Episode 91 – Beyond the Behaviors

This is Rebecca Clark. Episode 91. Beyond the Behaviors This’ll Podcast is for anyone that knows they haven’t yet found and offered up their best work but are compelled to seek it out and do it. Are you ready to move your desk? I’m reading a book. I’ve read the book before, but I read it again because I was preparing to be a guest on a podcast and I’ll tell you about that at a later date. But I was looking through all of my books and I have the paperbacks. I have the hard copies. I have E books and I have a lot of audio books because my way of learning the last few years was listening to books to and from work on. I drove 25 miles each day in traffic, and so I had plenty of time toe, learn and grow using that approach. But the book I chose was one that I hadn’t read for a couple of years and decided to re read this week, especially after you’ve had the holidays and I’m coaching and I’m learning about myself and all these things and to revisit a concept that I had learned about in college at the end of college, actually, and to remember that I had promised myself to learn about it each year and to grow from it, because it’s something that all of us get toe work on in this life. And that is all about showing up in a way of being that makes it possible for us to have positive relationships and be a peace with ourselves so that we can show up not at war, with ourselves or with other people. The book is called The Anatomy of Peace, and it’s from the Harbinger Institute, and the Harbinger Institute has a lot of great resource is and books, and I encourage you to go check them out. I first learned about it in college before I was even called the Harbinger Institute, because we took a psychology class, my sister and I, where we were learning from the transcript of a book called Bonds that Make us Free Healing Our relationships and Coming to Ourselves and it’s Bye See Terry Warner, And it was fascinating because Terry Olson was the professor of the class, and I still remember one of the first examples he gave in the class, and that was of a couple that has gone to bed and the baby starts to cry. And the gut feeling or the gut thought I should say in the husband’s mind was I should get up and take care of that really quick. But he didn’t. It’s like I’m a little tired. Maybe my wife will wake up and do it. Why doesn’t Maybe the baby will stop crying. And then so there’s all this mind churn going on. And finally, it does wake up his wife and she goes and gets the baby and comforts the baby. And the baby goes back to sleep about an hour later, all right? And the point of the professor using this example was to show that the initial thought that the man had was to just get up and take care of it. If you just gotten up right then taking care of the baby, whatever the need was, maybe it’s a diaper. Maybe they’re hungry. Maybe they just needed comfort. Maybe the blanket had fallen off. Who knows? It would have been solved in a few minutes, but instead he betrayed himself. He portrayed his own thought and said Okay, now maybe the baby will stop. Maybe she’ll wake up and go get the baby and all of these excuses and justifications that made it so He just laid in bed and did nothing. And each excuse he was further betraying himself and the initial gut reaction instinct. He had to go help the baby because, after all, it’s both of their baby right eso They both have equal opportunity to go help. And even if it wasn’t there, baby, right, you could get up and assist in some way or notify the person that could assist. And so there was a very interesting scenario that he provided because he said, and I loved how I came across this in the anatomy of peace, to be responsibly curious about your way of being because we’ll often find out that we’re not showing up in the ways that air honoring our own thoughts about how we should show up in the world, we get into this pattern of justifying and in this book, Anatomy of Peace. What I love is that it’s set up as this scenario as this story, and it makes very difficult concepts that air talked about in the bonds that make us free book, and it boils it down to something you can remember and apply and keep revisiting and relearning. So how it’s set up is that these parents are coming to this wilderness camp for two or three days because they’re dropping off their quote unquote problem Children to go through a 60 days wilderness retreat where they’re gonna learn about themselves. They’re gonna learn about their emotions. They’re going to he’ll from trauma. They’re going to ultimately change their behavior right, and we will be corrected and make better choices going forward. And so we don’t actually focus a lot on the kids in this book and in this story, the professors I should call them instructors take us into the classroom where the parents are, and the parents are wondering why they need to be there, right? It’s their kid. That’s the problem, not them. But they soon find out as they walk through a Siris of discussions and exercises that the Children may have problems toe work on. But the parents get to take a look at how they play into this situation, how they may be acting in certain ways toward their Children that give the Children the impression that the parents don’t love them, that they hate them, that the parents aren’t proud of them. And so it’s a really interesting take on this because you get to listen to the conversations taking back and forth between the parents and the instructors. And what I found was a great reminder is that change is just one choice away, and it’s not something that you get to decide for someone else. It’s something that you internalized for you so that you feel better so that you show up better and in a better way of being not at war with yourself, honoring yourself and therefore exuding that toe. Others. I’ve heard a quote in the past that I don’t know who said it, but they said that they wanted to go see someone again because they liked themselves when they were with them. Have you experienced that with someone where when you’re with them, you all of a sudden feel more talented or more smart or loved or comfortable or free to express yourself, And that’s because the person that they’re with feels comfortable with themselves. They’re not at war with themselves. They’re not sitting there immersed in the judgments and the betrayals of themselves. They’re honoring that, and they don’t feel like people coming to them or against them or trying to hurt them in any way or trying to judge them. So they show up in a way that creates the space where someone else can feel comfortable because they’re not feeling the vibes or way of being, so to speak. That could be coming from someone who comes to the situation irritated or looking for something that’s wrong looking for something that needs to be corrected. And so this was such a fascinating book to read again, but also to remind me of the experiences I had in college while I was taking the course and learning about these principles, because we each had these assignments, were supposed to take a look at someone that we’re having this butting heads kind of relationship within life. And at that point in life, it was most likely a roommate apparent, a sibling, a coworker, maybe an instructor, something like that. But as we go through life and we get into our work, we have this with our boss and our co workers and those that report tow us. There’s no end of possibilities of who this could be with. But we would take a look at one person, and instead of deciding that they needed to change and they needed to correct their behavior, we could take a look at why we were having this kind of interaction with, um Why did we think they needed to change? How are we showing up to the equation and why were we showing up in that way? And we could often find that there was something that bothered us because we we’re dealing with a struggle with that situation. So, for example, there is a massive, beautiful home down the road from where I am right now. And, yeah, there’s massive, beautiful homes all over the United States. But right now, this one particularly stands out because it’s like triple the size of any of the other homes. And I have been in parts of life where I’ve seen that, and I have said O g, you know, what are they doing? Oh, why did they get that? And I kind of scrutinized like, oh, well, I wouldn’t have chosen that brick or I can’t believe that cars with that house. Or why did they build that on such a small plot of land? Which, I’ll admit, I still say that about most houses, right? But there’s someone else that could look at that same house and go, You know what? I live in a shack. But how cool is it that someone has manifested that in their life right, that someone has done something and obtained something that they wanted? Because clearly this house was specially designed for someone that wanted their house to look that way. And how cool is that? That they had an idea they wanted it and they created the money and the time and the design that was in their head. That’s pretty great, because that means I can, too, right there showing what’s possible. And I could have that, too, And what is keeping me from that and one of the things that could be keeping us from that? It’s sitting there trying Thio judge. The personality has it when really we want it right. It’s a jealousy because they have done something we want to dio and we haven’t done it yet now I’m lucky I don’t look at that house right now in that way, which is pretty funny to me because I’m not interested in that house, But I am interested in the house That’s kind of tucked away behind it. That looks like it was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. And I’m very curious about that house and I’ve looked it up online. I can’t find any pictures, but I do know that it is not a Frank Lloyd Wright house, but it is Frank Lloyd Wright inspired. And then, in my quest to find out more about it and try to take thes stealth photos, I brought it up in a conversation with someone and found out it was a local doctor that took two or three years to build it and at all kinds of problems and that kind of thing. And I’m like, Wow, I’m finding out more about this. Who knows? Maybe one of these days I’ll get even closer to this house. Maybe I’ll get a tour alright on. I’m not jealous of the people that have the house, but I’m excited that this house exists where I can see it and know that it’s possible because I’ve already found out more about this hidden house than I thought possible. Just by being curious, being responsibly curious instead of judging one of the thoughts shared in the book is as important as behavior is, most problems are not failures of strategy, but our failures of ways of being so interesting, right? Because often especially, you know, I’ll admit, in coaching I talked about the importance of behaving in certain ways. But underneath a behavior there is this way of being how we’re showing up when we behave that way. And in the book, it’s talking to the parents about how yes, you may have thought you were showing up properly for your child, but they could sense if you weren’t right, you might be there to cook the meals. You might be there, too. Tell them to take their shower. You may be there to pay for their basketball camp, but the way you do it matters. They know if you’re just fulfilling a task or if you are actually doing it from a loving place. One of the examples provided the book is one of the parents that’s sitting in the room getting taught says, Well, what about me? I mowed the lawn and my wife was nagging me about it and they delve deeper in the story and find out Okay, He says he’s going to mow the lawn because the wife said, Hey, are we gonna mow the lawn today? Is like, Yes, I’m gonna mow the lawn. She’s like, when you’re gonna do it? Well, I’m going to do it soon, but I’m gonna go play tennis. Listen with my friends first. So she’s like, Okay, he’s like, Well, if you care about it so much, why don’t you do it? It’s like, Well, I would, But I’ve got this other stuff and you said you are going to do it So he goes to play tennis and he’s late and its dark out and he comes home and she says, So you’re gonna mow the lawn? And he’s like, Are you? Are you serious? Like, Yeah, I was late, but is it such a big deal? I could do it in the morning, and it’s like, Well, you said you were going to do it and once again he’s like, Well, if matter so much, why didn’t you do it well. You said you were going thio. I had my other things. He’s like, Well, it’s dark out. I’m going to trip. I could have an accident. Are you trying to hurt my eyes? What’s the deal? But he ultimately goes out and he mose the lawn. Did the behavior of mowing the lawn occur? Yes, like that action occurred, right? That outcome assault, and they can move on. But that’s not how it works, because once he’s done mowing the lawn, he’s going to come in. And if he’s still in that frame of mind, he’s gonna be angry that he had to mow the lawn. He’s going to be taking that into the next conversation he has with his wife, his wife sitting there wondering why he had to be cajoled into fulfilling a promise he made. And they start into this collusive cycle, where they each ourself betraying each other when they could have a completely different experience. With this right, she could be more forgiving and say, Yeah, tomorrow’s fine and he could be saying, You know, I gotta learn from this lesson. I’ll go a little and mow the lawn a little bit tonight The rest tomorrow just to show that I’m carrying. I’m not gonna make a fuss. It’s no big deal. I did promise to do it, but clearly I hope clearly right. They have had interactions before this point that have taught them that they can’t trust each other, that they’re gonna have this little bickering and everything. So they’re bringing it to the next situation. And that’s one of the problems when we aren’t focused on getting our own hearts right, because then we start continually gathering evidence that someone’s against us, that they don’t care about our needs. And they really just want something from us versus having this mutually beneficial relationship where we’re both apiece were coming to it with peace, were coming to it with love and acceptance. And we’re not trying to change the other person. We’re working on changing ourselves, regardless of how the other person is showing up in the context of work, because I talk a lot about work on this podcast. We can take a look at this and see how it impacts are working relationships and our ability to offer up our best work. Think I’ve used this example before But if you don’t like your boss, right, if you say he’s a bully, she yells too much. He’s not fair. She should have given me a promotion. All of these things. We need to take a good look at ourselves when we start saying these things, and here’s the reason why we can show up was certain behaviors or actions that seemed like we’re getting the job done right? Like, Well, they say, Go do this, We go do it. But how we do it, our way of being as we do it matters. And this matters because when we start having certain thoughts about our boss, we have different emotions and we show up in a different way than we would if we had compassion or understanding or if our heart was right. So, for example, if you think your boss is a bully, if you think they’re not open minded, if you think all the things, how do you show up? You may do the work, but that’s it. You won’t try to find extra ways to interact. You won’t ask all the questions you need to ask. You may withhold information. Most likely you will go and talk to a lot of people about it, about how the boss is unfair. This is stagnating, your growth, all these things. And when you’re with your boss, do you think you’re having eye contact with him or her? Do you think you are offering to do more? Do they feel your support? Now? We all know we get to choose how we feel. But there are certain vibes, energy, ways of being, whatever you want to call it, that we present and most of time, you can tell if someone is bothered by you. There’s just this unsettled kind of feeling. There’s this on edge that can occur, and especially if you have prior evidence that it will occur right if you’ve been yelled at before, if you’ve been critiqued, if you’ve been corrected, you’re like almost ready to have fight, flight or freeze. If you wonder what’s going to come out of their mouth next because you can’t trust that it’s going to be something that’s going to help you or serve you, you’re you’re ready to see something that will hurt you, come out of the interaction, and so this matters in our work because someone who realizes that their boss is perhaps a bully that realizes they deal with things in certain ways can say Okay, that’s who they are. How am I going to show up? Because how I show up is not dependent at all upon how they show up. I still need to be the best. Me? I still need to figure out me. And so for Bothered by the Bossio. Why am I bothered? What is this bringing up for me? Um, I going to say anything about it. I’m going to talk to them about how I am not working well under these conditions. I need to change things up Or can I show up in my best possible way? And how will that impact how the boss response to you? The amazing thing is, if we choose toe work on ourselves, we get to feel better. We get to show up better and one of the side effects not cause and effect. But it could be a side effect is that others will show up differently around us. I’ve experienced this at work and I’ve experienced this at home and it was so amazing one day at work. There was someone who is very difficult for most people toe work with. They weren’t a bad person. No one thought they were bad. They just talked a lot, created a lot of communications, created a lot of extra work that if we kind of slowed down and thought about it, we could make it easier. And I remember that we’re kind of coming to an impasse and working with this person because someone else that I worked with had decided they hated working with the person and that was rubbing off on me. I could feel the strain and everything, and I just decided one day I’m not going to do this anymore. Like I’m going to show up is the best Rebecca I can with this person. Obviously, I meant toe work with them because we’re working together. This person had a massive budget. It was like a $10 million budget that he needed us to execute within a short period of time to create some products. And I just decided we got to get it done like, in fact, we’re in the government, so we would lose the money if we didn’t use it properly, right? So I still remember. I walked into Monday morning and he had requested a 7:30 a.m. Meeting. I went into the conference room and we were the only ones there and I said, Hey, how you doing? And I was ready. Thio get toe work with his requirements and start building out all the different documents we needed to get the work going with some contractors. And he looked at me. And then he started to talk and he was different. They had ever been before. And I realized part way through the conversation that he wasn’t the one that decided to change. He noticed immediately a change in my presence, and as a result, he decided I was safe to interact with and that he could trust me and that we could be open and honest with each other going forward. And it was a little spiritually experience, actually, because I witnessed in that moment how me deciding to show up, not judging him, not being critical of his approach, just showing up and going. I’m gonna work with this person. I don’t care how hard it is, but we’re going to get it done and to see how immediately sensed a difference. And as that experience unfolded, I had some shame. As I realized, Oh, I was acting in ways that were betraying myself. I had built up evidence and excuses to respond and react to him in certain ways, and when I switched that around and changed myself, everything changed and it was so timely because we began to embark in a very difficult process of coordinating a few 100 people on 55 to 60 projects. I think it actually went over 60 projects at once across the United States and beyond and had to get hard work done, and it required lots of difficult conversations. But from that point forward, I felt like he had my back and I had hiss, no matter how difficult it waas. And if there was something that was really wrong going on, I could call him up and go. Listen, we got to talk. We gotta work through this, and this person ended up writing a reference for me for an award and for a program that I entered, and that meant a lot to me because I know that I was the one they had to make the changes. He didn’t have the same things in his heart going on that I had and how wonderful that he easily accepted me when I changed how I showed up. It’s incredible. This stuff is life changing. When we not only think about doing the right thing, we think about making sure we feel it and think it and live it in our heart and our mind. It comes out. It’s authentic that way. But we get into this self betrayal, self deception, collusion, all these things that you’ll read about when you read this book the Anatomy of Peace, because it’s just fascinating. It’s so important, and it’s so hard and simple it the same time I could share so much. In fact, I had a hard time recording this episode because there’s so many ideas I had that came to my mind. And honestly, I recorded it four times. There’s different mike issues and then my computer round out of battery when I was a recording at once and just all the things and I realized it’s because maybe I have more toe work through and think about on this issue right now, but I want to encourage you to read the book number one and that went ever. You are experiencing that thought that that person needs to change. I wish they were different to stop yourself and go Wait a second. This is a good time to take a look at myself and why I feel that way because maybe it will teach you something about something you need to change about your attitude, your way of being, and to also have some compassion on yourself is you do that and go Okay, I don’t feel this way about every person. Why do I feel this way about them? What’s different about them? Because I know that I show up in great ways with someone else. But why am I not able to with this person? What is it triggering in me and what can I learn from that? What can I change? And how can I come to the situation Better, not holier than now or not? Well, I’ll show them that I could be better than them, but in a way that’s honoring yourself in trying to be a peace with yourself and understanding that they may just have their issues. But you don’t have to play into it. They don’t have to become yours, too. And you do not have to show up less than your best self just because they are okay. So many thoughts so hard to put them into a podcast episode. Truly read the book The Anatomy of Peace. Check out the Harbinger Institute. Resource is, it’s great work. It’s great stuff. It all aligns with everything that I have been learning in other books. Other resource is from other people, and more importantly, from what I’m learning in life and trying to change from within to offer up my best self, I hope you continue to seek doing that, too. It will make all the difference. And like I said before, a side effect is that others around you will change to. Or maybe it will just be you suddenly recognizing that they’re far more interesting and worth it. Then you realized in the past have a great day. Talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the show today. If you enjoyed it, I’d love if you’d write a review and share the show with your friends, sign up for a weekly nudge at. Move your desk dot com. See you next Monday. Mhm