Becoming Journey

Bush or Ghandi

We just had an evening coaching session - about 2 1/2 hours long. What we did was we broke off into pairs and coached each other. We had to ask the other person: Why are you overweight? And then we had to ask them Why to the first 5 answers they gave. Like this:

"Why are you overweight?"
"Because I eat too much."

"Why do you eat too much?"
"Because it distracts me from how unhappy I am."

"Why are you unhappy?"
"Because my relationship is not working out how I hoped."

"Why is your relationship not working out how you hoped?"
"Because I expected us to get along and see eye to eye more and we don't"

"Why don't you see eye to eye?"
"Because - well for one thing he thinks it's okay to fight in front of the kids."

"And? Why is that wrong?"
"Because everyone knows you shouldn't fight in front of the kids."

Okay - so that's your belief. Everyone knows you shouldn't fight in front of the kids. You take that and ask these 4 questions...

Is this true?
Can you be sure?
How do you act/feel when you think this thought?
Who would you be without this thought?

And then you turn it around... So in this case the turn around could be.
Not everyone knows your shouldn't fight in front of the kids.
And ask if that's true or truer.. judging by the number of people who do fight in front of their kids, this is probably true as well.

The whole goal is to change your belief systems and it's great - in theory. But in practice, man is it painful. Brooke went for the jugular tonight. This girl was talking about how she gets home and she's tired and she should really tell her kids to clean their room right when she gets home, but she waits and then it gets late and then she gets really mad at them and then she gets mad at herself for getting mad at them.

Brooke said that when she doesn't have them clean their rooms at 6pm, she shouldn't. Meaning - if it didn't happen, why argue with this past. It's 8pm now - late or not - start from here, do you want them to clean their rooms or not. I questioned this because I said, sometimes you do make mistakes and you need to reevaluate your decision. In this case if what she chose wasn't working I think she is justified to be mad at herself. She SHOULD have had them clean the room earlier.

And that's when she went in for the kill... but why have the fight with yourself when you can't win. It won't fix this situation and it won't fix the future either because being mean to yourself doesn't tend to make you correct your behaviors. Correction happens through love, peace, and acceptance, not war.

Who are your heroes... she asked me. Ghandi I say, King. Who do you act like more Bush or Ghandi? You keep sending troops into a war you can't win. When are you going to cut your losses and try peace. You've always got your fists up for a fight. Man did she have me there.

Peace. Peace and not war is the way to effect change in your life and in the world.