Feeling Bitter

DWQA QuestionsCategory: QuestionsFeeling Bitter
meganb433 asked 3 months ago
I notice I'm disempowering myself. I feel bitter about my in-laws. I had surgery last week (that has taken us 3 months of preparation). We had the courage to tell my in-laws about the surgery and the process and they never once asked about how I was handling everything. When I came out of anesthesia, my husband texted his parents to tell them I was out of surgery. They responded to his text and talked about other things, but did not acknowledge the surgery at all. They didn't ask how I was feeling. Of course, getting ready for this surgery has been life-altering and time-consuming. A few weeks ago, when we were on the phone with his dad, we said, "Well with surgery this month..." and his dad said, "What surgery?" This irks me a ton! I feel so frustrated that they seem so insensitive. Then, on Sunday, my brother-in-law called my husband and said, "We're coming for a surprise visit tomorrow and you'll need to get a pack n play for our baby and we'll arrive hungry so please have dinner ready." They also know that I was 2 days post surgery on Sunday. I would have loved for them to say, "We know your wife just had surgery. Is it ok if we spend the night? Can we bring a meal for you?" Then, they ended up sleeping in two different bedrooms so when they left Tuesday, my brother-in-law said, "Oh by the way you'll need to wash the sheets from both beds because we slept in different rooms." I was frustrated that they didn't offer to take the sheets off because the night before I told them about the pain I was experiencing and how I was unable to stretch, bend, or lift. The story in my brain is "My in-laws are incredibly insensitive and I don't want them in my life because thinking about them and wishing for them to be different causes me so much pain."
1 Answers
2leann answered 3 months ago

Thanks for sharing your situation and love your way as you’re recovering from surgery.

A couple emotions you mentioned were bitter and frustrated.  Take some time to be with those emotions.  Put your hand on your heart if you’d like, and breath into them.  Notice what it feels like in your body to be frustrated and bitter.  Describe where it is in your body, the shape, size, color, texture, and anything else you notice about the emotion.
Knowing that you can feel any emotion can be powerful, so taking time to practice feeling whatever you’re feeling, will strengthen your emotional muscles.

Let’s also explore a few of your thoughts:
My in-laws are incredibly insensitive.
I don’t want them in my life.
I wish they were different.
I encourage you to put each of these thoughts in the model and see what comes up for you.  Share what you discover if you’d like.

A couple things to remember:
We have manuals for other people, and often they don’t know what is in our manual.  *Take a listen to my podcast #74 called A Manual for more info. Listen HERE
We can’t change other people.  When we stop trying to change them and simply accept them for who they are, even when we don’t like it, it starts to lighten things up for us.

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