See Your Loves More Clearly

With Valentine's Day approaching, I invite you to see your loved ones for who they really are. When we live with the same people for a long time, we often decide who they are and then don't let them change. Yet people change all the time. When we hold them to a certain expectation, they tend to live up to that expectation and grow no further.

It's important to have realistic expectations, but not if those expectations were created 6 months ago. Kids change fast. Your child may have needed help with something back then, but figured it out along the way. You might be feeling exhausted doing things for them that they could be doing for themselves. This is not about throwing them out into the deep end on their own, but rather, planning how you will hand over the responsibility, making time to teach the steps and allowing them to learn something new, feeling the confidence of mastering a task.

Even adults can get stuck in expectations. Lately, my clients seem frustrated that their partner is not sharing the load. Sometimes, this will not change. At other times, we can find ourselves so ingrained in our patterns of doing everything, that there is no way for, nor need for our partners to contribute. Getting clear about how we want things to be different is the first step to breaking it down into ideas which can then be shared with our partners for discussion.

Author, Austin Kleon hits this point home with this quote:

"Love is not mind reading: The culture will try to sell you the idea that if your loved ones really love you they will know exactly what you want and give it to you. ABANDON THIS FALSE IDEA OF ROMANCE! You will be much happier if you tell your loved ones exactly what you want. They can then show their love by doing what they can to get it for you."

BONUS move (from Julie): When you shift your point of view, and decide to move toward change, consider substituting the word WHY for the word HOW. Instead of, "WHY do you always… WHY do you never…," you could ask, "HOW could we make this different? How would it work if you did…"

When we ask HOW, we suggest the possibility to create something new and invite the other person to join us in imagining a new way of being, and of working together.?

HOW will you put this into place in your family?

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