Episode 29: How to Love Difficult People

Hello, podcast universe! Welcome to Episode 29 of the 100% Awesome Podcast! I hope you are awesome today. I am April Price and I am so happy to be here with you today at my microphone, podcasting and sharing this amazing space with you. Like does anyone else think this is so totally awesome to be a part of? I really do feel so lucky.

[00:59]
Anyway, today, depending on where you live in the world, you might be starting your preparations for the Thanksgiving holiday which is now just a week away. And at our house, it is no different. I've started making the grocery list and washing all the bedding in anticipation of my kids coming home for the weekend. And yesterday my daughter and I went out and tried to buy some clothes so that we can take a family picture when they get here.

And can I just say that this is an activity which involves none of my strong suits—shopping, fashion, posing, smiling? Just kidding, I'm usually pretty good at smiling, though it is hard on family picture day.

And so I just kind of have to talk myself into it every year and give myself a pep talk: "You can do this!" Because the thing is, no one likes taking family pictures. At least no one in my family likes taking pictures. And when I send a text saying, "So we're gonna be taking family pictures" and I add little smiley emojis—I get all kinds of "ughs" and digital groans and the throw-up emoji and memes of people rolling their eyes at me.

And so I just want you to know that whenever you see anyone's family picture and they're all smiling and happy, it's a lie. No one wants to be there. No one wants to be wearing what they're wearing. No one loves anyone else in that picture in that moment and no one feels like smiling. It's all a lie.

[02:31]
All of this brings me to what I want to talk to you about on the podcast today. So yesterday, after we went shopping and we got all kinds of negative feedback on our clothing choices, I had the thought, "Why do you all have to be so difficult?" Right?

Isn't this the question of the season? "Why do you all have to be so difficult? I could really enjoy this holiday if I didn't have all of you in my life," right?

Many of you are going to be going to family parties and family Thanksgiving feasts and family events and sometimes these will involve your immediate family and sometimes that will involve about 100 other people who are related to you in some way. And in every family, there are difficult people. All right, let me rephrase that. In every family there are people that we think are difficult.

In reality there are no difficult people there are just people. Who do stuff. And then we have lots of thoughts about this stuff they do and the things they say and the way they roll their eyes and we think, "Okay, they are difficult." And I'm going to tell you something that has been life-changing for me. The only thing that makes other people difficult is our interpretation of them. We are viewing them through a lens of difficult. And so if it's our interpretation of them that makes them difficult then in reality, we are the ones being difficult.

[03:54]
So this week I was on a call with some other coaches and one of them was talking about how difficult things have been for her since Mercury is in retrograde and she said it like obviously this is so difficult. Mercury is in retrograde. And I was like, "What is that?" What even is that," right? And technically, I still don't even know, but apparently when Mercury spins in the opposite direction as it usually is supposed to, it creates all kinds of havoc in this woman's life. And I didn't even know about it.

But I want to draw a little parallel here with the difficult people in our families. So this coach, my friend in the group, has attributed all the negative things in her life that are currently going on to Mercury—to a planet that's like a billion miles away or something right? But it's only her interpretation of what is creating difficulty in her life that is actually making it difficult. She views Mercury in retrograde as a problem. And so then it becomes difficult.

And what I want to show you is that it's the exact same for us when we're dealing with people in our lives. If you have difficult people in your life it is only because you are seeing them as difficult that makes them difficult. And by interpreting them in this way and seeing them through this lens then, actually, you are the one being difficult to yourself. Your brain and its interpretation is making that other person seem difficult. But in reality, it is only you that is being difficult.

[05:33]
Okay, now this might seem a little rude or harsh as I say it, but actually it is the very best thing I could ever tell you, because if you are the one being difficult by seeing other people as difficult, then you only have to change you to change the whole situation. And in even more awesome news, you are the only one who can actually change. So this works out beautifully. You are the only person that you can change, and you are the only person that needs to change in order to change everyone else. This is brilliant news!

Okay, so today we're going to talk about how to do just that, how to change you so that you can change the way you're seeing everyone else. So the first thing I want you to know is that the only difficulty is you.

So when there are people in our lives who behave in a way that we don't agree with or we don't like, it is never being around them that makes things difficult for us. The hard part is being around ourselves when we're not loving them, when we're judging them, and when we're wanting them to be different. We don't like ourselves when we're judging and resenting. And we don't like how we feel when we choose judgment or resentment, and then conveniently we blame them for how bad we feel.

In other words, it's not their actions or words or behavior that is difficult. It is our own. We don't like who we are when we're around them. We don't like who we become inside. We don't like being us. When we stop loving them, it feels terrible inside our own heads and then we decide it's their fault that we feel so terrible when it never is.

[07:13]
So I want to give you a little example. A number of years ago we went to church with a woman who I felt like was very difficult. And she didn't like me. (It's like ridiculous, right?) She was just very critical of me and she was critical of my children. And she told people that I wasn't very nice. And this really bugged me, and I didn't like being around her. In fact, I told my husband that if I died and he remarried he was allowed to remarry anyone except this woman. (I can't believe she didn't think I was nice.) So my lower brain kept telling me that this woman and her difficult personality were very dangerous.

Now right away I hope the irony is not lost on you, right? I was going to church with this woman to learn to love like Jesus. And yet here I was at church with this woman that I was supposed to be learning to love and I wasn't even close to love.

I was convinced that she was the problem. I was convinced that she always had something against me or my kids, that she was always misjudging me. And she refused to give me the benefit of the doubt. And I'm sure sitting where you are now you can see what I could not see at the time. Because, in fact, I was judging her. I was refusing to give her the benefit of the doubt. She told people I wasn't nice, and I wasn't very nice. By withholding love and holding a grudge, I wasn't being nice.

And the problem was that it wasn't her that I didn't like. It was myself when I was around her that I didn't like. I didn't like the me that got all hard-hearted and mean inside. I didn't like the me that judged her and held a grudge and refused to love. The way I was treating her in my mind and in my heart (and maybe a little bit on the outside too) felt terrible inside of me. And then I blamed her for all of it and thought she should be different.

[09:10]
So no matter who is the difficult person in your life it's the same for you. It is not their behavior that is painful. It is not their actions and words and personality that are causing you to be irritated. It's being inside your own heart and brain when you're around them that it is so out of alignment with the person that you want to be and your authentic loving spiritual self that feels terrible.

But instead of noticing that we are uncomfortable with this version of ourselves, instead we blame the other person for being so difficult. So one thing that can alert you to this, if you find yourself judging are feeling terrible or thinking someone else is difficult that they should be different in some way, then you can almost always notice that you are doing the exact same thing to them in your own life. It's like a mirror. Right?

I hate that my children fight. And so then I fight with them about their fighting.
It bugs me that my husband is always distracted. And so I stop loving him by distracting myself about his distractibility.
My neighbor is critical of the way my kids drive down the street. And then I am critical of her criticism.
I wish my brother-in-law wouldn't bring up politics at the dinner table. And so then I take sides against him.
It irritates me that my kids leave their dishes in the think for the magic fairy to come and clean them up. So then I make a mess of our relationship by resenting them.

Do you see? We are always the problem. When we stop loving the other person and start judging or start resenting then we don't like being with us.

[10:52]
Now I know that some of you want to resist this. You want to think that you could behave if they would behave, so clearly it must be their fault that you aren't behaving and showing up the way you want. Here's what I know for sure. We can't change them. Other people get to do what they want.

My kids get to fight.
My husband gets to be distracted.
My neighbor gets to be critical.
My brother-in-law can talk about whatever he wants.
My kids get to leave messes.

This is the truth. And, my friends, you get to then act in any way you want.

So the woman in my congregation got to be critical of me and my children. She's totally allowed to do that, but I never have to judge her or be mean or wish she was different. We always get to choose how we're going to think how we're gonna feel how we're going to act regardless of what anyone else does.

[11:50]
Now you might be saying, "But that's not fair. It's not fair that other people can act how they want, and I have to be nice." I am not telling you have to be nice. I am not telling you that you have to choose love. But I am telling you that it will feel so much better if you do. Remember, people are only difficult because of how we feel when we're around them, because of how we feel inside our own head and our own heart, when we think they are difficult. Love will feel so much better than criticism judgment or resentment. You don't have to choose love. You get to choose love. It's an option, is all I'm saying.

If you go back to my example, the only reason I thought the woman at church was hard to be around was because it was hard to be around me, inside me, when I was around her. I didn't like being with me. I didn't like being with the me that was mean and cold and judgmental. It felt terrible. And it wasn't that I didn't like who she was, it was that I didn't like who I was when I was around her. And that was a choice I was making by the thoughts I chose to think about her.

You can love anybody. That is always an option and you are the one who gets to feel it when you do. So I want to share one way that's been really helpful for me to think about this. Whenever we fall out of love with someone right whenever we stop loving them or choose to stop loving them and choose anger or frustration or resentment or judgment instead, we are only punishing ourselves. It never punishes the other person and it never changes them. But because we're the ones that have to feel the anger the frustration the resentment or judgment, or whatever other negative emotion we're having, we are in fact punishing ourselves for their behavior.

So I like to imagine that I have like a big glass of something terrible to drink. Like I like imagining like a big glass of eggnog or a protein shake, both of which I hate so much; they totally make me gag, right? Okay, but it might be something else for you. Just think of something that you hate drinking—maybe like a glass full of Alka-Seltzer or Theraflu. (My kids hate those.)

[14:02]
Anyway, when someone does something that you find irritating or frustrating or unbelievable or even mean, every time they do this thing you have to take a big drink of the horrible thing. So let's say your sister in law says something disparaging about the rolls that you bring to Thanksgiving dinner and she says, "This is why I'm usually in charge of rolls." And then you have to take a big gulp of eggnog or a big gulp of some disgusting drink.

This is exactly what it's like when people do things and then we stop loving them. We punish ourselves. We have to be inside our own heads when we choose to feel a negative emotion about someone else's behavior. Instead of choosing love we in fact, like punch ourselves in the face, or we take a big drink of something disgusting and we punish ourselves.

Remember they get to be who they are. And you get to be who you want to be. You don't ever have to take a big gulp of something nasty. You can choose not to, but this means staying in love. And you do that by the things you think about them. When we stay in love with other people, we do it for us. You do it for you so that you don't have to take the big swig of yuck.

So a really good question to ask yourself in moments like these is to ask yourself, "How am I punishing me for their behavior? What am I making myself feel because I think they should be different.”? That will just help you own that you in fact are creating your own difficulty, by the way you're thinking about them and the feelings that you're choosing to feel.

[15:43]
Okay, number two: other people are just being who they are. Okay, so most of the "difficult" people we encounter are just being who they are. They're busy being who they've always been right. They're acting the way they always act. How they act and what they say how they interact with us, all of that, all of their behavior they have learned and cultivated over a lifetime. Just like you and me, right? Each one of us behaves in a manner that is learned from our experience. So how other people are behaving isn't necessarily difficult, but because it's different from the way we behave or different from our expectation, we perceive it or interpret it to be difficult.

As soon as we believe that something or someone is difficult it then impacts how we interact with them. In other words when we think that they should be or shouldn't be a certain way, then we have to be mad and frustrated when they are in fact that way. Our thought that they should be different than that or that they should be like us, is what makes them difficult. Again their difficulty is only defined by us, in relation to us, and what we think.

So when we first got our dog, he would do all these things that we didn't think that he should do. We had never had a dog and so we didn't know what to expect but I think we kind of thought that he would just be like a hairy human on four legs, right? And he would do all the things that humans do except not talk or need to go to therapy when he grew up.

But when we got him, he did all this stuff that dogs do—like bark at birds and chew blankets and jump up on you and try to lick you to death. (Even if you were a complete stranger who just came by the house.) And I was always like, "What is the deal? He is so difficult." And I remember going on a walk with him when we first got him and we came to like the first bush, right? And he like peed on it and I was like, "Okay, glad we got that out of the way. Gross, but okay, it's done."

[17:52]
And so then we're walking along and come to the next bush and he pees on the next bush. And I was like, "What is going on?" And he peed on the next tree and the next bush, right? And I was like, "What is happening? He just peed. How could he possibly need to pee again? Like, what is the problem? This is super difficult," right? And it didn't matter how long we walked, he just kept peeing on bushes. And he's like a 10-pound dog right. It's like more pee in this dog than dog. I was just like, "How could dog have this much inside of him?" And I just thought like, "It's impossible to walk with this dog. This dog is so difficult. He has to stop every two seconds and pee on everything. We got a defective dog."

Anyway, around this time, my brother Tim came over to visit and he brought his boys and Auggie, of course, jumped up on his boys and licked them to death. And he barked at all the birds. And I kept apologizing for this difficult dog and my brother said, "Auggie is going to aug." And I was like, "What?" And he said, "Auggie's going to aug." That's what he does. He's a dog. Right? Like you had an expectation that he was a human with four legs, but Auggie is just being Auggie. He's a dog. Auggie's going to aug. This is who he is.

And yes, we get to train him, but when we get mad that he's a dog and not a human on four legs then who has the problem? Who is being difficult? Auggie's just being Auggie. Auggie's gonna aug. What are you going to do? Right?

And some of you are like this with the people in your life. They do this thing, right? And you had a completely different expectation. You thought you were gonna have a sister-in-law who likes to hang out with you. You thought you were gonna have a dad who told you he was proud of you. You thought you were going to have a husband who provided a certain level of income. You thought you were gonna have a teenager who respected you. You thought you were going to have kids who stayed in the church. You thought you were going to have a mother-in-law who liked the way you parent your kids.

[20:07]
What I want to say to you is, "Auggie's gonna aug." They are who they are. They're going to be who they are. It's our expectation that they were gonna be something different that gets us in trouble. When we expect Auggie to be human on four legs, who has the problem? Auggie's gonna aug. So, this is a phrase that's going to catch on like wildfire, don't you think, among the coaching community?

Okay, but what I mean is that the people in our lives are going to be them. Our resistance to who they are and what they do is what creates the problem. Our expectation is the problem. We resist the way they are and think they should be another version, right? We think they should be a human on four legs s and not a dog. And we think by thinking they should be different then they will be, and we stay in this futile resistant place for years.

So my mentor at The Life Coach School, Kris Plachy, likens this to going to the ocean and wanting the waves not to be waves. Okay, so for example, when I was first learning to boogie board, the hardest part for me was getting out far enough into the waves. And you're trying to like move out into the ocean and the waves just keep pushing you back relentlessly. They just keep coming. You're just like, "Just stop for a minute," right? It would be so much easier to boogie board if you could just stop the waves for a minute while you got out there.

And Kris Plachy says no matter how loudly you ask the waves to stop they don't stop. No matter how mad you get at the waves, they don't stop. No matter how nicely and reasonably you talk to the waves, they don't stop. They are waves. Auggie's gonna aug. Waves are going to wave.

[21:50]
So this is what Kris said about it, "As long as you continue to yell in your mind about how someone should change or be different, you will not find a solution to work within the situation. You will only find more challenges. Just like waves," she said, "people are generally that consistent. We can usually plan on people being exactly like we've always known them to be. We can at least no longer pretend to be surprised when they act as they always do. People don't change for your reasons. They change for their own and yelling at them to be different doesn't work. Understanding this," she said, "and accepting this invitation is probably one of the most liberating gifts you can give yourself."

She's saying, accept that they are who they are. Drop your resistance and liberate yourself from all these expectations. So what do we get to do? We can't stop waves. We have to accept what is. The people in your life are who they are. They do what they do. Resisting it doesn't change them. Wishing they were different doesn't change them. Your power will come in acceptance of what is, and then deciding who you want to be in the face of that.

For example, in the ocean when you get tired of fighting all the waves, you have other options. You can surf with a board, you can body surf, you can just float, you can dive through the waves, you can get out past the break, and you can even get out of the ocean altogether. My husband goes out into the ocean and does somersaults. He somersaults as the wave is crashing over him. He does somersaults over and over and then after he does it, comes in and tells me how sick he feels. Every time. And every time I get irritated, right? I'm like, "Stop somersaulting." But Auggie's gonna aug. David is gonna somersault and then he's gonna come in and complain that he's sick. And my being irritated and mad about it hasn't changed him yet.

So here are a couple of questions that you can ask yourself when the difficult person in your life is just being them. The first one is: What is the truth that I've been resisting about this person and who they are? What's the truth? Who are they? When I talk to my clients and they tell me about the difficult people in their life, they have a ton of evidence stacked up against the people in their lives, and they say, "See? They've always been like this," as if that's the problem. As if the consistency of their behavior is the problem. The problem is that those other people have always been this way and you keep expecting them to be different.

[24:33]
Okay, another question you can ask yourself is: What behavior do I think the other person needs to change in order for me to feel better? Remember that you are always in charge of your feelings and whatever they do doesn't make you feel better. Only your thoughts make you feel better. And no one has to change in order for you to feel better. Ever. Can I just let them be who they are? Right? Wouldn't that be generous and magnanimous of us, if we just let other people be who they are? They are going to be that person, right? Auggie's gonna aug. Now, who do I want to be and how do I want to love them in this moment? That's the question

Okay, so the last idea want to talk to about is this: Difficult people are your teachers. Now of course, we've already said people aren't difficult, but the people who act differently than you think they should, they are your teachers. They are teaching us about us. They are the ones in our lives that are giving us a chance to see what we think of ourselves and develop our capacity for loving. They reveal ourselves to us. They reveal where we are lacking where we are not loving and where the barriers are to our loving.

As Pema Chodron teaches, these people reveal the patterns in our brains that still need work. And I love that so much, right? They reveal ourselves to us. They show us where we still need to do work.

So this morning I was listening to James Wetmore and he was talking about problems in business, but I think it really applies well to problems with other people. And he said the first problem is thinking that you shouldn't have a problem, right? Interaction between humans is problematic. We all have different ideas. We'll have different ways of doing things. So our interactions together are problematic, and they're supposed to be. They're supposed to be problematic. Thinking we shouldn't have problems can be a problem, right?

[26:38]
So there's a little song that the primary children at my church sing and there's a phrase in there that says: "God gave us families to help us become what he wants us to be." And I love that so much because I think the people in your life, the people in your family, God gave them to you not because they were the easiest people for you to love. But because they are the people you need to love to become like Him. God gave us families to help us become what he wants us to be.

In order for us to become what he wants us to be we have to learn how to love. And in order to do that we have to rub up against people that are difficult for us to love. This is how we work it out and learn to love as he did. Not to love perfect people. Not to love people that are easy to love. Not to love people who do what we do and think like we do and behave like we think they should. That is not the point. When we think there shouldn't be people that challenge our ability to love, that's when we have a problem.

Because this is why we're in this together. This is why we're in families. This is why we get married. This is why we go to church in congregations, right? We need to learn how to love. And this is the way. By being together and the difficulties in others reveal the work that we still need to do in order to learn to love more perfectly and more unconditionally. Right? What if the people in your life are the way that you become what God wants you to be?

[28:12]
So like this is fine intellectually, I know, but then in real life it's harder when your mother-in-law says you spoil your kids and your son tells you, "Yeah I'm not coming home for Thanksgiving," or your husband seems to be like always irritated and negative. How do you love them? How do you use these lessons and these people to become who you're supposed to be?

So for a minute I want you to think of a person in your life that you think is difficult or you think is a problem. So at this moment your brain has identified this person in your life as the problem as difficult but in reality, your brain created that problem. Your brain made them the bad guy. Your brain made the way that they do things very dangerous. And so you're going to have to think differently about them. You're going to need a different level of consciousness to be able to see them differently. And you're going to have to learn to think in a new way in order to become the kind of person who can solve this problem.

Right? Like Einstein said, "No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it." We can't solve the problem of difficult people with the same brain that created the problem of difficult people, right? In other words as long as you experience that person as a problem you will continue to see them as a problem. You will continue to stay in the same place.

Okay, so think of that person. And then ask this question: What if they aren't a problem at all? What if the way they're doing it is not a problem at all? You have to purposefully change the way you think about them. What if instead of being a problem they're just another human who struggles to be who they want to be—just like you? What if they're just another human being who struggles to love—just like you? What if they're just another human being who has a brain that interprets the world as very dangerous—just like you?

It's so interesting, right, to realize that we want other people to be able to do things that we can't do ourselves. We want them to behave better and then we continue to not behave better to them and to us. So what if you didn't see this person as a problem but only another way, another level of love?

[30:29]
Remember that Mercury in retrograde is only a problem when we think it's a problem. Mercury is in retrograde and since I don't even know about it, I don't think it's a problem, but for my coaching friend it's a serious problem. But only because she thinks it is! The people in your life are a problem, only because you think they are. It's not a problem that your mother-in-law thinks you spoil your kids. It's not a problem that your son isn't coming over for Thanksgiving. It's not a problem that your husband is irritated and negative. The problem is that you see it as a problem.

Ask yourself: Why do I want to see them as a problem? Because your brain has a good reason for it. It thinks by identifying them as the problem that it will get you something or protect you or help you some way. But of course none of this is true. In reality seeing them as a problem and persisting and holding onto that belief, only prevents you from accessing the part of you that needs to learn more about love—that needs to evolve and have new experiences in loving people.

So think of this person again. What are they teaching you about real love? What is it about them that can teach me how to love better? It's kind of like that old question, “What lack I yet? Where are my blocks and my barriers to loving? And how can they teach me those things?"

I want you to remember that every person is 100% lovable—as they are, as they act right now, and as they talk, and as they think. The work of loving is always our work to do. The work is not to change people so that we can love them. The work is to just love them. Love as God loves you—as you act and as you talk can as you think, he loves you.

[32:21]
Now how do we do this? We start by not seeing them as a problem to be fixed but as a human who is 100% lovable. Ask yourself, Why am I choosing not to love them? They are always 100 % lovable, so why am I choosing not to love them? Because it's always a choice. What do I think I'm gaining by not loving them? Recognize that whatever your brain tells you is a lie, because anytime we choose not to love, we only punish us. Withholding our love never changes them.

Okay, so this is incredible work to do. Remember that the only difficulty, ever, is you and your thinking. Remember Auggie's going to aug. Waves are going to crash. Other people are going to be who they are. You only have to figure out who you are going to be with them. And remember that the work of loving is why you came to earth. This is the lesson. This is the coursework. Other people are your teachers. Our relationships are the laboratory. Choose to love. Choose to learn how to love. Choose to stretch yourself and increase your ability to love all the people in your life.

Remember that you increase your capacity to love by the thoughts you choose to think about those other people. If you didn't see them as a problem if you didn't think that what they do is a problem then you could just be free to love them...and that my friends is 100% awesome. I love you for listening! Have an amazing week with your families and I'll see you next week!