Coaching with LDS values

Episode 68 Expecation Pain Welcome to the podcast. Loving on purpose. I'm your host, Bonnie Lyman. If you're having trouble navigating through your relationships with your adult Children, if you are struggling to connect with them or having specific challenges, you're in the right place, you're listening to Bonnie Lyman and this is episode 68 Expectation Pain. Hello. Hello. It's another week. So glad to be back with you if you're new to this podcast. Welcome. Welcome. I would like to read a little review I got from a listener the other day and it's from somebody B Rockfield. I don't know if I pronounced that right. But that's what it says. And this is what she or he so kindly said, Bonnie, I have loved your podcast. You have made it seem attainable to have a more positive relationship with adult Children. Your unwavering belief in the power of the thoughts to improve your relationships is inspiring and I know isn't it, isn't just talk, you've done the work in your personal life. Bravo? Well, Bravo, for you for being so kind and for posting a review out to the world to see if you can even, subscribe. Follow. There's a little check mark at the top of the beginning of the latest episode. If you can give me a rating or review, it just helps the algorithm, it just helps it getting out to more people. And I just want to help as many people as I can. So today we're gonna talk about expectation pain. And as a parent, this is really the root of expectation thoughts. I guess you could say is what causes most of our pain and our struggle and our unhappiness in the type of relationship we're having with our adult Children. So I'm, we're gonna talk about it a little bit why it happens. And then I give you, I think 11 steps to how to change that, how to change those thoughts, how to change that part of your life that you can have a more fulfilling life still may not be exactly the relationship or the connection you want with your adult Children. But you do have to believe you can have any kind of relationship that you want to have. Because all feelings come from thoughts in our minds. When we were parenting our Children in their teens, we were warned that there might be some tumultuous times and nothing though is ever spoken of what the trans transition would be like in becoming a parent to those teen Children when they became over 18 or whatever when they became adults. I my husband always jokes around that he hasn't quite decided to grow up yet and he really hasn't decided what he wants to do with his life. And hey, he's in retirement Those people out there, those parents of adult Children that have no issues and those that have struggle have all one thing in common. They all have at least one expectation and you'll see what I mean by that. And that is the ultimate of where we want to get to is to have only one expectation, not only just of our adult Children, but with our spouses, with our siblings, with our friends, with everyone, it really makes life a lot simpler and a lot more satisfying. So when we have expectations and they are met, we feel pretty content and peaceful. But when they are not met starts feeling pretty bad. We start feeling hurt and resentful and unimportant and disrespected. And when they are met, we don't even realize it half the time and we almost take it for granted that life is good. Life is good with our adult Children. We feel hurt when our Children are not being good at what we think they should be doing. Let me say that again, we feel hurt when our adult Children are not being good at what we think they should be doing. But it's kind of a natural thing that we do because there's disappointment, there is judgment comes in orders some other hurt feelings. We maybe are feeling important. We're feeling disrespected. We're, we're feeling let down. We're sometimes even feeling guilty. But, you know, there are times where we have some unmet expectations that perhaps causes some hurt, some sadness, but it's more of a clean pain. And I'm thinking about, I never expected that my child would become addicted to drugs. And so we are sad. We are sad that they are having to deal with such a difficult thing in their life. We, some of us may take the blame that it was something we didn't do. Now that gets into when you feel guilty, it's kind of a, an unhealthy pain. But when we're sad that they're having to live this kind of life then that, that goes down, compassion and empathy and those are, those are good feeling feelings. So we've heard the same before and I'm getting ready to get on an airplane in a couple hours. Anticipation is greater than the realization. So I can remember a time. Well, well, first of all, let's just talk about this trip. It has been so kind of exciting. It's perked me up knowing that I was going on this trip today. And you know, the more we blow that up of how great it's gonna be sometimes it's not that great, but I just kind of bask in the anticipation because I'm going to Arizona and if it rains every day and it's colder than it's here in Spokane, the anticipation is gonna be the best part of the trip because I'm gonna be disappointed. And so let's build up that expectation. Let's just enjoy en enjoy the journey perhaps before it happens. So, but if it was to go and rain every day, that's not near as disappointing as an unfulfilled expectation that I maybe have about a family relationship or the type of life I thought I would be living right now. The closeness that I would be having with my family and my adult Children when they got to be this age, when we have, it's when we have expectations. It's the thought of how we think things should work out just like I think that I wanted in the high eighties, I think because my phone tells me it's going to be in the high eighties. But as we know what COVID taught us all, not everything goes as smoothly perhaps as we expected. So, but that's real relatively unimportant. I call that a first world problem but expectation of what behaviors we think our adult Children should be having and then they are not working out that way or life with my adult Children as I expected. It is completely different than I thought. Some good, some maybe not so good. But, you know, it can, it can be disappointing or just, downright painful. We all have manuals four, how our adult Children should behaving or what family life would, is supposed to look like when we're all adults and it's just kind of like the manual that we have for our car. I just got a new car a year ago, January and it has a very thick manual and it's like when this happens and this happens and this happens, then it's time to go get it fixed. There is something wrong. So, just like we have manuals for our car, that kind of tells us what to expect that when I push this button, it's going to heat up my seat. And if I push that button and doesn't heat up my seat, I can go take it somewhere and get it fixed. But we can't do that with people. We have no control, we can't fix anybody but ourselves. So one of the things we may have in our manuals is they should return a message to my texts and return my phone calls or they should be reaching out to me first once in a while they need some fixing. Because in the manual, my manual says my adult Children will respond to all my texts and answer my phone calls and at least half of the time they're going to take an interest in me and just reach out to me and just wonder what's going on in my life. We know we have a manual when we think it's someone's behavior that is causing us to feel unimportant or resentful when we have a manual of with all the items listed of this is what an adult child should be doing. We're only hurting ourselves when we are hurting over how we are being treated by anyone. It's because we think we know because our manual says this is how they're supposed to treat us. So here are 11 steps to try to get out of this way of thinking, to manage our thoughts so that we feel more of the way we want to feel about our relationship with our adult Children than how we don't want to feel. And the more expectations that we have or the more they wander away from not doing that thing, we want them to be doing, the harder the work is to get rid of those expectations. But I think I have some ideas that are gonna help you. Number one is acceptance of reality instead of thinking everything's gone wrong. Let's start thinking nothing has gone wrong. How about if we just thought it's just different than how I thought it was going to be. We're not going to be as close as we once were. I had a client that told me the other day. So how do you feel about your progress and letting go of these expectations? And she said, well, I'm having a really hard time because I want our relationship to be the way it was used to be. Now, she went through a real trial with her daughter. It was something major but even if that hadn't gone on, it's never going to be the same because we are dynamic people that age where we live circumstances in the world is changing all the time and it changes our viewpoint on the world and on our relationship, it's not supposed to be like the relationship you had when they were younger and it's not even supposed to be like the relationship you had with your family when you were the adult child, which you still are, but your parents are probably quite a bit older and you can see the change how that has changed. It's, it's just different or our family isn't supposed to be like the family down the street. Like when they have a family dinner and everyone comes or all different people from different backgrounds, we have different brains. There's different dynamics brought into the family because of how they were raised and society, everything is different. Nothing is like what it was when we were young, just starting our families and the relationship we had with parents and maybe even grandparents. It's important. Number two is, it's important that you be aware that you have a manual of expectations of how things should be because it's that manual that is hurting you. Your kids don't have the power to make you feel anyway. It's all between your ears. Manuals are for cars and appliances, not for people.So becoming aware that you are the creator of your suffering is a huge step in being able to let go of these expectations. If you are the creator of your suffering, your suffering comes from your thoughts about your children's behavior, not their behavior. So if we change the thoughts, we change the feeling. So you know what you need to do, write all those expectations down if you want, if it makes you feel good, do it, but then water it up and throw it away. The next thing is you have to believe that you can find peace and contentment in your life without having these expectations met. Even if your whole picture changed of what your family was gonna look like. You can still live a very happy life. But you have to believe that it's when you hang on to the thought that no, until I am given more attention, until they call me, start calling me first. Once in a while, whatever your expectation is, once you can get rid of that, then you take your power back to live the kind of life you want to have, your power comes from your thoughts. And so any good thought, any helpful thought, because there are no bad thoughts, any helpful thought you can think that helps you feel at least peace and contentment. When that happens to me, I give all credit to the spirit for helping me think of those new thoughts. K number four. Like when we feel any feeling that we don't like feeling. We have to be willing to feel it for a while. Don't run away from it. Don't try to avoid it, don't resist it. We have to be willing to feel some discomfort in life because if we didn't, then happiness wouldn't feel so happy. Number five is when you're thinking things are not going right, that it's all wrong. Don't blame yourself for something you did or didn't do. Remember this idea of agency. Yep. They get to choose to act any way, say anything, do anything they want. Number six is be better at making request if you like it that your Children just drop by the house when they're in the neighborhood. Reinforce that I always tell them, oh, I love it when you just drop by the house or you take the first move. Hey, do you wanna go out to dinner tonight? Do you want to get together and do something? But you make the request. They can't read your mind as to what you want. I have a lot of clients say, yeah, that's what I want, but I want them to do it all on their own without me having to ask just an expectation. Setting yourself up for disappointment. Number seven is to think. New thoughts. Here's some, maybe I was wrong. Maybe it's the perfect amount of time that we spend with each other. Maybe it's all going exactly as it's supposed to. And I think this is powerful. It's just different than what I thought it was gonna be. Number eight. Focus on what you do like about the relationship. Start writing a new story about how your family x when you get a bunch of adults together or if some don't want to get together. Number nine, I look at this as an opportunity to love people just as they are because we're not gonna start loving our Children. They are our Children. But there's some, we have some pretty high expectations of these kids because they are our kids and it's very personal to us.So what a great opportunity when they're not doing those things you thought they would be doing or should be doing to love them just the way they are. Whenever I get in a discussion with somebody, usually someone I don't know and I tell them I'm a life coach. I help moms that are struggling in their relationships with their adult Children. This is what they often say to me. Oh, my mom needs to talk to you. I wish my parents would just accept me for the way I am. Number 10, work on being a better you and you do that by throwing away the manual about what you think they need to fix about them. And number 11, you are allowed one expectation. People are basically good. People think people are really good at being themselves, let people be themselves. The only thing people need to do is to get good at being themselves, not being good at being new or your friend's child. That is so respectful and kind and does everything she wants him to do. The one expectation you need to have is people need to be good at being them. I am able to love more people to be less resentful of my adult Children since I've been trained to become a coach. It's one thing to be taught what's causing a lot of our pain. But it's another thing to know how to apply it. This leaves no excuse for abuse. If you are being severely emotionally abused or harmed, that is inexcusable and that is not to be tolerated and that is not your responsibility to fix, but to figure out what you need to do to protect yourself when we get upset or judge our kids when they are doing or not doing what we want them to be doing. We are actually chasing them away because they feel rejected by us because we are not accepting them for just the way they are giving space to a child who needed some space from me. I had to do this once because for some reason I triggered in them grave discomfort, I triggered in this person thoughts that cause them to feel this discomfort. This particular child had to fix her own issues, but I had to love her enough to be willing to not take it personally. So that I could give her or Him the space to heal and figure out their life, loving unconditionally when we get no feedback is difficult. But remember, love is the reward we give ourselves in the production. Lame is a Rob to love another person is to see the face of God. And I can't think of a more wonderful feeling. It's going to be when that happens in my life, but it can be happening right now. Share this episode with somebody that you think will help throw away your manual, take control, be responsible for feeling the way you want to be. Don't turn that over to any circumstance because you will not get the result that you want. I hope you have a good week. It's been fun talking to you and I'll see you next week if you like this, be this episode and you felt it was a benefit to you. I ask you to share it with somebody that perhaps it could also benefit. But if you're still feeling kind of stuck in that you don't know how to apply what was talked about or where to start on, on changing your thoughts on changing your perspective on bettering your relationship. Get on a call with me and we can have a discussion and I can tell you how to apply it and where we start and then you get to decide what you want to do about this relationship that maybe you're struggling with, with your adult Children. There is no reason to go on the rest of our lives, struggling with our relationships with our adult Children. Let's assume the best. Let's assume that we all love each other and we're just trying to figure out how to maintain our own boundaries and respect another ones, but I can help you with everything. So just go to Bonnie Lyman dot com and book a call. I can't wait to hear from you. .