SYTB 6: Character Cohesion

How to restore harmony in your life.

“If it’s wrong when someone you don’t like does it, it’s wrong when you or someone you like does it, too.” Deanna Nichols.

I’m sharing this quote today because I was just about to sit down and introduce you to a new casting idea when this quote popped up on my FB newsfeed. It says the bare essentials of what I am going to explain to you.

How you handle situations in your life should be based on the situations or behaviors thrown at you with a minor concentration with respect for the person behaving that way. But that’s not how people tend to manage their lives. Instead, most people tend to focus on the who rather than the what and then they have no idea how to handle it. So if you find yourself often not knowing how to handle various confrontations or behaviors you seem to be presented with in your life, the simple answer is that you shouldn’t be. In other words, if you handled the people who misbehave based on their behavior toward you rather than their title in relationship to you, you would experience far less of it from everyone.

In a way, this is kind of like “duh,” but in the real world, it seems like the hardest thing for people to grasp. So, if you are struggling with this, just know, unfortunately, it’s normal.

People seem to tolerate odd or extreme behaviors from people they love and care about and thus, it’s something they get used to and when that happens, it doesn’t seem so weird if everyone treats you that way. Tolerance is not a good thing in this scenario. Now, it’s not to say one should develop a zero tolerance policy. You are starting from scratch here. It’s likely if this does describe you, by now you’ve walled yourself off defensively from almost everyone and created more of an arbitrary border around yourself than a boundary. All but a few get in and those few are based on their relationship toward you and not their behavior. They are inside the wall because they are a parent, grandparent, sibling, child, coworker or boss whom you have arbitrarily decided you must allow in or you’d be too intolerant of a person and have nobody. After all, you can’t kick your own mother or father out of your life. What would that say about you?

The hell you can’t.

See every other post I’ve written on boundaries so far. This is why I have been laying this foundation of respect, self-love, honor and personal awareness of boundaries as the framework or grid for a happy, fulfilled life. This is why boundaries are based on what you want in your life and not on what you do not want. What would dumping a person who treats you badly say about you? It says you love yourself. It doesn’t matter who that ill behaved person is. And who is talking: you. You are saying this to yourself about yourself. You are saying, “I love me and I honor me and I respect me.” That’s the ONLY PLACE to start getting love, honor and respect in your life. If you don’t start giving these qualities to yourself, it will never happen.

And as for how you will feel if you should one day lose that person to death or whatever, see again all previous posts. It doesn’t matter if the person dies or you, by not tolerating their bullshit, burn a bridge they don’t want to erect with you again later. You’ll feel more at peace than had you kept tolerating bad behavior.

My dad just died. I feel nothing. *gasps of shock and horror from the audience* “You can’t mean that. You can’t say that. That’s awful. You must be so filled with hatred and resentment.” Let me say this again. I feel nothing, not hatred, not resentment, not bitterness. I feel nothing. I don’t feel bad that I don’t feel sad. I like myself. Why would I want to feel bad about something if I don’t? That’s just exhausting head drama. And I have a blog to write, boundaries to teach, people I can share my time with and with whom I can make a positive difference.

I am not the first person to feel this way. To my surprise, after my dad died, nice, happy, successful, harmonious people came out of the woodwork to say they experienced same. Now, this is not something people are advertising in the world. Primarily because it’s mind blowing, and most people with decent parents won’t understand. They can’t even comprehend losing a parent, particularly one which you were estranged from and being un-phased by it. It’s not written into any plots. You see drama requires emotions and since you may feel ambivalent toward the person by the time all is said and done, it doesn’t make for great drama for a lead character to not be angry, resentful, loving, guilty, hopeful, sad, hateful, something! It just doesn’t make for good plays, books, songs or movies. (And furthermore, it would destroy a lot of our social programming upon which we base "social order,” but that’s another story.) So they don’t write about this experience ever. You will never see it in literature. You’ll never see it on Netflix. You won’t see anyone dancing to a song about it on your TikTok scroll. The closest you might come is “I’m Gonna Miss Her” by Brad Paisley but then, almost the entire song including the title is about how bad someone is going to feel later for the consequences of the decision of cutting someone out of their life. In the real world, since most people have never heard about this peace that passes all understanding and the rest don’t understand it having had respectable parents, it just isn’t talked about. It won’t make sense to develop a character for the entertainment of the general public that the general public won’t understand. No one gets ambivalence about the loss of someone who society largely believes the character should give some sort of a damn about.

Hear this in your best robot voice “does.not.compute.”

However, in real life, it happens. It happens among mostly happy, peaceful people. It happens so often it would shock you. And it happens among people who are extremely loving and compassionate, sometimes THE MOST loving and compassionate people you know. It happens with successful people who are getting along with their lives. It happens with people with lots of friends. It happens with people who model some of the healthiest relationships and boundaries. I feel like Dr. Seuss, “It can happen on a bus. It can happen with uncle Gus.”

The point is that whatever misconceptions we’d expect about people who gave up their own mother, are generally just that. They are based on drama and fiction, not peace or harmony or reality. It’s a myth. And there’s a greater agenda behind keeping this myth alive but that’s not what I’m teaching today. To stop living a lie, we just need to focus on what’s true.

So if you want to start living a life of peace and harmony, you are going to have to seek out people who model those things in real life and ask how they are living. If you exchange your old tolerance for a new acceptance, compassion and love, you will tend to have a full life that reflects those qualities. That’s what all the healthy kids are doing. Whereas you, perhaps on the other hand, have this bomb shelter around you. It’s a bomb shelter built of concrete constructed under an igloo in Antarctica where no one can ever find you. The people in it are not very trustworthy-but they’re your family. That’s what you tell yourself. “At least, I kept my family together.” Well, good for you. Your picture of your life is not going in the direction of your ideal at all. In fact, you’ve been saying “no” to a lot of the good things in life for an alleged “yes” person. You’ve been saying “no” to life itself to perpetuate the myth.

Boundaries, healthy boundaries are not fortresses or bunkers. You already do that, and it sucks.

Is it possibly time to say “yes” to what you really want so you can stop telling all the good things “no”?

Is it time to blast your way out of that bunker and join the living again?

Is it time to start witnessing better behavior from friends and strangers alike?

And is it time to stop tolerating poor behavior from anyone regardless of their title respective to your life?

More over, you decide the time. This is your movie, and you write the script.

Are you ready to live the dream? Yes, of course, you are!

So, the next time someone acts in a way that is not what you want, grab a pen and paper and change their character to make them cohesive to the story of how they fit in your life. For example, my friend in my last post whose boyfriend took the intimate photos of her and showed them to belligerent, degenerate friends. Remember? We rewrote her as Grace Kelly. We’ll rewrite the boyfriend as a peeping Tom. He hangs out in bathroom stalls taking pictures of unsuspecting women and sharing them with other creepy pervs. Or perhaps, he’s paparazzi, selling the photos to the lowest bidders. Worse, he’s a vindictive ex who shares your photos to destroy you. In any case, these stories make sense. These stories are plausible about the nature of his character in relationship to your story and cohesive to his behavior. He’s not someone you seek out to have a relationship with. He’s someone you avoid. As the old saying goes, “with friends like that, who needs enemies.”

If your mother is a person who walks into your house without invitation and moves the furniture around and takes stuff she doesn’t feel belongs or doesn’t like in your house, that’s not your mother. That’s a home invasion. If the CIA did that, it would be considered gang stalking. If a burglar did that, it would be an obsessive burglar trying to purposely fuck with you in some really insidious way to destroy your peace. Reframe your mother. Imagine if anyone else behaved this way and how fucked up it would be. It’s no less fucked up because it came from mom. Like Deanna said right at the top, “it’s wrong.” It’s wrong. It’s wrong. It’s wrong.

Now, start thinking of what kind of boyfriend or person in your life you desire. Imagine what that kind of life together would look or feel like. Maybe if you’ve been dating paparazzi, it’s a stretch to imagine what a nice person would be like. So let’s use the old pervert for our benefit, shall we. Make a quick list of what you can’t stand about him. Go ahead. Write all those bad qualities on a column on a piece of paper. Now, on the other side, think of the opposite word for each of the qualities-polar opposite. Now, also, on the “good” side, add all the things you liked about the schmuck. What were you attracted to about him? There must’ve been some good stuff. Tear the bad side off and burn it. Keep only the good side and carry it with you wherever you go this next two weeks. OK? Focus on everywhere you attract those behaviors and qualities into your life. It could be from a dog, a cat, a friend, an Uber driver. Just microfocus on the way those good qualities show up for you as you continue to focus on them. Keep this paper handy. Write a check mark next to each word that you manifest each and every time it happens.

What I want you to do is to become hyper aware of not only the things on the list that you want, but how they shape your entire life and experiences. I want you to really get out there, put yourself out there to find these qualities. I want you to see and feel grateful for every tiny glimmer of good stuff that shows up in your life just as it is, too. I want you to rewrite the story of your life to highlight those good qualities rather than spending an absorbent amount of time contending with crap. The end result will be that the qualities you most seek, most desire and most value will start to take center frame for your whole life. And in this way, you haven’t said “no” to anything. You’ve just shifted your focus. You can even be grateful when what’s his schmuck shows up in a nice way. This exercise is focused entirely on saying “yes” to good. It’s about opening up the shutter to pick up more motion and activity you’ve been missing. It’s to let in more light. It’s to step back and widen what you allow in the frame and notice how much good is already around you. It’s to get so absorbed with good that when something bad does happen, and it will, you’ll see it as a fluke, a rare occurrence compared to what is shaping up to be an extraordinarily peaceful and harmonious existence. And furthermore, when it does happen, you won’t welcome it or accept it. You won’t be in this mindset of “that’s how everyone is” or “that’s just my life, better shut myself off from it.” Instead, you’ll see it as the violation it is and handle it cohesively rather than making exception after exception after exception for bad behaviors made by what you currently view as irresistible people.

What you want, what I want, what everyone wants or at least wants to want is an exceptionally peaceful and harmonious life. They want dynamic adventure, not dynamic drama. They want fun rollercoaster rides, not uncontrollable rollercoaster people. The best way to start making your life peaceful and cohesive is to demand it from yourself. Focusing on what you don’t want and don’t like is not self love. I am not talking about denial either. We wrote all the crap down about what’s his schmuck. We’re just not going to dwell on it and attract more of it. We are using it to create better habits. There’s a saying I heard coming up in self-help circles “what you resist persists.” So I don’t want you resisting any more bad stuff. Instead, I want you vigilant in your focus on what’s good and true. I know you will start to see it where you never expected and all around you. In so doing, you will love the life you have and stop taking the good for granted.

Ironically, this is what we may be most afraid of when we hang onto poorly behaved people. We are deeply afraid we might be taking them for granted. In our fear, we’ve stopped focusing on the good in us. We’ve taken the good in us and around us for granted by focusing and fearing the loss of poorly behaved people. We’ve become “no” people to all the good and to our own best instincts. What our instincts tell us we should run from, we fight to run toward, uphill, through the snow, both ways. And that’s hard. So give up trying to say “no” to yourself. Give up trying to override your instincts. Go with the flow. Notice the good. Open the shutter. Widen the frame and mark off what shows up in your life. Otherwise, you are not doing boundaries right.

You can thank me later, but it’s not me doing the work. It’s you.

So… start today by thanking yourself for reading this. Then, take the next step.