Stop dancing, be a stationary body
Wanting someone else to change.
It's possibly one of the most well-meaning and painful stances to be in.
Or maybe I should say one of the most painful dances.
Because typically when we’re in relationship with someone who we wish would change, it’s easy to get caught up in a dance where, each time you’re around them, you’re trying to learn the “right” step that will get them to finally change.
Do you call them out on their defensiveness?
Do you let their hurtful comments slide?
How do you tell them about this great book/podcast/coach that you think could really help?
How do you get them to see that what you’re asking for is good for them and for your relationship?
How do you say it in the exact right combination of words and tone and body language that they’ll finally really hear you?
My clients bring up scenarios like this all the time.
Most recently, this came up with a client who wanted help dealing with the chronically challenging relationship she has with her mother-in-law who lives close by and does a lot of babysitting of my client’s kids.
Her mother-in-law is always there for them when they need her help in a crunch. But she also feeds their kids sugary foods and lets them stay up way past their bedtime.
Which, my client agreed, wouldn’t be the worst thing if her mother-in-law wasn’t also defensive, prone to telling white lies and nearly impossible to talk to about any of her concerns.
“I just never feel like she’s listening to me,” said my client, who admitted that her main strategy with her mother-in-law has been to go along to get along because she's been wildly unsuccessful anytime she's tried to bring up her legitimate concerns.
The first step I shared with my client wasn't what she expected to hear: allow yourself to grieve that your mother-in-law isn’t different.
She’d been focusing so much on what she wanted to change and how she could hopefully get her to change, that she’d never stopped to feel her sadness that this is who her mother-in-law is right now.
So much of the dance we do with other people is an unconscious attempt to not have to feel the sadness we have that this is the reality of the relationship.
Letting yourself grieve that the person isn’t different starts to free up some space for you to approach wanting them to be different with less attachment to the outcome.
After we talked about the first step of grieving, I asked my client if when she’s around her mother-in-law, she feels like she’s always dancing around the thing she really wants to say.
She responded, “Oh yeah!”
“Then here’s the best thing you can do,” I said, “Stop dancing. Be a stationary object.”
I explained further: “Rather than join in on the typical dance you do with your mother-in-law, ground yourself so you can feel your own insides and see what’s going on clearly, and then name what you see.”
For example, I suggested that the next time she tried to bring up a difficult topic with her mother-in-law and she felt like her mother-in-law deflected it and fluttered off to another topic, notice that and say, “When you change the topic so quickly, it’s hard for me to know if you heard what I said.”
Can you see how that’s my client naming the dance she sees in front of her, not joining it?
And what if her mother-in-law gets defensive when she says that?
Still don’t enter the dance…or back away. Stay grounded, stay with her own experience, and then ask her mother-in-law, “Does me bringing this up feel like I’m attacking you?”
Why say that? Because her mother-in-law’s evasiveness and defensiveness sends the message that she feels she’s being attacked.
By my client asking her this, it gives her mother-in-law the opportunity to say yes, and for my client to ask how she could bring it up in a way that she could hear her.
Or, her mother-in-law could double down on her defensiveness and proclaim that she doesn’t feel attacked. In which case my client could say, “then I’m trying to understand why you would feel the need to defend yourself.”
Best case scenario the mother-in-law drops her defenses and they get further along in addressing the topic than they ever had.
Worst case scenario the mother-in-law keeps being defensive and telling white lies and not listening.
But either way, my client is no longer in the dance that’s exhausting and self-abandoning.
Which is to say, you can’t change the way another person is, you can only change the way you are around them so if they never change, at least you have a good experience of yourself around them.
Here are the steps again:
1. Stay grounded/centered in a way that a lets you feel your own body.
2. Watch their behavior and notice the stories you make up about it and how you feel about it.
3. Name what you see or ask questions about what you experience in the dynamic.
(EX: “When you change the subject, I wonder if you heard what I said.” Or, “I know how important it is for you to feel like you’ve gotten things right, do you feel scared that I’m disappointed?”)
4. Repeat.
I encourage you to practice this to see what your experience of yourself is around the other person when you do.
May you also be pleasantly surprised that it actually does inspire a desired change.
And if it doesn't, let yourself grieve that it hasn't. It's their job to change themself if they want, not yours.
Your job: stay committed to not getting back in the dance.
Want help with that? Check out my signature program, YOURS TRULY.