She should not have left me.

She should make up for what she did.

She should know better.

She should stop trying to impress everyone.

She should stop acting like a victim.

These were some of the thoughts I had about my mom for over 20 years.  Everything my mom did, I felt annoyed and frustrated by.

I was busy spending my energy living in resentment towards her because I made her actions mean that she abandoned me.  I made it mean that she didn’t love me, that I wasn’t good enough and that life was better elsewhere.

By thinking these thoughts, I gave my mom a life sentence to make up for what she did and to make me feel like I was good enough.

I wasn’t even aware that I was draining my own energy when I had these expectations for her.  She had no idea that she had to fulfil these expectations in order for me to accept her as a mother.  But then again ‘she should know’ right?

Who in your life ‘SHOULD’ behave in a certain way in order for you to feel better?

As soon as you notice yourself use the word ‘should’ about another person, you have a manual for that person.

What is a manual?  A manual is a how-to ‘make me feel happy’ guide that we have for other adults in our lives.  It is a set of instructions on how the other person must operate in order for us to feel good.

It’s an unspoken set of rules that the other person should ‘just know’.

You might have a manual for your husband, father-in-law, colleague or best friend and you might not even know it, until now.

Why do we consistently choose to feel powerless unknowingly?!

Somewhere along the way, we were taught that other people cause our emotional well-being and that we have the power to make other people feel a certain way by how we act.

We were told:

‘Don’t hurt her feelings.’

‘Leave him if he doesn’t make you happy.’

‘You are causing her to be upset.’

These beliefs do not serve you and the only person suffering from it is you.

Other people cannot affect your emotional well-being until you have a thought about their behaviour which then causes you to feel bad.

When you believe that another person is the problem and needs to change in order to make you feel better, you are wasting our energy and giving your power away.  

What you are making it mean is that the other person can control how you show up in your life.

• Is that the result you want?
• Can another person control how you think, feel and act?  
• Can we control how another person thinks, feel and act?
• Would you want someone else to do something they don’t want to do and to do it just to please you?
• Would you want to do something you don’t want to in order to please someone else?  

You can tell them what you want them to do, but whether they do it or not is beyond your control.  

They get to think, feel and act however they want to as long as they are not invading in your space and physically hurting you.

You get to think, feel and act however you want to as long as you are not invading in their space and physically hurting them.

You are you.

I am me.

You do not get to feel my feelings for me.

I cannot feel your feelings for you.

You get to choose what you want to think about the way I act and I get to choose what I want to think about the way you act.

If you think differently, you are only drowning yourself in misery.

How do you gain your power back?

The most freeing thing you can do for yourself is to drop these manuals.

You don’t have to condone what they do, just decide to send them love and compassion anyways.

As soon as I dropped my mom’s manual and chose to think that she is human just like me, living in this human experience that we get to be part of and whatever happened in the past was supposed to happen as part of our journey, my thoughts about her now causes me to love her more than I ever did.

I show up so differently in our relationship now!

However you want to feel about the other person, you can choose to feel it now without them doing anything in the manual.  The option is there for you.

If you are tired of feeling stuck and going around in a vicious cycle of emotional rollercoaster and you’re ready to create positive results in your life.  Invest in yourself and book a complimentary Spark Session with me and I will guide you how.