The Joy Formula for Better Relationships, with Mary Schiller

Hello. Hello, this is Mary. Can you hear me all right? I haven't muted everyone yet, so feel free to wave or give me the high sign. Hi, Ingrid. I just unmuted you, Ingrid. Okay.

Oh, maybe I should have earphones. I'm back.

Hello? Hello, I can hear you. Yeah, that's much better. I will leave everybody's mics on for a minute here till we start. Hi, Juliette. Hi, Lois, Leslie, Gavin. Somebody's named Family. I don't know who that is, but welcome. How is everybody?

Fine.

Yeah, good, thanks. Good, good. And you? Pretty good, pretty good. It's very gloomy here today, as it was kind of yesterday. I feel like we're back in winter here in New York.

It's the same here in Denmark.

Really? It's cold. Yeah, it's been really cold here. Really cold here. I'm worried about the flowers that are trying to bloom right now. They're all going to get frostbite. Hello, I see somebody joined by phone.

That's me.

I'm trying to figure out how this whole thing works. Oh, Lois. Yes. I don't know. Did you get the, the link to click on? I clicked on the link and I can see you, but my microphone isn't working and I don't know how it works. Okay, well, we'll just have you on the phone then. Okay. And I see someone there named Dan, Joel, Debbie. A few familiar faces here. Iris. All right, give people about another 60 seconds and then I'm going to go ahead and start. Laney! Good to see you. Okay, I guess I think I'll start at about 1 minute after. Hi Shirley. All right, I am going to go ahead and get started. I think the first thing I'm going to do just to make sure there's not a lot of background noise is just to put everybody on mute but I'll unmute you later in the conversation so this can actually be a conversation and not just me yapping. So I'm going to go ahead and mute everybody. And I will just start with a hearty welcome. I'm so happy to see you all here to this conversation about how to have better relationships. And for those of you who don't know me, I'll give you a little bit of an introduction. My name is Mary Schiller. I'm a coach and the author of The Joy Formula: The Simple Equation That Will Change Your Life. I have a website called thedailyprinciples.com where I publish a daily audio lesson about what I base my coaching on, which is something called the 3 principles. And at the end of this talk, I'll give you some information about a couple of ways that you can interact with me. But I want to make sure and let you know that if you want to have a personal conversation with me or you have a question for me that you'd rather ask offline, you can always email me at mary@thedailyprinciples.com. So with that out of the way, I will get started on our talk. Welcome to all the new people joining. Just so you know, I have everyone on mute, and I will unmute you a bit later after I've done a little bit of an intro so that you can participate. If at any time, those of you who are on computer, you want to ask a question, feel free to type it into the little chat box. You'll see it at the bottom of your screen. You can type it in there, and I can be sure to see it and answer any questions that come to you as we're going along. So I'm going to assume that you're all here because there is a relationship, or maybe more than one relationship, in your life that you wish was going a bit better, or has been a struggle for a long time, or just seems kind of stuck in one place, or you seem to have the same kinds of feelings about it that you've had for a while and you're not sure how to move forward. If that's so, maybe you can wave at me or type something into the chat box so I know that I'm not alone in that. I'd like to start by sharing a little bit about my own personal journey with discovering a better way to fix relationships that are having difficulties. So a few years ago, my— Juliet says a handful of relationships she has, she wants to correct. So a handful of years ago, I was having a real problem in my marriage. My husband and I got married in 1997, and we had a bit of a rough go right from the beginning. Because of some circumstances that were beyond our control. And we kind of just never recovered from that, it felt like to me. And when it was around 2007 or so, 2008, when I realized that we were in deep trouble, like things were just not going well at all, I felt very distant from my husband, Jeff, and I felt like we just weren't connecting really in any way. There just seemed to be a growing divide between us, and I couldn't figure out how to jump over it. It just kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger until I think it was the end of 2011. We decided to separate because we had just gotten to a point where There was no communication. There was no, no real intimacy. I didn't understand him. He didn't understand me. We were just at a complete breakdown. And what I didn't know at the time was that he was suffering from what they typically call dysthymia. It's a form of depression. They say. That's sort of a low-grade depression over a long period of time. So that was contributing to it. And at the same time, I myself was still having difficulties with post-traumatic stress disorder from my first marriage. So the two of us together were having a lot of difficulties, and we were about as far apart as two people can be. And it was quite sad to separate and to feel like that was really the, the only option that we had. I couldn't really figure out what to do other than just say, let's just part company for a while and see what happens. And so we separated and things got worse. They continued to deteriorate. And I remember just feeling so incredibly helpless. I was like, you know, if we eventually have to divorce, I at least want us to be on good terms because He's the adopted father of my daughter and I want us to have a good relationship. And it was just kind of this big snowball thing that was happening. It felt very much out of my hands and I was, I was very, very distressed by the whole situation. So at one point I decided, well, I think I want him to move back in and see if there's anything that we can do. I don't know what that will look like, but I just want him to move back in. And so he moved back in, and things sort of were very tentative, like we were kind of walking on eggshells around each other. And we started going to see a therapist together, and that kind of helped, but not all that much. And then in 2014, as many of you know who are familiar with me, I came across what's called the 3 principles. And I won't go into great deal about detail about what those are. But I started to see, as a result of starting to understand a few things differently, I started to see my husband and myself very differently. And that's— I wanted to on this call share with you 2 or 3 things that to me seemed really, really key in mending this relationship because since 2014, so about 2+ years, we've really continued to reconnect with each other so much so that it's hard for me to even remember how bad things got. And they got pretty darn bad. I was looking back this morning at a diary I kept while we were separated, and I was in a very, very bad emotional state then. And I really can't even relate to it now. It seems like that was some other person who was having those kinds of tumultuous thoughts and feelings. And while we still have a ways to go to be where we would like to be, I can tell you that it's been a pretty quick turnaround, all things considered. We went from a place of not just being separated, but arguing constantly and me screaming and yelling and literally throwing things. He was so angry, to now we are working together in a business. We're both volunteering on a big project together. We're making some fun plans for our future. And things are, are really in a good place, at a good place for us. And I've also shared this information that I'm going to talk to you about with people who are dealing with all kinds of relationship not just spouse, but in-laws, friends, colleagues, boss. So it kind of applies across the board. So the first thing that I wanted to share that became very obvious to me when I started to gain this new understanding was that my husband's behavior was not a reaction to me. I went through, and I mentioned this in an email that I sent out, but I went through probably 2 or 3 years at least when I thought everything my husband did or didn't do in my regard was a reflection of me and that I was somehow responsible for his behavior towards me. I was responsible for changing his behavior towards me. For all kinds of things. So like if he forgot to do something that I had asked him to do, I thought it was because of me, you know, that he was reacting to me in some way. And the same was true the opposite way, where I thought all of the feelings that I had and all of the distress that I had, I attributed to him and to our relationship. And on the surface, that seems like a pretty normal thing to think, right? Like, we're having trouble in a relationship, and so we blame our feelings on the other person or on the relationship itself. And what I started to see— so you're probably all going to laugh right now, but that's the point— was that looking at my feelings that way of thinking that the relationship was causing them or he was causing them made about as much sense as blaming it on a toy. It literally was that logical because what I started to notice was that my feelings and my— and all the stuff that I was going through I could have all those feelings whether I was in the same room with Jeff or not. You know, like I would walk through my entire day feeling upset and miserable. And I started going, wait a minute, like he's not even here right now. And I'm feeling this way. So something is amiss, like something is funny here. Like how come I'm still feeling bad even if I'm not talking with him? And I started to see even more clearly that— and this was even before I came across the Three Principles— that oftentimes when he was speaking to me, it was as if he was talking to a version of me that he had created. So I don't know if you've ever had this experience before where somebody is talking to you. Maybe it's a significant other or somebody really important in your life. And it seems like they're not talking to you. It seems like they've got some other idea of who you are. And they're talking to that instead of talking to you. So to kind of summarize that, it was like, okay, if I'm feeling this way, and my feelings aren't coming from the relationship and aren't coming from Jeff, per se, then where are they coming from? And it wasn't until I started to see the principle of thought, as it's called, that I started realizing that I was really causing this inside myself. And that Jeff, aka this stuffed toy, had nothing whatsoever to do with how I was feeling. And it took me probably, honestly, about a year to really see that in relationship to him. Because like he would do something, I would feel annoyed or frustrated, and I'd have to take a step back and go, wait a minute, it's my own thoughts I'm reacting to, not to what Jeff is doing or saying or not doing. And I really, I can't overemphasize what a difference just that bit of insight made. I can give you another example from somebody I've been working with for a while where she's had a rough relationship with her mother-in-law, and just recently they had somewhat of a health crisis in their family, and the mother-in-law was having a very strong reaction that in the past would have really bothered this friend of mine. And since we've been talking about this and talking about the fact that other people can't make us feel a certain way, when she looked at her mother-in-law's reaction that normally would have upset her, she said, "All I could see was what she was doing to herself and how much distress she was causing in herself." So there's a real It's— this is hard to put into words, but it's a very full-bodied understanding that starts to come forth when you see that nobody has the ability to make you feel anything. This brownie bear doesn't have the ability to make me feel anything any more than my husband does. So my husband's actions weren't hurting my feelings or making me feel better, you know. There was nothing about the relationship that was making me feel a certain way or not feel a certain way. Everything I was experiencing was coming from within myself. And so it allowed me to take a step back from all the things that looked like problems and really ask myself, is that a problem, or is it just the way that I'm thinking right now that makes it seem like a problem? And as a result of that, I started to see my husband with a lot more compassion as well, because I could see that when he was upset, he wasn't necessarily reacting to me. He was reacting to what his own thinking was telling him in that moment. So I'm going to just pause right there because I would love to find out if anybody has any thoughts or comments on what I've just said. And if you're on the computer, you can raise your hand if you'd like to ask a question. So I can see you. If you're on the phone, I can't see you ask a question. Maybe I'll try unmuting everybody unless it's really noisy. Here we go. We'll try. Okay, I've unmuted people. Does anybody have a question or comment about what I was just saying? Anybody? Yes, Ingrid.

I don't have a big problem, but it's my teenage son who doesn't pick up socks, and all children, they don't pick up socks. It's very common. It's not bad, but it's irritating on a daily basis that they don't pick up after themselves. How does that play together? Because that's a— I have to do it.

Yeah, so I'm gonna go ahead and mute everybody, but I'll answer that because it actually leads into the next thing I wanted to talk about. So thank you. So the next part of what started to happen for me and seeing my husband differently was that I started to see that nothing was ever going to really change in terms of my behavior and in terms of his behavior unless we started to see the relationship between thought and behavior. So You know, if, like, this applies really to anything. If I want to change a behavior of mine, let's say that I eat too much or whatever it is, I can have all the information in the world that explains why it's not a good idea to eat too much. But until I have new thinking about food or eating, my behavior will never change. So in terms of a relationship, let's say it's a child or, or somebody that we're close to who we wish they would behave a different way because we just, you know, either it's for their own benefit or we find it annoying. It's a way of understanding that unless that person has an insight into why that change is important for them, it won't change. So the question for me then became, all right, if I can't change my husband's behavior by nagging, which I did a lot. If he were listening on this call, which he might be, maybe he's snuck in here listening, but he would tell you that I used to nag him quite a lot. And I still do occasionally. I catch myself doing it, but not nearly as much. It's never going to work because somebody will— they might take the bait temporarily, but unless they understand from a very deep place that that's something that they really want to do, their behavior won't change. And the way to facilitate that kind of insight is really, to me, the big question. So If we're in a relationship with someone who we have to deal with regularly and they have some things going on that we would love for them to change, there's a couple ways we can look at this. We can either say, you know, "That annoys me. That behavior annoys me," is thought-created. Okay? The behavior is like this stuff toy. It can't make me feel something. So anytime I have a thought about someone's behavior, it's a thought. It's not based on the behavior. So that's the first piece to kind of see. And the second part is the way to effect change, at least as I see it in a relationship, is to get very clear on what I was speaking about earlier, that the person themselves is not doing anything intentionally towards you, that it's coming from their own thinking and not from anything you're doing. And because we can see that, this is the biggie for me, we can create a very nonjudgmental space for them to be in. If I'm no longer looking at someone as the source of my problem, If I'm no longer seeing them as a difficult person in my life, because instead I can see them as someone who's simply reacting to their own thought patterns, my heart can just open up as wide as the ocean to them, because I can see that they're not doing anything intentionally to hurt me or to annoy me. Or whatever the feeling is that you're having. That's all coming from within me, just like everything that they are doing is coming from within them. And I honestly think that this was the piece that really started to transform my relationship with Jeff. I started to not look at him as someone who was intentionally trying to make me feel bad. Or someone who was intentionally even trying to hurt himself in some ways. I saw him as someone just like me who was reacting to the thoughts he was having and who was simply behaving in accordance with that. And I have to say, over, like I said, over the course of about a year, I think it took me to really get that with him. I started to feel a lot more generous towards him and a lot less like I needed something from him because it just wasn't so. It just wasn't so. That was simply the way I had been seeing things before. So I'll open the questions up again. To see if anyone has a thought about that. Anybody have a comment about that, about sort of this idea that once we start to see where people's behavior is coming from, and knowing that it's coming from thought, that really the best thing we can do is give them a space of not being so confrontational and not so judgmental and not so nagging. Because that's not going to help them with new thought coming in. It's just going to keep reinforcing what they're already thinking. Yes, Juliette?

Yeah, I've a bit of experience of that with my partner, who was quite overweight and was really unconcerned about it, and I think I was able to really kind of not comment, not, you know, nag or say anything. It was just that was how he was when I met him, and, you know, there we go. But then you were saying about, you know, for other people to change, they perhaps need something that challenges their thinking. And in his case, it was a work-related issue that he actually needed to lose some weight for his job, and I've kind of watched with admiration as he's kind of taken up running and changed his diet and, you know, is gradually losing quite a lot of weight. And it was— I've, in a previous relationship, you know, I've experienced, like you, that the effect of that is not very effective, and it's been really lovely to be able to kind of just be supportive but not feel that it's dependent on anything from me, if you know what I mean. I don't— I'm not pushing it or making it happen. He's making it happen because he's decided that he wants to make it happen. Yeah, interesting.

Yeah, yeah, thank you, Juliette. That's a great example because, you know, I think when we— this is the tricky part, and this has been hard for me personally, is that when we really care about somebody you know, or we're in a relationship that's significant to us in some way, you know, we really feel like we have to do everything we can possibly think of to make things better. And I have always been that kind of person where I would sort of hang in there and try things and, and just do whatever I thought I could do to help another person or to, you know, make something change. And I've just seen over these past couple of years that the more I— and this is going to sound really weird as I'm about to say it, I think this does sound strange— but the more I've simply noticed my own self and what's going on within me, the better our relationship seems to have gotten. The more I've been able to focus on looking within myself and seeing, oh wow, you know, the reason I'm actually feeling upset right now isn't because Jeff did or didn't do something. It's because I've just got some really kooky thinking right now that's making it look like that. The more I've kind of moved the spotlight back towards myself and off of him, the better things have begun to go between us. And I think it's because I really saw very clearly that as much as I had good intentions all that time, I was really doing all the wrong things. You know, all of the— like I mentioned in a couple of emails, you know, I had always been taught with anybody in my life that the way to solve problems was to talk through them. Can anybody else relate to that? You know, you're supposed to talk things out, not leave. You know, my mother used to always say, don't let the sun set on your anger and, you know, talk things out with people and all that stuff. And I am pretty much at the opposite end of that now. Where if I am at a point with anybody, not just my husband, where I'm kind of worked up and I'm feeling like there's something we need to talk about, that's a pretty big clue to me to keep my mouth shut. Because in that moment, I am not coming from a very centered place. I'm coming from a place with a lot of really stirred-up thinking and emotions. And whatever I say is not going to be at all useful. And I found, you know, it's been a learning process for me, because I basically spent the first 52 years of my life learning that, and now I spent the last 2 kind of unlearning it. And a lot of times I really have to bite my lip. But it's really been helpful to do that. As difficult as it's been at times, the more I kind of— this is so counterintuitive, but it's like the more I step back, the closer he and I get. The more I step back from, from all of the kind of turmoil that is created in my own mind, and the more I step back from trying to fix something about him, the closer I feel we're getting. And I don't know how to explain that any better than that. It just seems like when you give yourself space and you give the other person space without getting so jumbled up in each other's thoughts, and when you kind of stop worrying about that, there just gets— there's just an expansiveness that gets created between the two of you that allows for more intimacy and more connection. So does somebody else have a comment or question? I'm just looking for any hands raised or typing. Gavin says he's He's in a difficult relationship with himself mainly. I have that too, Gavin, I really do. Okay, let's see. Hang on, Debbie, I'm trying to find you here. There you are. Okay. Hi there, I'm just interested in learning— it's the lady who asked about the son with the socks. I'm just interested if she's now heard anything from what you've said as to whether that kind of answers the question for her, or, you know, whether she's seen something. All right, let me ask Ingrid. Let me unmute you.

All right, I'm trying to process it. Of course, if it wouldn't bother me, then it would be much there would be more space for everybody in the house to be as they are. But I don't know how— if I can remember that if everything is lying on the floor.

I'm looking for a sock right now, but I don't have one.

It's not only one, it's many.

I'm going to use this pencil. Okay. So the sock is like this pencil. Does this pencil have the ability to make you feel something?

No.

No. Right. So what is making you feel something when you see a sock on the floor?

The thought that I don't want it there. I don't want the socks lying there. I know it's a thought. So it keeps bothering me.

So it keeps bothering you because it keeps recurring?

Yeah, just too many of them.

Okay, so let me ask you this then. So if, if you had a different thought when you saw socks on the floor, It would be different. You would have a different experience about the socks on the floor.

Yes. And there are circumstances when they wouldn't bother me at all. If there would happen something bad or something good or if there were different thoughts in my head, of course, then it wouldn't bother me. I wouldn't see them.

Do the socks always bother you? Oh, she's talking to somebody. A situation that always bothers you? No. Can you sometimes look at the socks and go, eh?

Yeah, that's true.

Right, right. So is it possible then that when you have, or you, if you catch one of those thoughts in your head of, oh, this, I'm really bugged by these socks being on the floor, is there a way for you to see that as neutral, that thought, and not as something that is important.

I think I could do that, or I— but I would have to train it, I guess.

I can sort of relate to what you're saying because, you know, if you live with someone, invariably they have at least one habit that is annoying. Would we all agree that could be, we get annoying thinking about? Yes? Okay. So I think what I can speak for myself, and maybe this will help you a little bit, Ingrid. Whenever I would hear something like that in my own head, like trying to think of something. Yeah, I can think of one thing my husband does. I won't share it, but It's a little bit, it's one of those things where I have thinking about it. When I have one of those thoughts that comes up and I feel a little bit of, uh, I don't like that, the way that I sort of respond is I now kind of laugh at myself because it's really nothing to do with my husband or his behavior. It's just that about that thing, I seem to have a consistent thought that comes up. And when I catch myself doing it, I often turn it into something to laugh about because in the scheme of things, it seems so silly to be annoyed by anything.

That's true.

And it's interesting too because I think once I also started to see him in a less judgmental way overall, because I saw that his behavior wasn't on purpose, that it was something— it was something that he was doing based on his own thoughts. So if your kids are dropping socks on the floor, they're not necessarily doing that to annoy you. It's just they haven't had an insight that, oh, maybe it's not so great to leave this mess. I started to just have a lot more, like, non-reactive thinking about it, because it was like, okay, in that area, he's just not seeing that. And I can look at myself and do the same thing 100 times. You know, there's a lot of areas in my life where I have not had an insight into something. And so I think coming from that place of compassion more than judgment, has been very helpful to me as well. But also seeing a lot of my thinking as sort of silly has helped a lot as well. I'm going to unmute you, Ingrid. Was that helpful at all?

Very helpful. Thank you very much.

Okay. So does anybody else have any comments? I have a couple more things I'd like to share here. Anyone in the chat here? Let me look. Lori says her husband leaves socks laying around. Often there are 20 or more, but I think it's funny. It's like it's a sock burial. Eventually I pick them up. So I can sort of relate to this too. And this is coming up on another point that I'd like to make. Which is that— so right now our daughter has been living with us, and we have a very small apartment, but she's been living with us for about a year. So it's a one-bedroom apartment, so she sleeps in the living room, and my husband and I have the bedroom, and it's only 600 square feet, so it's a small living space. And let's just say she's not the neatest person in the world. If I turned this camera around, you would see the evidence.

So I'm not going to do that.

But suffice it to say, if I look over here, I can see a lot of stuff lying around. And at first, when she started to leave this kind of mess around, I had some of those same kinds of thoughts. As you did, Ingrid and Laurie. And I thought, you know, doesn't she appreciate the fact that we're saving her a lot of money in rent right now because she's doing her research and she needs a place to live here in New York? And, you know, she could at least keep the place clean because I know this is sort of her bedroom, but it's also her living room. And I had all this kind of running dialogue in my head. And then one day, I kind of saw what I was doing to myself. And I saw that by paying any attention to that thinking, I was really taking away from the experience of having her here, that it was stopping me from enjoying the fact that she was living here for a year. I mean, she's 27 now, so this may be the last time we live together. I don't know until I'm in a rocking chair, and maybe she's taking care of me, I don't know. But I kind of saw what it was getting in the way of when I had given space to thinking like that. And so it was like, wow, if I just kind of ignore those thoughts that come in, what will happen? And that's what I started to do. If I found myself kind of caught up in that, I'd sort of wake up And all of a sudden, I was in this space like, wow, it's really cool that she's here, you know, because this isn't something that I expected would happen. I didn't know she was going to be able to live here for a year. And suddenly all the stuff around started to look like beautiful evidence of her existence and her life, her dirty laundry, her piles of books and papers and, and all of the paint. She's doing art in here and she's painting. And, and so it just suddenly all seemed beautiful to me. And I thought, that is so interesting how by just ignoring that kind of thinking that was really stirring me up, I saw her and this in a very different, very different way. I see Sandhya has her hand up. Hold on, Sandhya. Let me see if I can unmute you. There you go.

Hello.

Hi. Hi. So the socks, the metaphor, the socks, I see that as metaphor. If things have been going great at work, But the last week I've just been exhausted. And, you know, I found that eating at work has become another OCD thing. And I was trying to look at it like, what is going on here? Why am I doing this? And it seems like I've got socks to pick up, like people bring loads of socks in every day. And I just don't want to do it all. I just don't want to do it all, and I, I feel like I have to do it because it's my job. And sometimes I'm not sure what to do, although that really isn't an issue. Usually something shakes out. So it seems to be something about— I hate to use this word— self-care and boundaries. And what I'm afraid of is I made a pact with myself not to eat on the floor for or to eat on the run for 90 days. So I am officially announcing it, 90 days no eating on the run, which is gonna be a big deal for me. It's a big deal, 'cause I'm always like, quick, I gotta help somebody, just shove something in my face. And it's not giving me a sense of satisfaction. In fact, even after, I mean, last night, and I'll come to the point, last night, you know, the staff was like just sending people to me right and left. And it was great, I was helping them, but I realized I wasn't feeling satisfied. I'm like, What is wrong here? Because I'm doing everything I can, it should be enough, yet nothing was enough. So I realized it's not what I'm doing to them or with them. I'm just at this point like, ah, I'm not sure what it is.

So what I'm hearing in your question, Sandhya, is something that I think a lot of us can relate to, and I certainly can, which is that And I kind of alluded to this earlier, where the less I saw that I was responsible for somebody else's experience in life, the more I saw that their, their experience that they were having was a result of what they were paying attention to in their own heads. The less the burden of creating a good experience seemed to fall on me. Does that make sense, what I'm saying?

Yeah, it does.

So it kind of, um, uh, it kind of erased my need for even considering that word boundary. Like, I don't really understand that word anymore because I used to, I used to feel like I had to set limits around myself about what I could do, what I could take on, and all these things. And what that's been replaced with is this feeling of I can be myself, I can do what I feel capable of doing based on whatever is happening with me in that moment, and that's okay. And it's not that I'm running around trying to, you know, harm people or something like that, but at the same time I know for a fact that other people are having whatever their experience they're having, and I can't really do much to change that except what I was saying earlier, which is showing up from a compassionate and non-judgmental space. And, um, go ahead.

And if they— if they— if the compassionate place would be if they think that I'm going to give them you know, the one or two pill fix or gluten-free fix or whatever it is. That's just— I don't have to say it's going to take time, but I can know that.

Yes.

You know, it's easy to say I'm pissed off because somebody's leaving a sock on the floor, but it's— I don't know, it's in my head. You know, like if people are coming at you saying, my life sucks, what can you give me to fix it? It's just kind of a conversation.

Yeah, and I think if you can— I think that what you're saying, what you're asking, really applies quite broadly. Yeah, because we've all been in relationships with people who we would describe as needy, right? Or some people call them vampires. You ever heard of that phrase? Well, who, right, who come to you and they, they expect you to solve things for them and they they come across as very insecure or looking for some kind of answer from you. And I think Shirley also has a question here that relates to it where she was talking, asking me about this non-judgmental connection. When we understand too that not only are people acting based on what their own thinking is, but they're also acting from a place of having all the answers already that they need.

You've noticed?

Yeah, that's a pretty big one. You know, like, I used to think— and I'm being really bluntly honest— I used to think I had all the answers to my husband's problems. Okay, anybody else in that camp? Like, you look at somebody else, you're like, if they would just do this and this and this, all the problems would be solved, and then we could get on with life and it'd be all super and wonderful and butterflies and everything. Well, that's not true. I've learned that the hard way, and I've seen over and over and over again that the more I allow him space by not trying to crawl inside his head and fix something the faster he is able to come up with solutions on his own. So even going back to Lori and Ingrid about the socks on the floor, if you are able to be in the room with that person, and even if you have thoughts like that, just let them go by and just try not to engage with them. Just see them and kind of go, eh, not interested in dealing with those thoughts right now. People will feel that and they will start to change. They really will. I can say this unequivocally because I've seen it over and over again in my own relationships and other people that I've worked with. And so I think really it's about, first of all, being non-judgmental of ourselves. Like, I don't want you to go home feeling badly if you have a sock thought, you know, because we can't control the sock thoughts. They're going to come up, you know. So coming from a place of being nonjudgmental of our own thinking, our own behaviors, I mean, that seems also very, very important in my own experience and everything else. Somebody, Ingrid, oh, you said that enjoying the presence of my daughter made something click. You know, I think that we can get really caught up in that stuff, though, those things that seem, you know, thoughtless that somebody does. And we can forget that we're actually talking about a beautiful human being that's just got some thinking that tells them they should leave socks on the floor. All right, I'm gonna get to Lori here. Hi, Lori.

Hey, can you hear me?

Yes, I can.

Okay. I'm— okay. So I, you know, I have an interesting relationship with my students because I teach. And oftentimes I'm annoyed, especially with one class. The students are walking in late. I have to repeat everything. I did an activity last Tuesday where one girl sort of in the middle of it said, Well, can I just go work on my paper and not really seeing the value of the activity. And it, you know, really pissed me off. And I see what you're saying, that that's her own thinking. And so I left it to the group and I said, look, if you guys are bored, we can stop, but I'm not going to go on. Like, either we're all in it together or you guys can go work on your paper. And there were still like people, we were going over people's thesis statements and stuff. And the people at the end, they're like, no, no, no, we want to continue. And so she acquiesced and said okay. But, you know, there's that part of me inside that was like really pissed off. And I get that way with students sometimes. You know, it's like, well, they're like, you're like, there are boundaries of the class there, you know, and that's Sometimes my thoughts get a little out of control.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah. And I think that really relates to what I was just saying, Laurie, which is that when we can really get clear that any relationship we're in is being experienced through us, and not through anything that the other person is saying or doing, we can see how much power we have to really change that relationship. And so if you— in talking about your students, if you can continue to see that you're thinking about them and even if you're not aware of whatever the thoughts are, it really doesn't matter. If you just have kind of that feeling inside, you know, like, oh, I wish they would just whatever, you know, you can just kind of notice that and just take a timeout. And I've just found that when I take a timeout, when I get into that kind of screwy headspace, suddenly I start to see that the person in front of me whatever they were saying or doing, is this amazing being that has got more potential than we could ever know what to do with and has their own access to all the answers they could ever need. And if they're having a bad day or a bad week or a bad year or years, it's not a reflection of who they really are It's just a reflection of the fact that they've been listening to some screwy thinking. And I have to tell you that when that got clear to me, I looked back on the many years that my husband and I were really struggling, and I saw both him that way and myself that way. And I said, no wonder we felt so far apart, because he was really caught up in sort of depressed thinking and listening to it and believing it. And I myself was caught up in, why isn't he loving me more? What's wrong with me? You know, what can I do to change it? That's kind of all that was happening. And it's no wonder we were completely living in our own worlds. There was no room for any other kind of thought or feeling to come in. And when I started to just kind of go, oh, that is a thought I'm having, that doesn't reflect Jeff because Jeff can't be contained by whatever this thought is that I'm having about what I wish he would or wouldn't do. A lot of that annoyance and all that, that stuff just kind of faded. That's not to say I still don't have some because I do, but it just doesn't last very long. It lasts, like Jeff and I were saying recently, that You know, we might get testy, but it lasts for like 2 minutes, and then it's gone. Or if one of us is having a particularly rough day for some reason, you know, whatever kind of thinking is going on, the other person just knows now to keep their distance and just let us— let the other person just chill. Like, we don't even really ask each other anymore, are you okay? What's going on? We don't even really go there because we know essentially what the problem always is. It's that some— there's some silly thinking that we're listening to that's making us feel a certain way. And the best way to get out of that is to not go into it at all. So we tend to— it sounds weird, but we don't talk very much about that stuff or anything really. Our relationship is a lot quieter than it used to be, but yet there's a much deeper connection between us now than we've had in ages, maybe in our whole marriage even. So did that answer your question at all? I kind of rambled on there.

No, I think so, and I think that sometimes it's a hard thing to see when you have a group of 20 people and a few of them have that, you know, you can pick up on their bad moods. Like, you can just see it in their faces. And for me, that's hard to ignore sometimes. And I know there's something wrong. I do ask them what's going on. Sometimes it's, you know, some of them are having a bad day and really do just want to talk a little bit. Like, I have some some students are having some pretty big issues in their life. But—

oh, I lost you there, Lori. I lost Lori, but I'm going to mention something about that. And again, this is going to sound really backwards, but I also— if I see somebody that I'm in a relationship with where it's a husband or a student or anybody. I think that there's a different way of caring for one another when you start to see things from this perspective. So like the last thing I would ever want someone to do would, would be to really pour out all of their problems because unless you know what to do with them after that, which is to steer them away from it, it can just reinforce what they think is going wrong, if that makes sense. Lori, I'm going to unmute you and see if you can speak back to that. So like what I used to do with Jeff, what I would say, you know, what's going on, what's bothering you, what's wrong, and he would tell me, and it all it did was reinforce the thinking that he had in his head and made it seem like an actual really big issue.

Yeah.

And now if I can, I can show him that I care that he's, you know, feeling some suffering. But underneath that, I also know for a fact that he's okay, that whatever he is suffering from is temporary. And that, like I was saying earlier, underneath all of this thought that we've got going on all the time, We're all these incredible spiritual, living, breathing, creative forces that can never be affected by any of the stuff that is going on in our heads at any given time. So you don't have to be engaged in someone else's pain or suffering in that way.

I am— can you hear me? Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Yeah, I understand where you're coming from, and I And there, that is the part of the 3 Ps, is having the conversation with someone else who doesn't understand it or doesn't know it that I have a hard time with, you know. And, and that's something I fight with too a little bit because like one student I did talk to, he had been shot a year ago and, um, and he came into my office and he's physically in pain and emotionally still in pain. And so I listened to him and I gave him some compassion And then I did actually take him to the school therapist because I didn't know how to end the conversation. But at the end he said, "No adult has listened to me. I'm having feelings and no one has listened to how I feel." So I didn't want to engage so much in the conversation, but at the other end I'm working with people who aren't being listened to and having problems beyond, you know, big problems. I mean, he was shot, you know, and almost died and is having a lot of PTSD and stuff. And I'm like, okay, I don't know how to have any of these conversations, but at least I can have some compassion and listen to you. And which I know is not the right P3P thing to do maybe, but it's what I needed to do in the moment.

But you know, As we close out this conversation, you raised something that is actually a great way to end this discussion, which is actually probably the biggest piece of this relationship aspect of life that I've seen over the past 2 years. And This gets kind of emotional for me because I think it's really what has saved my marriage, which is it's an incredible gift, not just for the other person, but for yourself to be able to be with them and see through whatever it looks like on the surface. To be able to see through your own thinking about things to who you really are, and to be able to see through the other person's thinking to who they really are. And even before I was aware of these 3 principles that we talk about sometimes, I could see beneath my husband's depressed thinking that he was still in there. In fact, I would say that to him. I'd say, I know you're in there somewhere. I know you are. And I want to keep looking for you. And I really feel like if we can have that kind of relationship with someone where we can see through that to who they really are, it's, it's a total game changer, not just for them, but for you. I mean, honestly, I don't want to put too fine a point on it, but I feel like miracles can happen then. Between two people who, you know, like we were— when I say things were bad, they were really bad. And for me to be able to look back on that and say I can't even really remember what that felt like is, is really something to me. So I hope this has been helpful for everybody. I wanted to just quickly mention again that if you would like to have a personal conversation with me, you can always reach me at mary@thedailyprinciples.com. And one other thing is I just opened a membership group. A couple of you are in there already called the Joy Club. And tomorrow's the last day to get the introductory offer for that. And you can find the details at thedailyprinciples.com. I'd love to have you in there. Does anybody else have a final comment that they'd like to make? I can hang on for another minute. Thank you, Sandhya. Anybody else? I can unmute you all if you like. Oops, if I can get to the right screen. Here we go. Anybody else have anything they'd like to say?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

You're welcome. So nice talking with everybody. Thank you so much for coming. I hope this was helpful.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.