.

"My wife and I are struggling to connect right now, but we’re committed to getting both our needs met.”

"I find myself so frustrated with my wife sometimes. I’m working on being a better partner and loving her for who she is and not simply how I want her to be."

"My boss can be so demanding! I’m grappling with how to do my best despite the pressure I sometimes feel that I’m under. I'm going to talk with her about it."

We sometimes struggle in relationships. We’re sometimes challenged by the people we have a relationship with. We sometimes blame the other person. We sometimes blame ourselves. Regardless how we feel about it, how we talk about a relationship creates the relationship in the listening of another person.

🗣️ Change how you talk about a relationship, and the relationship will be impacted.

Our relationships exist in who we’re being with the other person.

We are human beings. We’re always being something. And when we’re engaging with someone else in the moment, our being is the foundation for the relationship.

Being judgmental, defensive, or selfish.

Being expressed, withholding, or afraid.

Being alone, righteous, or impatient.

Being conditional, bossy, or demanding.

OR…

Being loving, generous, or compassionate.

Being patient, gentle, or understanding.

Being unconditional, unlimited, or creative.

Being present, engaged, or supportive.

We show up those ways in our relationships, and it becomes our experience of the relationship. We become that for the other person.

We always have a say in who we are being in our relationships.

Owning who we’ve been, who we could be, and who we’re committed to being in our relationships determines the nature, quality, and experience of our relationships for ourselves and others.

Mostly we’re unintentional in our relationships. We go with the default way of being. The self-interested, judgmental, fear-based, or desire-based versions of ourselves.

Our relationships are worth more than this. Our relationships are worth our intentionality. If we can be intentional in our relationships, why not be?

🕺 Change who you are being when you're with the other person, and the relationship will be impacted.

Intentionality: the access to extraordinary relationships

Perhaps the level of our intentionality in our relationships is everything about the relationship.

Intentional thinking.

Intentional speaking.

Intentional being.

For myself, being unintentional in my relationships allows my judgments and conditions to take the wheel and steer my relationships to the default destination. But my relationships can be so much more than simply where the winds of my conditioning might blow them.

Being intentional is my access to being in the driver’s seat when it comes to my relationships.

I invite you to be intentional about your relationships too - how you think about them, what you say about them, and who you are being in them.

Don't wait.

Thank you so much for engaging with my work. 🙏❤️

P.S. I help clients break through their limitations and feel amazing. If you're interested in exploring what working with me might look like, schedule a conversation with me today. 💌

Moving Beyond Our Spiritual Cage

Free-spirited.

That’s what most of our young people are. Their energy, vitality, self-expression, and freedom - it's undeniable.

Then, as they get older, we see the doors closing for them in their own minds.

By the time we get through high school, most of us have formed our core identity, the person we’ve become.

That’s just how it goes, right? The free spirit gets caged.

Why? Because it’s dangerous out there! Life is demanding! Responsibility is heavy, deep, and real!

We think that it’s the external world - life and its responsibilities, challenges, and demands - that cages the human spirit. We think that it’s our circumstances that have permanently caged our spirit.

But this cage isn’t built from the material of the world. This cage isn’t built from what’s happened to us or how we were treated. This cage isn’t a result of our circumstances.

This cage isn’t an inevitability.

This cage isn’t even real. It’s an illusion. It’s a mental model of reality that we’ve constructed in response to feelings of insecurity, fear, jealousy, and self-consciousness.

When we were 4 years old and got yelled at. When we were 9 years old and the adult didn't show up. When we were 14 and a group of kids laughed at how we looked. When we were 17 and we said “yes” when we should've said “no.”

At each impactful point, we constructed another wall of our spiritual cage.

For most of us, our cage has 3 or 4 core walls. It keeps us in an unsatisfying job. It limits our self-expression in our relationships. It dilutes our willingness to try. It numbs our ability to love.

We say that “Youth is wasted on the young,” but many of us are letting our own power and possibility of adulthood go to waste.

Now, when we feel emotionally uncomfortable, vulnerable, anxious, scared, worried, or insecure, we back up. We realize we’ve gotten close to the edges of our cage, so we recoil.

We point to the circumstances of our life and say that they’re the problem...

We point to the people in our lives and say that they’re making us emotionally uncomfortable...

We point to ourselves and say it’s our own insufficiencies limiting us...

...because we’ve forgotten that we constructed the cage ourselves.

In moments of insecurity, fear, jealousy, and self-consciousness, we directed our own spiritual energy to build walls of being to protect ourselves…

To not make the same mistakes again.

To not let other people close enough to be a threat.

To not attempt what we might fail at attempting.

To not relax when we’re feeling threatened.

To work ourselves ragged to prove ourselves.

What if there’s another take on this cage? What if it doesn’t need to be constraining, but instead could itself be liberating? What if instead of backing off when we reach the edges, we gently lean forward?

A Gift and a Challenge

The cage is a gift. It’s a gift from our former selves to our current and future selves.

You see, in moments of distress, we created the cage. We constructed our cage out of self-love and self-compassion - we did it to protect ourselves. We designed our cage to keep us safe for the rest of our lives.

We constructed a spiritual cage because we never learned how to be whole, complete, safe, and well without the cage. We thought we needed to protect our spirit from failure, from disappointment, from other people's emotions, from our own scary and painful emotions.

So when we feel ourselves bumping into our cage and we feel its discomfort, when we feel the anxiety of reaching its edges and we feel our fear of the unknown beyond it, we are at our perfect point to grow.

Those are the places our spirit is kept caged and is no longer free. Those are the areas where our spirit is beckoning us to grow, expand, relax, and transform. Those are the limitations our past selves imposed on our current self, and it's up to us to move beyond them.

These situations are the access to freeing our spirit, unburdening our minds, and loosening the limitations on our emotions.

These situations point the way to leveling up who we are being in our lives.

Our cage isn't out there. Our cage is in here. It's made from the energy of our psyche - our minds, our bodies, and our spirit.

And we can move beyond the walls of this illusory cage. We can step into the space beyond the cage. We can love, give, feel, receive, create, experience, and accomplish beyond the self-imposed constraints of our cage.

This is what our soul yearns to do.

Wake up to what's actually happening; step up and own the role you've played and the role you have the potential to play; and liberate your spirit and the spirt of those you care about.

Thanks so much for engaging with my work. 🙏❤️

P.S. If you're ready to say "Yes" to moving beyond the constraints of your self-made cage into a new realm of freedom, empowerment, and possibility, reach out and let's explore how working together can help you do exactly that.

---

My deepest gratitude to the many teachers and guides I've experienced in my life who have modeled, inspired, and taught me to go beyond the walls of my own cage. Most recently, thanks to Michael A. Singer, Byron Katie, and Joseph Bailey for so clearly articulating the nature of our cage and our innate capacity to move beyond it.