Lessons

Lesson Info

Brain Drain

I'm a big believer in the need to take inventory of our problems before we can deal with them, because until we understand what's plaguing us, we don't know what measures we're going to need to take, to remedy them or how drastic those measures will need to be. That's why the first step in this process is going to be just that. You're going to be compiling an inventory of all of your relationships and how they're going. And it's an honest to goodness, look at that. Look at your life and the full range of relationships in it. That means your parents. You have children it'll be your children, your spouse, your best friend Sussie. The guy in the cubicle at work. The guy you don't know his name, but you see him every morning and he smells like old donuts. Everyone that you have some kind of relationship with, and you should also be thinking about people you no longer have a relationship with, that you used to have. Whether that's an ex or an estranged parent or a former roommate in college...

. Why would be doing this? Well you want to consider the idea that you have years and years and years, of what I would call unfinished business. in relationships, weighing you down, shaping your thoughts, cluttering up your experience of yourself and impacting your experience of being free and having peace of mind. So you can attack this list, and again for the people online, in any order you like. You'll go to your brain drain sheet. And you can start with your favorite or least favorite relationship. So what I'd like to do though is I'd like to ask someone to give me an example of the first relationship right off the top of your head that you've been ignoring or avoiding or manipulating or just define it yourself. Who's got one of those? Who can give me one of those? Just shout it out. Let's go right there, Sarah, what you got? My sister. My sister. My relationship with my sister. Shelly what you got? My ex. My ex. My relationship, my ex. My brother. My brother. My mom. My mom. Deborah. My mom and dad, my parents. Taylor. My daughter. My daughter. Very good what else? One or two more. My boss. My boss. Somebody from the back. What have you got at the back there? What's one relationship from your head? That comes to mind that you'd like to do some, that you think needs a better work on it? My brother in law. Okay great, Karen. Co-workers. Coworkers. Just all of them? It could be. It could be. It could be all of them. Could be right? One of the things that I've noticed in the years of coaching people. People have this amazing tolerance for bullshit. I mean like fantastic, just the most. We'll put up with things like this for years. How many of you had had that issue with somebody in your life for a year? Alright now keep your hand raised if it's two. Three. Five. Ten. You see what I'm talking about? The tolerance for that like. We'll put up with those things, without a peep sometimes. Perhaps it's the other way around. Perhaps for you it's just a series of flare-ups. Then you get to say, I tried. They're still an asshole. That's so good. I'm laughing because I've done it. And then all the while you kind of carry on with your life like it's fine. Like that you pretend that you're okay with it. It's most exaggerated in love relationships of course. So something that initially attracts us to a person, like a winning smile or a sense of humor, or some attractive trait, sometimes a combination of those things. And then at the beginning of a relationship you've your eyes focused on those things that attract you. Very often by the way it's like this vision of a future in mind you've got where this is headed. And then they start being themselves and the whole thing gets screwed. I don't know what happened, they just started being normal. You messed with my little fantasy. So we can't take ignore stuff at the beginning of relationship, step over things. We focus very often on what we want from this person. Oh yeah they're going to fix that experience of myself that I have. And, then is starts to creep in. You know, like they're messy. Clearly that's the end of this relationship. They leave their socks laying around. We should end this. Or maybe they lose their temper easily or their parents don't like you, or maybe they've got bad breath or a fondness for eating boiled cabbage and sardines before they go to bed. Whatever the thing is. When a relationship ends, particularly a love relationship, it's very often due to something that's been there for a long time and tolerated Now again, you can't look over there. You have to look at yourself. What am I tolerating right there? In that relationship. Not like this person's a problem, but I keep tolerating, tolerating, tolerating myself and being in this relationship. We often see people as some kind of pathway to our greater selves. And then at some point they become the obstacle to it. So like you know, this relationship could be awesome. I feel so free around you and then they start doing what they do, and now they'll be the obstacles to your freedom. And there are also in your relationships tons of vague resentments, disappointments angers, frustrations, lurking beneath the surface, of most if not all romantic relationships. They're in all of our relationships, they're in your family and your friends. Some things hardly notice. How many of you notice like you're worst with the people you love? Anybody notice that way. I'm my worst with the people I, I would put up with way more without losing my shit, I'll put up with stuff from a stranger that I would never put up with somebody in my family. How many of you got something like that going on? Right. Those are the things, that you would want start to uncover. And again, some of you have got more than one relationship in your life that doesn't work And this would be the case for those of you online too. You'd want to go back and do the course for that relationship that doesn't work and focus specifically on that. This is an inventory though for the current state of all of your relationships good, bad, big, small. And initially what we aught to do here, is uncover what is it you're ignoring, avoiding, tolerating, neglecting, what you're in denial about. That was a lot. One by one. From your mom to your dad to your best friend to your neighbor. Some of you have a tendency to go on the positive side like this is bad, but it's not that bad. That's your tolerating. That's you not really confronting. Yeah but it's not awesome. Why am I tolerating not awesome? Why is this not ridiculously great? So again, what I'm going to do for participants that are in the course and sitting here with me, you're going to write your top five on your brain drain. If you're online, this list is going to be extensive of every relationship that you are avoiding or in denial about, or pretending. Putting up with. You want to list every single relationship in that brain drain, okay? And the brain drain sheet is the one that looks just like that in your downloadable forms. And I do recommend, if you're participating in this course online, you should print all the forms out. Have them in front of you if you can, it really helps. But for everybody, when you've completed your list. You should look at it and it would be appropriate for it to evoke some kind of response from you like, oh shit. How did I get these in this kind of condition? Should be a sobering kind of wake up call. Should be whole and complete with nothing left out. Like, this is what my relationships are actually like. I haven't talked to this person in a long time. We barely ever talk anymore. My spouse and I haven't told each other we love each other in weeks or months or years. I feel like I barely know my kids. See you guys, one of these days you're going to die. Imagine that happening tonight. And we all have these kind of someday relationships. Some day it'll work out. They really won't. They're not going to work out. What they are right now, what you're writing in that brain drain. That's what you die with. That, in that state. What you have is what you have and it's what you're goin to have unless you elicit some real life change. Everything else is just a fantasy of your resistance. And those fantasies exist in the recesses of your mind, and many of you by the way are facing some of that stuff for the first time in a long time. If not the first time ever. Alright so, does everybody here have their five? Give me a yes if you do. Yes. Alright, give me a no if you don't. Yeah. Alright some of you are late, I'm not saying. So, looking into these dark corners, and bringing them into light, is part of the process. Because we don't live with those things in the light. We just keep putting up with and tolerating and putting up with and tolerating and carrying it around and overcoming it. So that's where we're going to drain it all each and every relationship, one by one onto the page, and again, you guys need your five, the ones that for you aren't working. In the next section, we're going to get into what that's really all like for you. Really. To have that relationship not working. Because one of the things that you do is even what it's like for you, you make that okay too. You tolerate that that's not amazing. And look I'll share with you guys, I've had a lot of breakthroughs in my lifetime, it's actually in the last dozen years of my life. In terms of being related to people and what it takes to get related to people. And I'm still having breakthroughs with that because I noticed there is a massive propensity for me to keep categorizing and putting people in a box. And dealing with them from there. And I need to keep breaking that down for myself. Because I'm a human being too. And it makes life easier where I can just relate to you as a certain thing rather than engage with the effort that it takes and I'll share with you a little thing that I've discovered for myself in my relationship with my wife that was very, very powerful for me. And continues to nurture that relationship. And the the thing that I took on was there is no backdoor. It doesn't exist. And I don't get to talk like there is, there is no backdoor. It's not there. It's not an option. And that's regardless of whatever comes across. I don't care. My view of that now as we'll work it out. But the reality is it's more like, I'll handle myself. I'll handle myself. She's gotta do whatever she's gotta do. She's living a life too. But it's been transformative for me my wife isn't on the hook for the state of our marriage. She's in it. She looks pretty awesome in it. Very awesome. But I'm not going to stand there and look at the garden and blame it for the weeds. I'm a gardener. It's what I took on. Yard work. And all that it's entails. You plant flowers or whatever you plant and you're on the hook for that.