From Kirk Martin - Celebrate Calm:
Why do you need your child to be happy or in a good mood?
Just so you don't think I'm being a jerk, I used to do this all the time with my wife. If she didn't respond "the right way" or the way I needed in the morning, I'd ask her, "What's wrong? Can I do something to help you?" Was I really interested in helping her? Not really. I wanted to CHANGE her mood...so that I could be in a good mood. I was dependent on her acting a certain way.
If you try to control other people's behavior, it always leads to power struggles and frustration. Instead, we need to have this attitude:
- You are allowed to be moody and unhappy.
- Your mood does not determine my mood.
- I am not responsible for your happiness or your mood. You are.
- I am responsible for my own mood. The most effective way to change my child's behavior is to control my own.
- If you need help because something is bothering you, I'd be thrilled to help you (but I'm not going to change you).
Can you control your own anxiety, lecturing, perfectionism? If not, this will rob you of peace, joy and healthy relationships.
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Expectations run rampant during this holiday season, so guard any preconceived ideas about how you want others to behave and accept them just for whom they are - especially our own precious children. May they always feel free to be themselves!
Anxiety is sooo difficult to control, even for a control freak. thats because anxiety comes from the inside (the brain), and being a control freak, which comes from the brain as well, though it is easy, well, not easy, but far more fun to be a control freak, controling the way we want people to be. this normally does not work out the way we want. mainly because people have their own mind, which we are unable to read... DARN it.
ReplyDeleteNow this may be something i must experiment with Maybe write a journal.... would you care to rent out your brain to an anxiety ridden control freak, with ADHD?
I just stumbled here,found it of interest. Reminded me of something I wrote some time ago:
ReplyDeleteIt is not manly nor particularly deserving merit to endure in silence one’s misery. It is just the right thing to do, to not dump it on anyone else by way of complaining. Moods, however, have a way to show the misery. Hiding them, that would be manly.
Happy New Year!