Stop Dreading, Do It Differently
Your experience, really, is in your hands.
Last weekend, I had a great conversation with someone. She was off to her partner’s mother’s 80th birthday celebration and was dreading it. It was clear there was a lot of ‘history’ – it pulled her into body tightness, even as she thought about being there.
Together, we talked through how she might make it a different experience than the one she was anticipating.
A small reframe or two later meant that rather than being at the whim of ‘meaningless conversation and relentless small talk’, she was determined to ask the questions SHE wanted to ask, and be the instigator of a ‘deeper nature’.
We came up with two core questions that still would meet people where they were at (likely talk about lipstick and haircuts and the latest events on TV, given the nature of the gathering) but would at least try to move them beyond that into sharing more about their experience and feelings.
The point here is not about what was said or not said at the party.
It was that I helped her see that how she was approaching the whole thing would create the results she was expecting. Now this is a smart woman, with a big heart. But she’d got all caught up in the ‘story’ and the habit of what usually is, that she could not see that SHE was still able to be in control of how the next few hours would feel.
Two questions put her in control of her time at the party, and more importantly helped her stay in the curious zone, rather than the judgement zone. I know she had a better time as a result.
There are so many things we do on automatic, some for the good, some that need to be examined.
The key here is to follow your feelings – if there’s tightness (in thinking or in the body) use that as your barometer that calls you to do something differently. Then return to ‘how do I want it to be’ which will then lead you to determine what questions and/or intention you can set that let’s you stop dreading. Life’s too short to dread.
This week, notice where it’s tight, take a step back and just think through what you want to feel instead, set an intention, craft a question that pulls you out of the ‘norm’ and see what happens!