Episode #10 - The Manual

In this episode we talk about the Manual- the unspoken rule book we have for people in our lives.  When we realize we don't have to change people so we can feel better,  we can let go of the expectations we have for them and improve our relationships.

 

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Transcript:

This is Betsy Jensen, and you are listening to Unstoppable Body and Mind—Episode 10–The Manual.

 

In this podcast we learn to upgrade our brain and understand the power of our thoughts, to heal and to create the results we want in our life. Become the person in control of your healing and make peace with your life.  Become unstoppable, body and mind.

 

Hello, and welcome to Episode 10, where we're going to be talking about the manual, maybe a new topic for you, but hopefully one that you find very informative and an empowering way to look at the world and your relationships. So last week, we learned about relationships—that they are basically all in our head. Our relationships are the thoughts we think about other people. 

 

In this episode, we're going to learn about how something called the manual affects all of the relationships in our lives, including our relationships with ourselves. Now you may be wondering why I'm taking these Life Coach School concepts and interspersing them with this podcast about mind, body and healing. How does learning about relationships affect our body or our pain or disease? 

 

Remember how feelings like stress are created—all of our feelings are created from thoughts. So the neuronal activity in our brain causes the release of neurotransmitters or hormones, things like cortisol or dopamine, and these have physical effects on our body and cause physical changes. So one consequence of being in an overstressed state for too long is that the cells get overtaxed. As they replicate, they're not creating the quality of cells because they're being overused and the demand is so high. So this causes premature aging of the cells and the body. There are studies that show that hormones like cortisol cause inflammation in the body and a lot of diseases are linked to inflammation. In fact, the current treatment for inflammation is often anti inflammatories. We kind of have this band aid approach:   We’ll just give you an anti inflammatory to fight the inflammation that's there. But when you look at people more holistically, and understand that the brain can cause those emotional or physiological changes, that's what is called psychosomatic when emotional or psychological factors affect the body physically. 

 

I was first introduced to this term by my friend who is in DO school, becoming a Doctor of Osteopathy. And she told me that ulcerative colitis is a psychosomatic disorder, as are other autoimmune diseases. And I was kind of surprised because nowhere from the doctors or the medical care system that I had been treated by did I learn anything about it being psychosomatic related. So that's when I began reading The Divided Mind by John Sarno and began this journey of discovery.

 

In 2014, Juvonen and Graham did a study on bullying and they found that victimization led to emotional distress as well as health problems. Some of the common psychosomatic symptoms associated with victimization include headaches,

stomach aches, experiencing a higher frequency of illness such as colds and sore throats. So emotions like stress and victimization can lead to physical symptoms of inflammation and disease. 

 

If you're having feelings of stress and victimization in regards to your relationships in your life, then chances are you have a manual for these people. So what is the manual? And how does it affect how we think and feel? Basically, the manual is this kind of rulebook that we have for people in our life. And it's all the ways that we expect them to act. So we could have a manual for our boss, that he should treat us nicely and give us days off when we ask. We may have a manual for our friend, which may include things that friends do or don't do, like calling certain times or not speaking certain ways about you. We have manuals in our minds about how good people should act or how good moms should act. But really, adults can act however they want. And this is sometimes a really difficult thing to let go of. 

 

We talked about it last episode:  When we are trying to get people to do things to make us feel better, that's actually considered emotional manipulation. So not only are we trying to manipulate someone to do something they don't want to do because of how we think it will make us feel, it also is a very disempowering thing to do because we're putting all of our feelings and our future in the hands of other people who can often not fulfill our needs exactly how we want them to. That's the manual. 

 

And most of the time, we don't even tell other people what things are in our manual. So a lot of us want to say, “If my boss were different,” or “If my husband or wife just did these other things, then my life would be better.” We may have a manual like, “If my husband really cared about me, he would help with the kids without being asked.” And we don't even share that information with him. We have this expectation that he essentially read our mind and know how we need to be taken care of to feel a certain way, when the truth is, we take care of our own feelings by managing our own thoughts. 

 

Have you ever really tried to get someone to do something they don't want to do? We start acting like a really crazy person. And have you ever been successful at it where you get someone to do something against their will, and how dissatisfying it is when they do it, but don't really want to be doing it. For example, if I wanted my husband to hold hands with me more, and I told him this, and I kept reminding him that I wanted him to hold hands with me more, but he didn't want to for whatever reason. So he does try to do it because I keep asking him to and he begrudgingly holds hands with me, it's not going to be nearly as satisfying as if he just wanted to do that on his own. In fact, I probably would not be satisfied, and that is what I would want him to do next, is to want to do it on his own. So we get really crazy trying to control other people when we think that that's how we need to act in order to get our needs met. 

 

Here are some examples of statements that you might hear in someone's manual:

She should invite me when she has a party.

She should write me a thank you note. 

Family should be supportive. 

She should listen to me for as long as I listened to her. 

He should not interrupt me. 

He should tell me he loves me. 

He should buy me something special on my birthday. 

He should know what I like. 

She should want to go to the movies I like. 

He should make more money. 

He should spend less time at work.

He should spend more time with the kids.

He should take the garbage out without having to be asked. 

 

So these are just a few examples. Many of us have very thick, very intricate manuals. We probably don't even know all of the things that are written in our manuals. It's kind of like playing a board game with my kids, where the rules are constantly evolving. And there's this exception or that exception that I'd never heard of. It's like these house rules that just keep us continually dissatisfied. 

 

The problem with the manual is we make it mean something if someone doesn't follow our manual, so if someone is late, it means that they are disrespecting me. Or if they are not complimenting the meal that I made in a genuine way without being prompted, then it means they don't appreciate the work I've done. Part of this is just how we're taught to view relationships. I know that I was definitely taught that when I was in a marriage, I would try to fill that other person's needs as much as possible. But in real life, it's hard enough for us to just take care of and satisfy our own needs without having to worry about filling someone else's needs as well. 

 

Have you ever been in a relationship with someone who's very needy, and wanting you to do a lot of things, and if you don't, making it mean stuff? It's exhausting! It's not fun. But if both people in the relationship realize that they're both responsible for meeting their own needs, then they can just meet in the middle and support each other and love each other and have fun. 

 

I had a personal example once with someone who watched our kids and we had texted and said thank you and it was close by, so the kids just ran home when we got home. And we didn't realize until later, a few days later, that this person was very offended and basically felt taken advantage of because we didn't walk over and shake his hand and say thank you in person. Now, we definitely would have done that. Absolutely. It would have been no problem. We just didn't even have it on our radar or realize that it was in this person's manual to be expected to be thanked face to face and with a handshake.

 

So you may be wondering, does this mean that we never request anything from anyone? And just let people be who they are with no expectations? And my answer to that is you can absolutely make requests of people. So in making a request of someone realize, again, are you doing this to try to feel a certain way? Are you asking your husband to take out the garbage because it will show that he loves you, especially if he does it without being asked? Or are you just asking him and if he doesn't do it, you also don't make that mean anything personally about you, or judgmental about him? We should make requests that we are willing to do ourselves. So if he's not taking out the trash, and we're very angry and upset about it, maybe we could ask ourselves why we're not willing to do it in the first place. 

 

When we put our emotions in the hands of other people, and make it depend on what they do or don't do for us, then they often won't fulfill the things we want them to do and the way we want them to do it. And so we set ourselves up for this negativity, and then we actually end up blaming the person for our feelings, and giving our emotional credit and our emotional life to someone else. So if you're feeling victimization, or if you're blaming someone in your life, that's a good clue to you that you have some kind of manual about this person. 

 

Now, if you are a parent or a boss, you might have some expectations of your children or your employees.  You may be confused, is this part of a manual or not? In fact, one time I heard a woman who was being coached, and she said, “You know, I'm just really torn because I have this nanny, and she keeps arriving late. I just need to not have this manual for her, and to stop feeling so resentful towards her for being late.” And the coach said, “Well, actually, as a boss, you can have those expectations of people. And you can have a rule that they not be late, and a consequence if they are late, but you don't make it mean anything personally about you.” 

 

And that's the same with parenting. You wouldn't make it mean something. If your child doesn't clean their room, it doesn't mean they disrespect you or they don't love you. Them not cleaning their room might have a consequence. But it's not linked in any way to your worth or your value, or their love for you. 

 

I coached someone once who had a manual that her children shouldn't fight. And this was a very painful thought to her because children do fight. And every time her children did fight, she made it mean that she was a bad mom. And the way she acted when her kids did fight was kind of crazy because she was trying to control them. When she realized she had this manual that her children should not fight, it was actually very freeing for her, because she could see examples in reality of how children fight—in her childhood and on TV. And all around, you see that, in reality, children fight and that there's no way she should make that tied to her self worth, or her value as a parent. Now, this doesn't have to mean that she allows her children to fight as much as possible, and she condones it and she never consequences it. It just means that she's no longer blaming herself, putting herself in a place of shame, and guilt and unworthiness about it. 

 

Imagine what your life would be like without having any expectations of people to fill your needs for you. You could make requests if you wanted to, but there would be no strings attached. And if the person did not fulfill all of your requests, you would not make it mean anything. And you're not expecting the person to do that so you'll feel a certain way about them or about you.  I love this quote:  “Your response is your responsibility.” You would focus only on yourself and your own behaviors that you can control. 

 

Wouldn't that be a great way to live, ideally? I think you'd be surprised at what people will do when you aren't trying to control them, when you allow this base where people are able to just feel like their true selves, and they feel safe, then you might see them actually starting to do some of those things that you've been nagging them to do more spontaneously. We’ll find that we are much calmer when we don't make people's actions mean something negative. You can try to understand the other person and why they do or do not behave in certain ways and really come to appreciate the relationship with them more and not try to control or manipulate them. We can hear them out, and we might understand why they do certain things rather than just pounding our fist over and over on our manual of how they should behave. 

 

Back to the example about holding hands:  If you are expecting that your husband hold hands with you as a sign of love, and that if he doesn't, it means, of course, he doesn't love you, and he's embarrassed to be seen with you. But say you try to understand from his perspective what's going on and you find out he doesn't like holding hands because his hands get very sweaty and clammy. And he's self conscious about that.  When you know that love is a feeling and it comes from your own thoughts, and your relationship with him is just your thoughts about him, then you can stop expecting “him” to act certain ways in order for you to feel loved. The feeling of love actually comes from how you think about him. And maybe with this new information you've gained, you're kind of glad your husband isn't a hand holder. 

 

If you have what you would describe as a difficult relationship with someone, you probably have a manual about that person—a pretty thick one. Consider maybe how you felt if someone has really wanted you to behave in a certain way against your will or what you haven't wanted to do. And you do comply. How do you feel? Usually we don't feel great if we're forced to do things. Think about, is that really the effect we want to have on other people? And the way we want other people to act, even if it's just for us and against their own will?

 

Now, how do we let go of the manuals we have? Of course, the first step is always just to notice. Notice those relationships that we have, where we have manuals, notice where things could be a little bit smoother, where we might be judging or having expectations or making things mean something about us. Are we wanting people to act a certain way so we can feel differently? 

 

Here are some thoughts to think about, and I suggest writing down these questions and answers. If you find yourself with a situation where you think you might have a manual, what do you want the person to do differently? Write down all of the things, all of the ways your ideal husband would act, or if your boss just acted this way. What do you want them to do differently? And why? How would you feel about this person if they did all of those things? If you could wave a magic wand and they were the perfect boss, the perfect husband, the perfect wife. And they did all of those things perfectly for you. How would you feel? How would your thoughts about them change if they were this perfect version? Would you want them to behave this way, even if they didn't want to? What do you make it mean when they don't behave this way? And lastly, when someone wants you to behave in a certain way to make them feel good, what is it like for you? 

 

So look around your life, look around your relationships, and see where you might have manuals for other people or for yourselves that are not working. Remember that if you're feeling feelings like judgment, victimization or blame, because of your manual, these types of things can affect your health as well. So it's worth it to start discovering where you have manuals and start taking your control and your power back. 

 

Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned a little bit about your brain today that helps you in your life like it helped me. Please be sure and subscribe and leave a review. And, of course, be sure and share this podcast with someone you know who wants an unstoppable body and mind.