Make Peace… Brandy’s Suggestion

 Make Peace… Brandy’s Suggestion…

Make Peace. I’m going to talk about a whole bunch of different things, but I promise you it will all come together at the end, but it may seem like I’m all over the board, at first.

Yesterday, I was talking to my oldest daughter, and she had an idea for a video where I encourage people to reach out to friends or family members or former loved ones and sort of make peace with them. I only know one person, personally, that has died from COVID-19, but I know a couple of other people that have lost several friends or family members to this outbreak.

I agree with her, that we need to make peace. It may or may not be possible to make peace with those family members, friends, or whomever but you will need to make peace with yourself.

So, if you choose that you want to reconnect, then you should do that. And if you choose to not reconnect, I think that you should do that. I’m going to tell a couple of different stories that to accentuate what I’m talking about

Steve Makes Peace

One of story, I have, is about a colleague that last year, decided to end his life and no, it wasn’t suicide, it was, it was a planned event. He had Parkinson’s disease and it was progressing a lot faster than expected.

He talked to his wife and his family, basically saying “he was not interested in going out this way”. He had always lived his life on his own terms, and he was going to choose the manner of his death in the same way.

On a fateful day, they had a big party. They invited all of his friends and everybody hung out, people said goodbye and at the end of the party, his wife and his son were there with him. He had a doctor prescribed the “End of Life” pill, he took that pill, and he passed.

It’s sad. It was a great loss to the NLP community. But I admire the way that he chose his path. We should have the ability to choose how we wish to leave this life. For those who know that is going to happen, why not have a life celebration party? There’s going to be plenty of time to grieve after but why the person is alive why not take the time to celebrate knowing them?

My Dad

The second story that I have was based on my personal experience with my father. When my father was diagnosed in his late 50s with diabetes, and he promptly, chose to do nothing about his diabetes.

My family and I watched him morph into something that I’m barely recognized as, as my former father so that when, when he finally did pass, not having diabetes. He died of cancer. I was actually glad that he was no longer in pain, I miss my father but the way that he chose to go was really hard on me, and really hard on everyone else around him. It has taken a while to understand his choices. I do wish that I had had the ability to honor someone’s choices of how to live, at the time.

A Rose By Any Other Name

The third story that I have has to do with a client of mine. I did ask her permission to tell the story. She’d been married for a couple of gazillion years, and her husband’s health is beginning to fail.

Of course, his doctor has recommended that he begin to eat better and do some exercise. Do things to improve the quality of his life, and he has no interest in that.

You can kind of guess how this is going to go; she started out by making suggestions,  then those suggestions became orders and those orders became arguments.

There’s a lot of stress in their relationship because of it. Most of that stress has to do with her having a lot of fear. She doesn’t want to lose her husband, who could blame her?

I was having a conversation with her the other day and I asked her a question, and I put a personal spin on it because she and I are friends as well as her being a coaching client.

And I said if I was, if I was really ill and I had chosen to end my life, would you be there? Would you watch me shuck this mortal coil and she said “yes” and I said that “I would do the same for her”.

Where’s This Going?

Where I’m going with this is, I’m going to be asking you to consider Making Peace, because we are in very close quarters with one another, right now. With the shutdown and pandemic, all of our family drama, our past history, all of our everything is right up in our faces.

Would it be possible for you to allow your partner or your family member or your, your lover or your friend or even your child to live their life the way that they chose it? And if it has consequences; okay, they would choose to accept those consequences.

But you have to understand that they already know what the consequences are. People who smoke cigarettes. Is there anybody out there who doesn’t know that cigarette smoking is pretty detrimental and you have a one in two chance of dying of cancer or, you know, COPD or whatever it is if you smoke? Everybody knows that. So, they’re making that choice. That is how they’re choosing to end their life.

If you have somebody who drinks or they use drugs, or they choose to be obese and not exercise and not eat right, they are choosing their path. Can you let them?

Can you be so centered to make peace, in a way, that you understand that they’re making a choice? And, can you not only honor their choices but respect them?

Care Giving vs. Care Taking

Let’s talk about the difference between caregiving and caretaking. If you are going to make peace with yourself and others, This is how you do it.

The way that I define caretaking means that you are giving the person, what you want.

An example of caretaking is somebody who’s encouraging their partner to eat right or exercise or stop smoking or whatever it is that they’re encouraging them to do. They’re actually demonstrating what they want from their partner.

They want their partner to encourage them and they want their partner to go for walks with them and to make meals together and to share time and intimacy or conversation, and instead, they’re giving it to the person who hasn’t asked for it. AND THAT IS COVERT CONTRACT WHICH WILL BLOW UP IN THEIR FACE.

Then there’s caregiving. Caregiving is where you give the person what they asked for.

So if you have somebody, your partner or family member that smokes who says “would you go get me a pack of cigarettes”? Would you do that? Could you that?

I’ll go do that because that’s what they asked for. I also have the understanding that they understand the risks, and that they understand that IF THEY SMOKE, they’re going to shorten their life. They’re going to decrease the quality of their life.

I’ve had partners that smoked and didn’t really care, and I’ve had partners that didn’t take care of their health. But I always remembered my dad and my dad didn’t take care of himself.

He kind of required everybody to take care of him. As a result of the experience, one of the things that I said to a particular partner of mine was diagnosed as borderline diabetic. I said to her, “you’re choosing not to take care of yourself and if you get really sick, I will let you die”. 

I know that sounds harsh, but I have no desire whatsoever to take care of someone who won’t even bother to take care of themselves. But I can sum up is when it comes to your family and your loved ones are you caregiving, are you caretaking?

Ask For What You Want

Have you told people what you really want? That you want in deeper connection or you want intimacy or physical touch, or you want to spend time together. Have you actually communicated that? And would you be willing to have that conversation?

Another thing that would be really interesting is if you talk to your partner or your family member or your friend, and say, “What is it that you want”? And, maybe they don’t know that they have the option or the choice to actually tell you what they want.

If they told you could you hear them? Can you listen, at a very deep level? And whatever it is that they asked for. Can you give it to them?

Some people are hurting so bad they really just want to be left alone. Can you do that? Can you get your needs met another way, and allow them the courtesy of giving them what they want or ask for?

If you want to have a conversation about this please feel free to set up a FREE 15-minute consultation