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54: The Rules Life Never Agreed To · (re)Parenting Radio

0:01
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Reparenting Radio.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: I'm Lisa Watson, architect of human transformation.
0:06
SPEAKER_00: This is a space for leaders, parents, and anyone ready to break old patterns, regulate their nervous system, and show up in their life with clarity and self-trust.
0:16
SPEAKER_00: If you're ready to change the way you lead, love, and live, you're in the right place.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: Let's begin.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: Hello, friends, and welcome back to Reparenting Radio.
0:30
SPEAKER_00: There are four words that I have been saying to myself for probably, I don't know, at least three years now.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: And they are expect nothing, appreciate everything.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: Honestly, I thought I understood them.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: I really did, because I talk about expectations with my clients.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: I use this phrase with my clients, which they seem to love.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: I've talked about how expectations are the mother of grievances.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: I fully believe and understand that.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: How often our disappointment isn't actually coming from what happened, but it's coming from the distance between what happened and what we thought should have happened.
1:18
SPEAKER_00: So intellectually, I completely understand this.
1:22
SPEAKER_00: Expect nothing, appreciate everything.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: But something has happened in my life over the past month or so that has made me realize that although I understood this concept and completely agree with it, I mean, it's it's my own saying that I came up with.
1:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm sure someone said it before me, but I didn't just read it somewhere and start speaking it.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: I I lived it and I realized we need to expect nothing and appreciate everything.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: But what I realized about a month ago is that I wasn't necessarily embodying it.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: And that's there's a really big difference, a really big difference because recently I've been playing, paying closer attention to whenever I feel disappointed or irritated, discouraged or frustrated or sad in some way, or you know, somehow like my life just isn't where it's supposed to be.
2:27
SPEAKER_00: And I've started asking myself, well, is this an expectation problem?
2:34
SPEAKER_00: And almost every single time there seems to be something there, a yes, some invisible expectation sitting underneath the emotion that I'm feeling.
2:46
SPEAKER_00: I expected that my business would be further along.
2:50
SPEAKER_00: I expected I would be able to um really launch my new consulting business when I moved here in San Diego in like three months or less.
3:02
SPEAKER_00: I expected, you know, to be making more money than I was in that time.
3:06
SPEAKER_00: I expected my marriage to look different, that my husband wouldn't be living in Mexico for away from me for the past six months.
3:13
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I've expected certain relationships to look a certain way for the, and I think one of the biggest things that I've realized is that I expected that after all the personal development and spiritual shadow hunting, deep work that I have done on myself, and believe me, I've done a lot over the past 10 years, then my outer reality would somehow look different.
3:43
SPEAKER_00: Almost like there was this unspoken agreement, like, okay, life, I've done my part, I've healed, I've learned, I've grown, I've become more conscious, I've changed.
3:55
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, show me the goods.
3:57
SPEAKER_00: Where's my stuff?
3:59
SPEAKER_00: Where's my thriving business?
4:01
SPEAKER_00: Where's my perfect relationship?
4:02
SPEAKER_00: Where's that new big house and car and bank account or whatever little things that you, you know, a person feels would be representative of that.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: Where's my little gold star, you know, from the universe saying, Congratulations, Lisa, you have successfully completed personal development.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: It turns out there are no gold stars.
4:25
SPEAKER_00: What I've started to recognize is that underneath many of these expectations was something even more interesting.
4:33
SPEAKER_00: They weren't simply desires, and they weren't simply things that I preferred.
4:42
SPEAKER_00: What they were were rules, rules that I had unconsciously written for how my life was supposed to unfold.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: The invisible rule book.
4:53
SPEAKER_00: And I think we all have one.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: The invisible rule book we carry around about how life is supposed to work.
5:01
SPEAKER_00: By this age I should be here.
5:04
SPEAKER_00: If I've worked this hard, I should have this much money.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: If someone loves me, then they should behave in this way, or living arrangements should look a certain way.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: My spouse should know what I need, my children should appreciate what I do for them, my adult children should call me more, and my friends should reciprocate in this way, or people should be considerate, or maybe they should know better.
5:29
SPEAKER_00: Traffic shouldn't take this long at this time of the day.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: And the person in front of me shouldn't be driving this slowly.
5:36
SPEAKER_00: My flight should not be delayed this long, and the person I'm meeting, they shouldn't cancel the last minute.
5:46
SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't still be dealing with this.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Listen for that word, should.
5:53
SPEAKER_00: Because should can reveal the rule book.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: Because the fascinating part is what I've realized is life never agreed to any of it.
6:01
SPEAKER_00: Nobody handed life a rule book and got a signature at the bottom.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: There was no contract.
6:08
SPEAKER_00: And yet when reality violates one of our rules, we can react as though a contract has been broken.
6:16
SPEAKER_00: This wasn't supposed to happen.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: According to whom?
6:19
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the answer is according to me.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean the thing that happened was pleasant.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean you liked it.
6:31
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean it was fair.
6:33
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean we have to tolerate harmful behavior.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: It simply means reality is already reality.
6:41
SPEAKER_00: And arguing with the fact that it happened doesn't change it.
6:48
SPEAKER_00: So there's expectations versus preference.
6:52
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not suggesting that we stop wanting things.
6:56
SPEAKER_00: I have preferences.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: I have lots of them.
7:00
SPEAKER_00: I prefer people to be kind.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: I prefer people to communicate clearly.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: I prefer my relationship to feel reciprocal.
7:12
SPEAKER_00: I prefer financial abundance over financial stress.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: I prefer having a peaceful home.
7:21
SPEAKER_00: I prefer plans working out.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: I prefer people doing what they say they're going to do.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: And I have standards, I have boundaries, I have goals, I have dreams, I have intentions.
7:34
SPEAKER_00: The difference is what happens inside of me when reality doesn't match those desires or those preferences.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: A preference says, I would really like this to happen.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: An intention says, This is what I'm moving toward.
7:55
SPEAKER_00: A boundary says, this is what I will or will not tolerate or participate in.
8:03
SPEAKER_00: But an expectation can quietly become this is what must happen for me to be okay or peaceful or happy.
8:14
SPEAKER_00: And that's where I think we surrender some of our power.
8:17
SPEAKER_00: Because now my peace is dependent on something outside of me following my script.
8:24
SPEAKER_00: Everything is information.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: And those three words really connect directly to something that I have been practicing alongside expect nothing, appreciate everything that I feel has really shifted things for me in the last 30 days.
8:46
SPEAKER_00: That everything is truly information, just information.
8:49
SPEAKER_00: Someone behaves in a certain way that I don't like, a job opportunity doesn't work out, or a relationship changes, maybe someone doesn't call me back, or plans around where I'm going to live suddenly change.
9:04
SPEAKER_00: Traffic, drivers, loud motorcycles going by when I'm trying to have a peaceful walk.
9:11
SPEAKER_00: That's all information.
9:12
SPEAKER_00: Plans around where I'm going to live suddenly change.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: That's information.
9:17
SPEAKER_00: A loud motorcycle goes screaming past me while I'm trying to have a peaceful walk, and I immediately feel irritated.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: Information.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: And that's something that actually happened recently.
9:29
SPEAKER_00: I think I talked about it a couple podcasts ago.
9:31
SPEAKER_00: I was out on a walk and it seemed like every loud car and motorcycle that existed was driving by me that day on my walk.
9:39
SPEAKER_00: And I was feeling so irritated.
9:43
SPEAKER_00: And instead of immediately thinking, oh, these people are so inconsiderate or placing the blame on the noises, I just looked inside at myself and was like, wow, interesting how much this noise is affecting me today.
10:03
SPEAKER_00: Am I overstimulated?
10:04
SPEAKER_00: Am I tired?
10:05
SPEAKER_00: Is my nervous system acting for quiet?
10:08
SPEAKER_00: Do I need something?
10:09
SPEAKER_00: Like the motorcycle isn't an instruction.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't tell me what to feel.
10:15
SPEAKER_00: It's neutral.
10:17
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't tell me what to do next.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: It's noise is just information, and so is my reaction to it.
10:25
SPEAKER_00: And that's where knowing yourself becomes incredibly useful because now I have information about the external world and information about my internal world.
10:35
SPEAKER_00: And I get to decide what I want to do next.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: I get to decide what I do with both.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: And there's power in now what?
10:50
SPEAKER_00: That question.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: Okay, everything's information.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Now what?
10:56
SPEAKER_00: And this is my favorite part, and this is the part that has, I think, given me the most relief is that question, now what?
11:04
SPEAKER_00: Instead of spending hours arguing with reality or doing the mental gymnastics with it.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: I just asked, now what?
11:14
SPEAKER_00: Okay, my housing situation changed.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: It went from having to be out by December 31st to October 15th.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: Okay, now what?
11:22
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I didn't want it to change.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: I could have preferred it, wouldn't it change, but it did change.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: So now what?
11:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna look for another place.
11:31
SPEAKER_00: A job doesn't work out?
11:33
SPEAKER_00: Okay, information.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: Now what?
11:35
SPEAKER_00: Apply for another one.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: Someone behaves in a way that I don't appreciate?
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Information.
11:41
SPEAKER_00: Now what?
11:42
SPEAKER_00: How do I respond?
11:43
SPEAKER_00: Do I have a conversation?
11:45
SPEAKER_00: Do I adjust my expectations?
11:47
SPEAKER_00: Do I create distance?
11:49
SPEAKER_00: Do I need to set a boundary?
11:51
SPEAKER_00: Do I let the relationship go?
11:54
SPEAKER_00: Do I recognize that this person maybe simply isn't capable of giving me what I expected them to give me, or maybe they're just having a bad day?
12:05
SPEAKER_00: That's where our power comes back through choice.
12:11
SPEAKER_00: Because we cannot control the information that arrives.
12:14
SPEAKER_00: We can only participate in what we do next.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't mean bypassing your emotions.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: Because I certainly don't want you to take this phrase, well, everything's just information, and have it become another way to spiritually bypass or pretend that we don't have feelings.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm talking about.
12:39
SPEAKER_00: Something can be information and hurt.
12:42
SPEAKER_00: It can be information and still disappoint you.
12:46
SPEAKER_00: You can grieve, you can be angry, you can be scared, you can say, this really sucks.
12:52
SPEAKER_00: This is hard, this is challenging.
12:55
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you're allowed.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: The practice isn't don't feel anything.
13:00
SPEAKER_00: The practice is don't automatically turn the feeling into a story about what reality should have been.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: Feel the disappointment.
13:11
SPEAKER_00: Then notice the expectation under it.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I thought this relationship would last forever.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Of course, you're grieving, but underneath that grief might also be, well, I feel that way because I thought it was supposed to last forever.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: Those are slightly different things.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: One honors what you lost, the other argues with what happened.
13:38
SPEAKER_00: And that distinction is incredibly freeing.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: And it allows you to drop into this place where instead of fighting with your reality, complaining about your reality, trying to see where your reality went wrong, what how it could have been better, spending all this energy on something that you can't change, you can just ask yourself, well, where did this rule come from that it was supposed to look different?
14:08
SPEAKER_00: And because this is reparenting radio, you know we're gonna go into the reparenting part, right?
14:15
SPEAKER_00: Where did we get these rules?
14:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, some of them came from our families, some came from religion, culture, school, gender expectations, movies, TV shows, social media, or communities, just simply what was modeled to us in our childhood.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: Things like by 30, you're supposed to be here, by 40, you should be doing this, a successful person looks like this, a good mother does this, a good wife does this, a man should, a woman should, a marriage should, a career should, a healed person, you know, behaves like this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
14:58
SPEAKER_00: There's so many damn rules.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: And if we never examine those rules, we can spend an entire lifetime just trying to win a game that we didn't even consciously choose to play.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: That's reparenting.
15:12
SPEAKER_00: Not just healing childhood wounds.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: It's becoming conscious enough to ask, do I actually believe this?
15:21
SPEAKER_00: Is this my rule?
15:23
SPEAKER_00: Is this useful?
15:25
SPEAKER_00: Who taught me this?
15:26
SPEAKER_00: Does it serve me?
15:29
SPEAKER_00: Does it empower me or disempower me?
15:33
SPEAKER_00: And what happens if I don't follow this rule?
15:37
SPEAKER_00: What are we teaching our children?
15:40
SPEAKER_00: We're handing these rules down to our children all the time without realizing it.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: You should be getting better grades, you should be outgoing, you should play outside more, you should do more sports, you shouldn't be upset about that, you should hug grandma, you should listen to me the first time, you shouldn't be afraid, you should be grateful, you should do more around here, you should be happy.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: Imagine being a child having a completely legitimate emotion and being told that according to the adults' rule book, you're having the wrong experience.
16:22
SPEAKER_00: You shouldn't be upset right now.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: You should feel better.
16:25
SPEAKER_00: Instead, what if we just become more curious?
16:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're really disappointed.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: Tell me about it.
16:33
SPEAKER_00: That wasn't what was expected, was it?
16:36
SPEAKER_00: What did you think was gonna happen?
16:38
SPEAKER_00: What are you feeling now?
16:40
SPEAKER_00: What do you want to do next?
16:43
SPEAKER_00: Now we're not just teaching children that life must meet their expectations, we're teaching them you can meet life.
16:51
SPEAKER_00: That's resilience.
16:54
SPEAKER_00: But it's not only how we talk to children, it's how we're talking to our own inner child, recognizing the scripts that we're running and asking ourselves, are these the still the scripts I want to run?
17:09
SPEAKER_00: Because there's knowing versus embodying.
17:12
SPEAKER_00: The difference between knowing something and embodying it is I've known to expect nothing, appreciate everything.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: That's it.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: That's something I believed, I've been teaching, I've been saying for years.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: I've coached it, I've taught versions of it, I've understood it intellectually.
17:36
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes an idea has to travel a really long distance from your head into your nervous system, into your behavior, into the way you actually experience Monday morning or Tuesday afternoon.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: That's embodiment.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to remind yourself of the lesson every five minutes.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: It starts becoming how you move through the world.
18:01
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like practicing playing the guitar or riding a bike.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: You know, you have to consciously think of where to put your hands or your feet or your balance or what to do.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: But then after you do it many, many times, it just becomes subconscious and it's just happening.
18:20
SPEAKER_00: And that's what happened to me with this phrase, expect nothing, appreciate everything.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: It went from being something I was saying to something I'm now embodying.
18:32
SPEAKER_00: And strangely enough, I'm experiencing this deeper sense of peace during one of the least predictable periods of my life.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm, you know, searching for a place to live, I'm exploring different work, I'm living a different country from my husband.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: Plans keep changing, and I don't exactly know what the next six months are gonna look like.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: Yet internally, I feel surprisingly peaceful and more peaceful than I have felt in a very long time.
19:04
SPEAKER_00: And not because I know what's gonna happen next, but because I'm becoming less convinced that I need to know.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: That rule is no longer in my rule book.
19:15
SPEAKER_00: I've decided I don't need to know what's gonna happen in order to be peaceful.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: Everything's just information.
19:22
SPEAKER_00: I know that I will make a decision each day as I'm confronted with things to the best of my ability.
19:31
SPEAKER_00: I know I'm intelligent, I know I'm resourceful and creative.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: And so I just don't have any rules to what life's gonna look like other than creating the best experience I can and making the best choices I can from moment to moment each day.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: Expect nothing, appreciate everything.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean don't plan, it doesn't mean don't dream, it doesn't mean accept crappy behavior from people and become passive.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean you stop creating your life.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: It simply means you stop demanding that the present moment look different before you're willing to participate in it.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: It means you stop complaining.
20:19
SPEAKER_00: Because even when something isn't what I wanted, there's still something there.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: Something to notice, something to experience, something to appreciate, something to learn, something to respond to.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's connected to the childlike wonder that I've been feeling lately.
20:38
SPEAKER_00: Because children, they don't wake up with a five-year strategic plan for what Monday morning or Tuesday afternoon needs to unfold into to be successful or entertaining.
20:49
SPEAKER_00: They just wake up and they enter the world.
20:51
SPEAKER_00: What's this?
20:52
SPEAKER_00: What's over here?
20:53
SPEAKER_00: What happens if I do this?
20:55
SPEAKER_00: And then they play with what's there.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: Maybe we could all use a little more of that.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: Less trying to force life to follow the script we've written for it and more curiosity about the life that's actually happening.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: So I want to leave you with a little practice this week.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: The next time you feel disappointed or frustrated or irritated or resentful, or you catch yourself thinking, this shouldn't be happening.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: He shouldn't have done that, she shouldn't have done that, it shouldn't be this way.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: Why is it so hard?
21:30
SPEAKER_00: Stop.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: Just stop and ask.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: What rule did I have about how this was supposed to look or how it was supposed to go?
21:39
SPEAKER_00: And don't judge the rule and don't judge yourself.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: Just notice it.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you still like it.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's an important standard.
21:46
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you want to keep it.
21:48
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's revealing a boundary you need to set, or maybe you'll suddenly realize, oh crap, I made that up.
21:54
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to, I don't need to worry about that anymore.
21:58
SPEAKER_00: And then ask yourself, given the information I have now, what do I choose next?
22:06
SPEAKER_00: We're not spending energy trying to change what happened.
22:10
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna spend our energy getting present and looking at what is the next move I'm going to make.
22:19
SPEAKER_00: That's the part that's yours.
22:22
SPEAKER_00: Take the information, feel what you feel, trust yourself to respond, and then just keep playing the game moving forward because life never agreed to follow our rules.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: And I I have realized that that's not a problem.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: That's what keeps this whole experience interesting.
22:43
SPEAKER_00: So expect nothing, appreciate everything, and remember that everything is simply the information that you get to choose how you're going to respond to.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: I'll see you next week.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Reparenting Radio.
23:04
SPEAKER_00: If today's conversation supported you, take a moment to subscribe, leave a review, or share it with someone who knows they were made for more than the patterns that they inherited.
23:14
SPEAKER_00: If you're ready for serious inner work and real transformation, personally or professionally, you can explore my leadership pathways at Lisa-Watson.com.
23:23
SPEAKER_00: And if you're raising little ones alongside your own healing, you'll find my children's books at awaken the one.org.
23:29
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, stay grounded, stay open, and keep reparenting the parts of you that are ready to come home to their authenticity.