Episode 123 – Virtual Rulebooks

This is Rebecca Clark Episode 123 virtual rule books. This 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? Mhm, mm hmm. I’ve been doing facebook lives periodically throughout the summer for my online move your desk group. And one of the topics was virtual playbooks, which I’ve now called virtual rulebooks for this episode. But it’s essentially the idea that all of us have these mental handbooks about how people should act, how life should be. And we’re kind of like hall monitors for the world and this is coming out a lot as we see a lot of media attention and people getting riled up against each other about different religious and race, political and pandemic issues, right? You have people taking sides and people saying how other people should act, They should wear masks, they shouldn’t wear masks, they should do this, they shouldn’t do that. And a big clue is when we start saying the should. So I’ve been toying with the idea of what to call this. I know someone who calls it the manual. I want to make a point that this is all virtual. These are huge manuals or handbooks or rule books or play books that we have in our heads that dictate how we think people should behave. And of course people are misbehaving all the time. They’re not following our books because they don’t know what they are. And even if you tell them they don’t want to be manipulated or controlled and neither do you so stay tuned. I don’t want to make this episode too long because it’s already longer that let me know if you like the virtual rulebooks or if you have a better idea but take a listen. We kind of mander and there are people that are commenting that I’m responding to as I go through this facilitation I guess you would call it. And so just understand that this particular episode was recorded live and there was a live audience responding, enjoy. So the topic today is managing the manuals, the virtual playbooks that re rule our lives by. So I want to start off by sharing a story that actually just came to mind right before I started to do this little live. So about 20 something years ago, late nineties I moved to Washington D. C. And I went on the metro every day into the city. And when you get off at the west Farragut metro stop there would always be a slew of reporters and lawyers going in and out of a particular building. And I found out pretty quickly why it was because they were dealing with the Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky scandal, right? And this is a year or two after all that stuff broke. But there’s still a lot of press and everything. And so that impacted me getting to my work building right? I had to walk on that sidewalk to get to my work. And I remember thinking like when you live and work in the D. C. Area you’re very aware of how many people are involved in politics and in the situations. And I remember just thinking why would Bill clinton do this? You know like these people in high level positions do these things that get found out right? I just remember thinking they shouldn’t do that if you’re so smart. If you’re so famous why would you do that? Because every mistake is on a larger stage. And so that’s something that we all walk around with every day. Like there’s all these judgments and there’s all these should that people should do. So I asked a question in the facebook group yesterday asking what should people do, what are things you just expect of people. And Aaron said you know proper grammar and sentence structure and business emails like a lot of us just expect people to use appropriate grammar if they’re communicating with people and said people should know what to do at a four way stop. Right? People should know there are rules but people don’t follow them right? They break them all the time. There’s all these should I wrote down a couple of shades just to start us off. They she he should pick up the socks, turn off the lights buy me flowers notice all my hard work and know better than to do that. Have you ever thought these kinds of thoughts My boss should treat me a certain way My spouse should know, people in the neighborhood should understand boundaries, rules and all of these things. I have a big um stood in my head whenever I drive because I’m like, I don’t feel like people understand that the minute you leave your parking spot or your driveway, you are now part of a system, right? You’re not acting alone. You are now part of a system where we have to ebb and flow, watch and make decisions based upon a group, not ourselves. Well if we pay attention in our life, we have a lot of unwritten expectations for people in our lives and for these are very interesting. And I’ve loved learning about this the last year or two. And quite honestly I’ve been intending to talk about it for a long time and I haven’t wanted to just have the perfect podcast episode about it. I’m realizing, you know, it’s important just to get on and talk about it. And then after that I can record an episode and teach more about it. But the act of getting better at knowing it and teaching It comes from practice, right? And I feel like as I share this concept with you, you will have insights and stories that I need to hear toward making this more valuable. So what are these virtual playbooks that we have these very massive sets of rules, expectations, regulations for how people should interact with you? Right? So it’s the way you should know how to behave around me so I can feel happy loved or feel better. Virtual playbooks. So I wrote down a few other things that we call them and you decide what resonates with you. But we don’t realize this. We all walk around with these massive virtual manuals or these playbooks, these handbooks, these rule books for how we interact with the world and how those outside of us interact with the world. And we have all of these expectations going on without even realizing it and people are not meeting our expectations most of the time. Have you noticed that? Like, and you know that every time you’re like, why didn’t they do that? I can’t believe they just did that. And what happens in our mind is we’re thinking they should do something and often it is something for us or in our presence, you know, to help us as I put down here to feel happy loved or better when you really think about it. The sales guy should care more about me. Well, why should he he’s just trying to do his job. Why should he, this is like an unwritten rule, spouses have all kinds of unwritten rules. Right? He should buy me flowers. He should know to pick up these socks, She should understand that. I’m working all day and I don’t have time to do this. Right? We have. these are all unwritten rules. People are breaking these unwritten rules all of the time. Okay, So why should they follow our process? Why should people around us follow our unwritten rules? Do you have any ideas? I’m going to write down a couple of ideas and I’ll check in the comments to see if anyone has it. So it’s the mature thing to do. It’s sure they should do this because any mature person would do this or because that’s what spouses do, right? If you’re gonna be a spouse, that’s what you should do here. Here’s one like we’d always say this at work, right? That’s why they’re paid the big bucks. They’re supposed to make good decisions, make big dollars. They’re supposed to make those decisions. Smart people don’t do that and yet think about it, smart people do that stuff all the time, decent people don’t cheat. That’s another one. Right? If they’re decent, they wouldn’t cheat yet. People that we think are decent, cheat all the time. They are breaking all kinds of rules. The unwritten rules. Now you could argue that some of these are written, especially if you are apparent an employer, a boss, a teacher. There are rules and expectations. We talk about this when we talk about boundaries, right? We set up boundaries to protect our emotional well being. But it says what we’re going to do. Not with the other person is going to do except if you are a boss or a parent teacher. Those kind of things were um, it’s expected some of these things they should do just because it’s a societal norm. There’s some norms, there’s some commandments. Of course people should do this. Okay. Yes, I like this comment. Why don’t men think of these things? Why do I have to tell him every single time bingo? Right. That is an unwritten rule. And we notice it because we’re like bringing us up as an expectation over and over, but the other person’s fine. So apparently it’s not a rule in their manual for themselves and it’s not one for interacting with you because they have to be told and they have to be told because they don’t have your virtual playbook or manual. Like page 57 halfway through the page of this virtual manual, it says, you shall think of this and never ask me. You should know this. This is just something you should know and not only know about, but care about. And that’s the thing. Because what happens in these situations we make it mean that they don’t care about us. They are oblivious. Anyone who’s they they are oblivious to this manual and they don’t realize that you may be feeling this way, but you are the person that’s taking it on and deciding to care it’s not affecting them. So we’ll talk about that in a minute. So these are, you know, why should they do the thing you think they should do? Well, what’s, what do we have next? Here’s some of the problems problems arise for all of us when we walk around with these manuals and these playbooks. Yes, this is this is perfect, right? Any person should know that if you’ve taken the time to load the dishwasher, you should turn it on right, any reasonable person should know this. Except the reasonable people don’t do that all the time. So we know that that’s something that we expect. Now in this case when we’re talking about dishwashers, there’s most likely a family element going on. And so as a parent or spouse that that can be pretty easy, right? Like it can become an expectation or a requirement to go. If you load the dishwasher, turn it on. If you don’t, this is what happens. But often like if you were, I don’t know at a restaurant or something and you heard a conversation and you find out it hadn’t been turned on, you’ll be like, seriously people like why wouldn’t someone just think of that. And of course, maybe there’s so many scenarios here, right? They could have thought they turned it on, but they didn’t push the button hard enough and they didn’t look back. Well then you could argue after you push the button, you kind of want to look back. So problems arise with this kind of thinking and let’s be patient with ourselves, right? Because we all take part in this kind of thinking every day, sometimes every moment of our lives. That’s part of being human. That’s part of making decisions. That’s part of discerning, oh I see the dishwasher has been loaded. Maybe I should take a peek because I think they probably didn’t turn it on right, like after why you start to learn certain things. But you can also decide from that learning whether to set up an expectation and also an opportunity to notice if you have a manual for someone that they don’t have for themselves or their interaction with you, expecting someone else to change is always risky business. Especially if our emotional happiness depends upon it. And that’s very important. The problems arise because when we think this way we are attempting to control others or manipulate them and most of us don’t think of it in this way. But if you think about it really thinking, if you don’t do this, I’m going to be angry. Well then that person is somehow involved in our happiness and that’s a very unhappy place to be for us. If our happiness is dependent upon the actions of someone else in our lives. Because this is passing the responsibility of how we feel on to someone else. If you think about that, if we expect others to make us feel better, that’s actually kind of crazy when you think about it when we expect others to make us feel better. Because most of us have a hard time even managing our own emotions, let alone having anyone else to worry about. And so expecting someone else to bring us happiness doesn’t work and we know it doesn’t work because we see and we feel it all the time when we start thinking, if they would just take out the trash or if what if they would just think of me more, then I would feel better, right? That’s not true. You can decide to feel how you feel right now and you’re deciding to feel bad because of something. They are doing the solution to dealing with these manuals that are so huge. If you become super aware of this, you start to realize there are hundreds of things every day that we expect others to do, they should be on time for appointments, they should know to put gas in the car, they should know that it’s not appropriate to call 9 30 PM to ask about something that’s two weeks from now, right? All the people, all the human beings should know these things right? And yet we prove over and over that even if we know it, we’re not going to do it, we’re not going to do it in the way someone else wants that we’re going to do it in the way we want it and we don’t do it. And when we try to attempt to make someone else happy the process, we often find ourselves in an anger loop. The solution, you are responsible for how you feel. Others can cause you to feel bad or irrelevant. Is that true or false? That’s false. As much as we’d like to say, oh wow. He made me feel bad. It’s really not true. We chose to feel bad. In fact, someone could say something to you and we have this happen all the time in our lives. Were there someone that’s kind of irrelevant to you? You’ve decided they’re irrelevant. They may say something and you’ll be like whatever. But if a spouse would say it or someone you care about would say it. I don’t know a teacher, a boss, a neighbor. All of a sudden anger, hurt feelings, all the things. Same comment that you take it a different way because you’ve decided to feel that way. I have been watching Lightning McQueen again. I love the cars movies, especially Cars one and three, but there’s one Lightning McQueen rolls out of the truck, he’s sleep and he ends up rolling into this little town right and ruining the road and it’s fascinating. I don’t have doc Hudson gotta go bye doc Hudson. But he is the guy that the car that comes into the courtroom and he’s like, I’m gonna put that person, that car in jail that ruined the road. I’m going to do all of this stuff. But the minute he saw that it was Lightning McQueen. He’s like get out of my courtroom. Like he completely flipped it. Same situation completely flipped it because he didn’t want to deal with race cars. It reminded of him of his past. The situation was the same, but he decided that the race car was different than if it had been any other car. So he is in charge of his feelings. We all are in charge of our feelings. Nobody causes us to feel a certain way. I’d love to know what you think about that concept that you are in charge of your feelings. This is something that’s really important. I’ve noticed when are introducing kids to each other or if a child hurts another child, like physically hurts them And you notice some of the comments we say or if they say something that most people would say are rude and we say, oh, you need to go give them a hug her, you need to say I’m sorry or you made them feel bad and to realize, oh, maybe we need to change our language a little bit there because how do we know how the other person responds to what happens. There’s sometimes where people are worried and I do this too ill stew about something I said to someone and then I’ll go back to apologize. They had no idea. I said it. Yeah, maybe they aren’t listening to me or something or they didn’t take it in the way that I thought they might take it. So, I’m creating all of these feelings and emotions around it and they didn’t take it that way. On the flip side, there’s things that just say very bluntly not meaning anything and find out later. People have taken very seriously. It’s very hurtful, condescending whatever never intended it in that way. It shows we all choose how to perceive certain situations and things and it’s based upon how we feel about ourselves, but also based upon how we choose to interpret things in the world and the expectations and how we want others to treat us. It’s very interesting work that we can do on ourselves. So, I wanted to make sure we took a little time to practice if that’s okay. I was gonna have rene, come on in practice. So maybe she could still, or anybody can join in. But I wanted to make sure we took a practical approach to a situation. I don’t know if we want to use the dishwasher incident or not, but it is hard to understand with our mindset because we can easily default to what others should do and think certain things about ourselves based upon what they do. And as Renee saying. But when you read of people in the most extreme circumstances can have a human experience and see how they rise above it and have successful lives. You know, it can be done. This is something victor franco and the Nazi concentration camps talked about a lot, right? Despite external circumstances, there was nothing that could change your mind. You were in charge of your mind. Except of course, if you’re in some strange government experience where they’re controlling your mind. But day to day, most of us are not under that influence or choose not to be right, because there’s things that can alter your mind. So, let’s just take a look at this. What is something that you think someone should just know how to do? What’s something you just expect them to do? So, let’s take the dishwasher incident and let’s um, pretend that this is not a parent child situation, right? Maybe you are sharing space over mate situation. So what do you want them to do? Turn on dishwasher? Simple. They filled it. It makes sense to just turn the thing on. Oh, okay. Okay. So now let’s ask another question. Why do you want them to do it? Well, are you thinking what I’m thinking? Because it’s the obvious thing to do. The dishes will be cleaned, not enough to put them in the right spot, dishes will get clean. They won’t build up all this garbage on it. They’ll get clean, they’ll be ready for use, right? It makes sense. You got people in the house. It makes sense to do that. There’s going to be more eating going on. How will you feel if that was done to feel great at clean dishes? Let’s put on some words great, satisfied. Maybe you’ll have feelings about them that uh that they’re responsible. Like suddenly they’ll be responsible if they hit that little button there. Way more responsible human being, that’s kind of thing. Will you change how you think about them maybe? But at the same time we can look at people that do all the dishes in the world and you still think they’re a jerk, right? Do you want them to do it? Even if they don’t want to? This is very interesting. Now with a child, you might say yes, Do you want them to do it? Even if they don’t want to because you’re trying to hopefully teach them how to have a habit. You’re someone who notices this. This is a great question to ask. Because if you flip it around and you ask yourself those questions about some of the choices you make, how does that make a difference? So if someone’s making you do something, don’t want to, what goes on with you do some of those words come up that we were talking about, controlled manipulated, like those kind of things. So sometimes if we take these situations and we turn it around and look at it from the other end and go, oh I see why I’m experiencing pushback when I talked to this person or I have these expectations when they are not in a reporting to you or parenting kind of role because there’s this feeling that people may or may not feel, we don’t know right until they say it or they express it in some way that they are being controlled or manipulated and who wants to feel that way? Most of us do not right now. It’s very this is it’s tricky stuff until we start noticing it and figuring out how to deal with it. Because in this process you could say, oh well if I’m not going to have manuals for anyone, then I can just act however I act, they get to act however they act and we’re just going to show up. However, in the world, it’s like, well, true. You are always going to act how you act and they have the freedom to act how they’re going to act. But pay attention to when you decide to own your feelings to also be aware of your ability to influence others or be an example to others in the process. Because our way of being when we show up as a choice, but there’s also ways that we show up that are generally off putting perhaps to large audiences of people and that may not matter to you, but it may so pay attention. So like to use an example of this because I started off with a political example at the beginning political pundits, for example, say and do things that some of us might not like other people do obviously right there very polarizing figures and they’ve decided that they are okay if in general the way they act produces choices and people to have certain emotions, right? Some people will be angry at them. Some people will be very agreeable towards them and excited like yeah, they’re really showing them that kind of thing. But to understand when they make that choice, they decided to take on that persona. That’s how they’re showing up in the world. They’re not trying to control anyone in that process. But also being aware that as they show up that way they are perhaps dividing the audience is if that makes sense, like that’s kind of a different topic, but at the same time notice it you accept how you feel, you decide how you are going to show up regardless of anyone else and they get to decide what to think about it. And in general as human beings, we know that some people are going to decide not to like us no matter how we show up. In fact, they might even be bothered if we’re nice. Let’s see what heather saying here. What’s the balance here with choosing to feel good in spite of others, bad choices and still having the expectation to be treated with respect in any given relationship. I think that’s a choice and that kind of goes to a boundaries discussion where you decide you are going to feel a certain way, but you also decide as part of you maintaining responsibility for your emotions means you are also responsible for setting up boundaries for yourself so that you can keep in those emotions. Now we all day let’s tell me if you’re not this way right? But you can be on emotional high some days and lows other days and this is people that don’t have depression that still go up and down different things can happen and we make them mean certain things and we completely change how we feel, which is great news because that means we can completely change how we feel in any situation. But if you’re noticing a trend, so for example, if someone is hurting you emotionally or physically well you can decide that you’re not going to feel bad about that, but the reality is as you might actually be getting hurt. So how do you keep yourself safe? Sometimes you have to physically remove yourself and sometimes you have to go, I need to be open and honest about my boundaries and if this continues to happen, I need to switch my circumstance, We’re not going to be Pollyanna and go, oh keep doing this and I’m going to choose to feel better about it. Now, a lot of the choices we make on a daily basis aren’t the extreme of getting hurt or like when you talk about abuse and that kind of thing, that is something where you definitely would have to learn how to establish boundaries and if you don’t know how to establish your boundary for yourself, it’s a good time to find someone that can help do that on your behalf? Yeah. The boundaries discussion is interesting how it like fits into all of these manuals we have for everyone. In fact, that’s how I’ve been learning about it. These all are conjunction with each other, right? Because we are responsible for our feelings and in order to manage our feelings, manage ourself, lead ourself. Part of doing that is establishing our boundaries and we don’t know those all in one day, right? We get those, those were exposed to different experiences. Yeah. You need to if you continually breached you need to remove yourself. And because we are emotional people, we take all of our action or we stop taking action based upon the emotions we have, it is very important to work on our emotions and how do we work on our emotions? We work on our thoughts because the thoughts trigger the emotion. Now you could argue the other way around, but there’s a lot of neuroscience and psychology behave, cognitive behavior therapy, all these things are coming out with more and more information about how that happens. So that’s why you hear a lot about affirmations in the world. That’s how that’s why we do thought work, we work on our thoughts and work on limiting beliefs and that kind of thing. Because if we can work on those thoughts, we can get a completely different emotion. Have you had that experience where someone said, they said like pointed to a person like oh that person did x, Y. Z a really bad thing, let’s say that we think is bad and like all of a sudden that person looks really unattractive, everything they say seems like a lie. And then let’s say a day or two later someone comes back and goes, oh no, no, no, it wasn’t that guy, it was that one over there and in a moment everything shifts, nothing changed. The person stayed who they were, right? But your idea of who they were changed in an instant based upon information. So you chose how to feel, you chose how to think in that moment. It’s very fascinating stuff and so that the good news and all of this is that we can choose to work on our thoughts now, some days we’re not ready to work on certain thoughts, like I want to be mad right now, I want to feel hurt, I want to sit here and just think of all of the reasons why and kind of get it out of us right? And but there’s a point in time where we can choose and go listen, I’d really like to feel differently. I’d really like to show up differently because it does matter and how you show up, doesn’t it? It totally matters and how we show up to the world, but this is a good practice to go through to ask ourselves questions? Like when these situations arise where people don’t act in the way we think they should act and it’s not an employee relationship. It’s not a reporting to relationship in some way, like a teacher or somewhere where there are expectations or rules that you have to follow. The rest is all made up and our heads isn’t that interesting. Like we make up so many rules all throughout our day, even if like I come into the room and see a toy in the middle of the floor and like why don’t my son move that out of the way? Come on, common sense. Well it’s not and it wasn’t bugging him, but it’s bugging me and I’m making it feel a certain way for me. I could walk and just go, I’ll just move it. No problem. No big deal. Now that might work in the moment or I might notice it and go, I notice these are being left out. Let’s let’s sit down and have a talk about this so I can teach them how to not do this going forward. So some of these become opportunities to have a communication with someone because they might not even know they’re breaking all of your rules and your virtual handbook for them. So pay attention. It’s fascinating stuff. We get to work on it all of the time. You think you’re in a good place and not judging and not having these manuals, but all of a sudden you’ll feel the feelings creep in there. Like why am I feeling anxiety about this? Why am I getting angry? Why am I noticing that everybody should be doing these things and they are not noticing them themselves? It could be that you’ve got a virtual handbook building up in your head that they’re supposed to follow and they don’t know it because they’re human. They are not going to be controlled and neither are you. We push back on that. Okay, thank you for joining today. Thank you for letting me share some stories and some thoughts heather asked, how do we teach Children to be responsible at correctly, be nice to others without teaching them to feel responsible for how other people feel? Well now that’s hard. That’s part of one of the examples, right? That it takes more communication around it because all of us in our language tend to default to go, We don’t want them to feel this way and to to bring up the topic a lot. We are not responsible how they feel, but we are responsible for how we show up and how can we show up in our best possible way and make decisions, but we can become more aware of it to point out if someone’s feeling bad, You know, you’re choosing to feel that right now, would you have made that choice to would you have hit that person that just hit you at school and you can have a discussion around it. At least I’m going through this right now with my son. Like he’ll say, oh well they did that and that made me feel this way. I’m like, listen, they didn’t make you feel that way. You’re choosing to feel that way. But I want to acknowledge that I see that you’re in pain. Like, I’m sorry that it hurts. Can we do next time? This comes up a lot with sharing toys he doesn’t want to share. Like, listen, one thing we can do next time is we can go through and look at everything before someone comes over, decide what you want to hide that you don’t want to share and decide what can be left out. So you can be fine and comfortable with what happens. But I think it’s just it’s having more conversations about it because in the end of the day, your child’s going to choose how they feel about the conversation and the interactions. But at least opening the door to further conversations, I think helps I know that as I’ve had these conversations about feelings with my child, it’s funny because he’ll he’ll tell me sometimes, like, you know, I am having some sad feelings right now. Like why are you having them? Well, someone said this like, okay, well, you know, I think I might feel sad too if I heard that. But what can we do, what can we think right now. And like sometimes the conversations comes to, oh you know what maybe that person wasn’t feeling very good about themselves. So they felt like they had to put you down or they had to take away that act mean, so to speak. I’d start with conversations. I’d love to hear anyone else’s ideas. There is a book on my word. I forgot about it as I go get it. It’s from one of those book companies you know that people do us born or something. It was born all about feelings. I bought this so that we could talk about the feelings and I learned a lot like oh this is pretty cool. All about feelings where we talked about it and read through it to realize that sometimes it’s not only teaching about your feelings but also looking for body clues and what people say and do. That could give you an idea of what they could be feeling again not to control them or manipulate them to be aware. Because if you sense someone’s feeling a certain way, you could decide to respond in a certain way. If you’d like I think we can teach them to show and say kindness but then teach them when they’ve done enough. Like you did your part now it’s up to them to decide what to do and say and be with what you’ve done. Yeah. Yeah. They have the responsibility to do whatever they’re gonna do. But sometimes we’re bothered because there is something we feel like we want to do. I just experienced the other day when I had told a little person to get off the property. They weren’t following the rules. And I felt angst about it even though I set the boundary and I saw the little girl like a week later and I pulled her aside and I said listen, I want you to know that I had some rules that you broke and that’s why I sent you off. But you know if we follow the rules you can come back anytime and she didn’t want to look at me in the face or anything. But after I said that I was like you know what, I feel good, I feel like I did what I wanted to do. She could still be mad, she could have forgotten about in it, whatever, none of my business, but taking personal, responsible for my feelings. I had set the boundaries. I enforce the boundaries. I still felt a little inner inkling to do something more. I followed that impression and I’ve had my feelings back and check about that matter now. So interesting and she didn’t even know I went through this whole process because she’s like eight years old and she doesn’t, she thinks I’m someone’s grandma. I think so anyway, okay, I’m going longer on these and I thought I would but thank you all for joining. I would love to hear more of your thoughts on this topic. I am by no means an expert, but I love facilitating the conversation and the wonder around this toward helping us offer up our best work. Have a great day. Talk to you soon. Bye. Mm. 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. Oh, yeah.