Ever since I became a life coach, I find myself saying “What would Julie do?” I try to remove myself just enough to give myself some advice. It’s challenging. Really challenging. Case in point.
Months ago, Ernie was really sick. I mean, stay-at-home sick. For those of you who don’t know this, we run a small gym in Stowe, VT. We’ve been running it together for over 16 years. So, we spend A LOT of time together. At any rate, he was stay-at-home sick and I was running the show. We both have training clients, teach classes and additionally he wears the maintenance hat while I wear the hat the covers everything else. So, I was wearing his hat, mine, teaching classes, covering his classes, holding down the house fort, making sure he had what he needed, picking up, dropping off and taking care of our youngest and all of his needs and our oldest son, Vince was home for a college break.
Let’s say I was on Day 3 of this. Let’s also say, I was canceling my appointments so I could teach his classes. Let’s add that I had been up since 5:30 am, taught, trained, ran to the store for “stay-at-home” sick guy, picked up, dropped off said youngest, cooked dinner in the middle of the day, went back to work and came home around 7 pm. I walked in the door to “What’s for dinner?” from the youngest. To which I regrouped, cooked some rice (forgot to do this midday) and slopped chicken, rice and a salad onto four plates. At which point, I realize the dishwasher hadn’t been emptied and the laundry was backing up. I scarf my food down, empty the dishwasher (super pissed at my oldest son) and run some laundry (thinking, is “stay-at-home sick” guy so sick he can’t do laundry?). In between, I run upstairs to ask Ernie, “Will you be working tomorrow?” To which he replies “No way.” I grab my phone, begin to adjust my next day (canceling and moving clients) so I can teach his classes. He then says “You are ALWAYS on your phone!” Really??? As I’m writing this, all these months later, my blood starts to boil.
“What would Julie do?” I’m thinking, Julie is pretty pissed right now. I’m thinking…..”Do you even have a clue what I’ve been doing for the past three days?'“ “Do you have any idea how I busted my butt today for you and the boys?” “Are the boys helpless?” “How have I failed them?” or worse “How I have failed their future wives?” I’m apologizing in my head to their future wives already. Ridiculous.
So, what would Julie do?
I walked away and took a shower. Recounting everything and realizing, this was all about perspective. Ernie felt crappy. He had been missing me. The boys were hungry. Have you been around hungry boys? It is far from pretty and they are too primal to think about anything else besides being fed - I actually think it is impossible for them. I was overworked, tired and felt unappreciated. So, I went upstairs after my shower and kissed Ernie goodnight (was making his cooties stay out of my room) and didn’t talk about my emotions for a few days. The timing wasn’t right.
When I went through Robbins-Madanes Training, they talk about something called the Triad. When emotions are flaring you want to change three things:
Focus (what you are thinking about): How heated I was.
Language (i.e. the broken record playing in your head): Feeling unappreciated.
Physiology: My blood boiling.
By taking a shower:
I changed my focus to relax.
I stopped feeling sorry for myself and thought about how it must suck for Ernie to be feeling so crappy.
I took some breaths in the shower and stopped my blood from boiling. PLUS a shower is a game changer.
So the next time you find yourself getting emotional, think about the other person’s perspective and his/her emotions. Remove yourself from the situation if possible and regroup using the triad. It helped me and I know it will help you and now that you have this handy dandy tool, next time you can say to yourself “what would I do?”