Have I told you all lately how much I appreciate you and how much my life expands because of you? Here is yet another example of your insight, brilliance, and strength. This week one of my clients was processing a protracted and unpleasant court experience with her ex-husband. Through tears, she reported that she had "won" but it sure didn't feel like a win.
When I asked her what a win would look and feel like, she was quiet for a long time. She realized that underlying the whole process was the expectation of an outcome in which another person would think and behave in a certain way - that a person would change. She clearly understood how futile that expectation was and that it wasn't even what she truly wanted. She was able to see that two people can have a shared experience (marriage and raising kids) and have very different perspectives of that experience. She had allowed the vast difference in perspective to bring anger, frustration, and confusion along with worry, stress, and blame.
She recognized a component of her own emotional history. If I "win" then I must have done something wrong - was a shadowy message that beat underneath it all. Think for a moment of your own embedded thoughts and past experiences of winning. What comes up for you? Do you want to jump up with a victorious fist in the air, or do you feel like shrinking into the background? Is the concept of winning accompanied by thoughts or feelings of losing? How do feelings of right and wrong mesh with winning and losing?
At this point in our exploration her voice softened and gained strength and confidence. A win, she said, means a truth is revealed. There is a knowing what is right, and that you have discovered something central to who you are and who the other person is. What she wanted, and what would have constituted a win with her ex-husband, was to make amends, to find common ground to operate from going forward, to reach agreement, and to communicate in a way that each could understand and invest in. A win shows you where your thinking and behavior need adjustment - no matter how difficult the revelation may be. "Being who I am, sharing myself and what is true from my heart, is all I can do. And allowing others to be who they are. It is NOT competitive, never I win and You lose. I don't want any "losers" in my life - ever."
Beautiful! What would your life and relationships be like if there were never any "losers"? If no one ever went away from you feeling less than, criticized, or hurt? Does this ever happen with a spouse, child, relative, colleague, or employee? What can you do this week to turn the situation into a win?
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