Who do you have a manual for?
Manuals can be useful for things, but they are not useful for other people.
Join Lovin My Daughter-in-law Program today, and come find out how to tweak the model you have for your DIL, for yourself, or for anyone you care about.
Welcome to Lovin My Daughter-in-law Podcast, where my mother-in-law, relationship expert and master certified coach LeAnn Austin, will help you create more love and connection with your daughter-in-law and everyone else who care about.
Hey y’all, you’re listening to Lovin My Daughter-in-law, Episode #74: A Manual
I’ve purchased lots of things throughout my life that come with a manual. A manual is a document that provides instructions or guidelines on how to perform an activity, and serves as a reference book on the activity.
Now some of the manuals I’ve gotten I read, well more like I glance at, some of them I file away, some I chuck and figure it out without the manual, some are in languages that I don’t understand, and some I hope that my husband will read and just tell me about.
Manuals can be useful for things, but they’re not useful for other people. We all have manuals to some degree for people in our lives, whether we realize it or not. And what I’ve come to learn and better understand is, when I’m aware of my manual for someone else, I can decide if that’s something I really want to keep, or simply toss.
For example, I used to think my daughter-in-law should help me clean up after dinner. That a “good” daughter-in-law gets up from the table and helps me clean until everything is put away. Now, many times she did help me, but I was so focused on the few times that she didn’t, that I didn’t appreciate at all the many, many times she did help me clean up.
What was even more interesting about this, and as I was thinking about it some more, I don’t always jump up and help my mother-in-law clean up after meals. Sometimes I don’t help her clean up at all. I’m talking to my husband or one of my kids, and by the time I even think about it, the stuff’s put away. Hmm.
So why is this important LeAnn? When we have a manual or an instruction guide for someone in our lives, we use it for how we would like them to behave so that we feel good, or happy, or better. Having expectations of other people may seem justified, but when your emotional happiness is directly tied to someone acting a certain way, it can be very damaging.
Another person’s behavior has no impact on us emotionally, until we think about it, interpret it, and choose to make it mean something. It doesn’t matter what people do, how they act, what they say, they don’t get to determine how we feel.
Now one of the other things to remember about manuals, manuals tend to have lots of thoughts with the word should. She should do this. He shouldn’t have done that. Shoulding all over others and yourself does not feel very good.
In Lovin My Daughter-in-law Program for July, we are focusing on manuals. Come find out how to tweak the manual you have for your daughter-in-law, for yourself, or for anyone else you care about.
Then as you’re vacationing and spending time with family this summer, you’ll know how to stop the shoulding and really question the manuals you have for the people in your life that you care about.
I love this quote from Kelly Corbet: “Shoulds’ come only from leftover thinking. If we are truly in the moment, the only one there really is, we don’t should on ourselves (and I’ll add, or others). It’s a great freedom.” Hmm, something to think about.
Have a good one y’all, and here’s to questioning our manuals, and love.
If you enjoyed this podcast, check out LeAnn’s Lovin My Daughter-in-law Program, where she coaches and teaches a variety of ways to have more fun and connection in our relationships. LeAnn also shares the five secrets she uses to create a beautiful relationship with me and her other daughter-in-law. She’s the real deal. I highly recommend you check this out. And if you want one easy question, you can keep in your back pocket and use to increase the love you feel for your daughter-in-law today. Go to leannaustin.com and get the one question.
