I wish you'd just...

“I wish you’d just ________!”

How often have those words been uttered? If I’m being honest, they’re almost always followed by “so I can ________!”

“I wish you’d just _______, so I can ________.”

Generally that second fill-in-the-blank is filled with “feel something else,” i.e. feel something different than what I’m feeling right now.

So if we’re being brutally honest, this could easily be translated to

“I want you to do something different than what you’re doing right now so I can feel something other than the discomfort I’m feeling.”

Oof.

How easy it is when we are in the midst of discomfort to look outside of ourselves in an attempt to find something that could be changed in order for us to feel better.

Trouble is, this creates two issues….

Firstly it does a disservice to whomever we are interacting with and invalidates their experience in that moment. Our own experience becomes more important than whatever they are thinking or feeling right then.

Secondly it seeks an answer outside of ourselves for a solution to how we feel. However, as the quote goes, “Happiness is an inside job.” If we can find our own equilibrium separate from others around us, then that frees us to relate to another’s experiences without being sucked into their feelings.

It’s like the weather. One does not get angry at the breeze for blowing against your face. No one asks the breeze to change who it is or how it is behaving in order for you to find your own comfort again.

I suppose you can, but it would be futile. It is equally futile (and honestly, an act of violence against another) to demand that they change their behavior in order to improve your own sense of well being.

So the barking dog, the rambunctious cat, the spooking horse. They’re all free to have their own experiences. And if we don’t enjoy it, then the best first step to take is to evaluate how we can find our own equilibrium first before making a request that they make a shift in their energy. It might be surprising to find that as soon as that happens, then everyone else also finds their equilibrium, too.