Separate the person from the behaviour

My niece visited me recently and told me how much she was looking forward to NOT waking up to a screaming infant!  “You must think me an awful parent - I love my daughter!” she went on to say.  And of course I know she loves her daughter.  But also she was honest enough to say that she didn’t always love her daughter’s behaviour.  It is really important to separate the person from their behaviour.  Just because we don’t like what someone does or says, doesn’t necessarily mean that we don’t like THEM.  But the reverse is true too: just because we love or like someone, doesn’t mean we have to love or like everything they say and do. 

So why do people behave in ways that we don’t like?  Well our behaviour is driven by what we think and feel in that precise moment and that becomes our behaviour – think about my niece’s daughter who will have been perhaps hungry and knows that crying gets food! – and we do first what we know is most likely to be successful – it saves time (and actually it’s called learning).  I appreciate that sounds a bit obvious right:  but it’s why if I’ve learnt that by biting people’s heads off they tend to go away, then I’m more likely to bite their heads off as my first choice of behaviour.  Imagine this:  you’re feeling good; all’s right in your world; you’re pretty chilled.  And your phone rings.  And you look at the screen and see THAT name!  You know the one!  The one where all of a sudden you’re not feeling chilled any more.  Your head is whirling and you’re thinking “Oh, no.  Not them, not now!”.  Instead of feeling chilled you’re now feeling annoyed or frustrated or cross or whatever it is you’re feeling.  And so you might not answer the phone (that’s behaviour by the way – choosing to answer or not answer), or if you do, you do it by putting on a false smile and using your very best telephone voice (when you’d really rather be snarling) and you say “Ah, hello, how lovely of you to call!”.

And if it was a different name that showed up on the screen?  Someone you really cared about?  You might think and feel something completely different.  You might stay chilled, or become even more mellow.  And so your behaviour now will be very different: “Ah, hello, how lovely of you to call!”.

So today I’m going to invite you to notice your behaviour habits.  What are doing FIRST?  And why might that be?  What does that behaviour really do for you or give to you?  And is it giving you the result you really truly want?  And if it isn’t, do something else.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results” Albert Einstein