We’re oftentimes trapped in difficult situations that lead us with choices and options. Frederic and Christy tackle choosing the right solutions when encountering problems in relationships. Suggesting to always look through or weigh your options when you are in a bad situation before deciding, they also point out how having clarity can be the best way to solve a problem. They also touch on the benefits of going in the direction of what you want.
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The Importance Of Making The Right Choices
We are talking about choices and options. If you want more information, more tools to help you stay connected and create a more loving dream relationship, all you’ve ever wanted to go to ConnectedCoupling.com. As a human, contrast shows up all the time and it’s up to us instead of getting stuck in contrast, look at what our choices and our options are. You cannot create a solution if your focus is based on the problem. There are two very different vibrations. What’s important to do is that when you get a piece of news, when you notice something, instead of being bushwhacked and have your energy blocked, look at what the contrast is. Notice it and then go, “What are the options here?”
It’s good to start listing them. Start brainstorming because things aren’t all black or white. There’s no all or nothing. Both Frederic and myself had to understand and start applying that in our own lives personally, but also as a couple. It was like it’s this or that. It’s up or down. It’s left or right. There are no shades of gray in order to have options and choices. This is something that has changed my life, has changed our relationship, has made life so much easier. Even in parenting, we had something come up where we would put the kids to sleep and Maxim had a report.
As a third grader, he had to write out his report in handwriting. He couldn’t type it. I was getting everything ready to take for the next morning because he had his poster board, his display thing and his written report he had to turn in. I noticed that there was scribbling. It was like someone scribbled out one of the sentences on his report. I’m like, “What is that?” It’s because we had the report done. I went upstairs I was like, “Max, did you do this?” He’s like, “Why would I do that?” I said, “Alex, did you do this?” I know we didn’t do this. It would have been easy to stay into the problem. I immediately went into, “What do we need to do? How do we need to fix this?” I started going into what are the options? One of the options had him get out of bed and rewrite it. That wouldn’t feel good.
Number two, get him up earlier in the morning. He can rewrite it. It’s also not fair. He didn’t do that. Another option I thought was to email his teacher and let her know what happened, and then also text her. I came up with a couple of different options but immediately I went out of, “Here’s the problem into what’s the solution?” I immediately emailed his teacher since his brother scribbled and he said he didn’t realize that he did it and I said, “I don’t think it’s fair he has to handwrite this whole thing again when it wasn’t him that did it. There were five words that were scribbled out. If he has to rewrite it, can he turn it in on Tuesday? What are the options here? What can we look at?”
Frederic texted her and said, “Christy wrote you an email, please check it out.” She responded back and said, “I agree, not fair. He could turn it in as is.” Problem diverted, but situations like that in a family, in a couple, in an individual’s lives when you have contrast. If you feel there are no options and if you look at like, “The sky is falling, here’s the problem,” you stay stuck in the problem, you are stuck in the drama triangle where there are no options. There are no choices. There are no solutions. Whenever you have anything that happens, whether it’s with the weather not going the way you want it to be, whether it is your financial situation is what you want it to be, whether you have bad news that came or your husband or your wife has something they’re personally going through, look at what are the options. What are your choices? What are the ways that you can find a solution to this?
It’s a response to what’s going on. You can have a moment where you feel anger or you feel frustrated because the weather is not cooperating with you or there’s something that’s happening in your life. At work for example, there’s either a coworker that’s doing something and it’s always the same thing, always the same issue and you get blamed for it. Whatever it is, just take time to feel what you need to feel. Either go outside, take a deep breath and figure out the options and the choices that you have. There are always options and choices that you have in life like what you had mentioned about Maxim’s report. We could have stayed in the, “There’s all that scribbled and what are we going to do?” We’re going to give it like this, too bad and continue being upset at this situation but no. There are choices. There are things that you can do and you know what they are, you just have to come up and list them in a mature, calm way in order to figure out what your choices are.
Even my mother-in-law, she wanted to come out for Alex’s 10th birthday party. She had come out in March for example. Two months later she wants to come out again. She had mentioned to Frederic, “I want to come again. I want to be there for his birthday.” The way he handled it was, “Let me talk to my wife and see if that works for us.” Putting up a boundary. It wasn’t like he felt, “She’s coming.” She was imposing because that’s not.
It wasn’t like, “Let’s go and let’s turn that out.” I don’t know how this is going to be with my wife. I want to discuss with my wife and see the opportunity. Is it a good time for us to have her here? At the same time, as we’ve got all of what’s going on in Alex’s birthday preparation and all of that, we want her there. What are the things that we want to get clear on with having her here?
What are our options? What are our choices?
Do we want her to be with us and to live with us? Do we want her every single day with us? How many hours is she going to be with us? Where do we want her to stay? What hotels and all of that.
Who’s paying for it?
Do we want to contribute with her? All of that, we needed to talk about it. The idea came up for my mother to come over. It’s a great idea. We want her to be here, especially for the birthday of our son, but how do we manage it so that everybody’s happy around it?
What are our choices and our options? We sat down and we manage the expectations because for us to have that option where she comes out, that’s going to feel good for us. Here’s what she has to know. First of all, it’s not like the last time she came when both of us basically took the week off and took her to the spa, horseback riding and everything was about her. This is about Alex, this is his birthday party. I’m working. There’s a field trip I’m going to with Maxim. There are preparations I need to do for Alex’s birthday party. As long as you understand that it’s not going to be the way it was before because we’re going to be busy doing these other things.
The kids are not off school whereas they were on spring break when she came before. They’re going to be in school. There were other things. We could take care of the hotel for these many nights, instead of the whole thing like we did last time. We laid out our boundaries, but what we did in order to get clear on what our boundaries were was we talked about what are the options. For example, even the hotel. Do we want to pay for her hotel? Do we want to have her pay for it? Are we willing to offer to pay for a couple of nights? We know that for boundaries’ sake, we don’t want her to stay at our house. I learned that lesson with my parents visiting Montreal. She was in agreement with that. When she came out in March, stayed at a beautiful hotel. We gave her different options where she could stay, but there are always choices and options. It’s not just a yes or a no.
It can be a yes and a no as long as it’s clear. We need to communicate what we feel and not have an assumption on either side. The relationship with my mother has changed to the point where she has told us, “Be comfortable in telling me if I’m intruding too much. If I’m taking a little bit more space and you want your time. I’m open.” That’s awesome. She also is letting us know that she’s ready for us to be clear on certain things that we wish to do. If we wish to be alone, she’s okay with us saying, “Mom, we’re going to take some time off. We want to be alone. We’ve got a lot going on.” She gets it. She’s going to have the day to herself.
Even in that, there are options and choices. For example, she comes and we feel it’s a little too much. That’s an opportunity for us to go, “What are our options? What are our choices?” We could fight it out and stay with her that day. That doesn’t feel good. We could be with her for an hour and then take a break or we could have her be with the kids and we can go do something ourselves. There are so many different options and choices. What our point is when you start applying this, and it’s an application. Contrast always will come up. Contrast is something you necessarily don’t want or it’s a decision that you have to make. It’s a problem, a bushwhack or someone says something or does something.
There’s always a choice. There’s always an option so that you feel you have the freedom. Whenever you feel constricted and whenever you feel limited, you’re in the drama triangle. We want to bring you into the circle of love, where there is complete freedom. You have complete dominion over your life and you have choices and options because you are a free-willed individual. When you feel stuck, just don’t feel stuck. Don’t say, “I’m stuck and this is where I’m at.” Say, “What are my choices and my options?” When you start asking that question by universal law, by energy, by directing your focus in a different way, you make a decision to look for the options and choices.
By definition, you cut off the other avenues. By looking at options and choices, you open up the energy for that alignment to come in, but you cannot solve a problem, even Einstein said that. You cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it. It’s looking at what are the solutions and just simply asking yourself that question. Ask yourself whenever contrast comes up, what are my options and what are my choices? Start listing them out. We used actually to do that. We don’t have to. We air list them. You’ll find the one that feels the best choice because you’ll feel a resonance inside of your body.
You’ll get that clarity inside of you. When you find the right one, you are not going to need to explain the reason why you want that option. When you are finding the option that goes with what you want then it’s, “I prefer to do this.” That’s clear.
This feels good for me. This works for us and rinse and repeat. This is a universe full of variety and it’s full of contrast. I always like to use the analogy. It’s like going up to a buffet of every single food that exists in the universe. Instead of going up to the buffet, seeing these amazing foods and then seeing a bunch of curry dishes, I’m like, “There’s curry. I can’t eat from this buffet. The curry ruined the whole entire thing.” That’s what most people do. They’re like, “This problem.” When you’ve got all the pasta, the seafood, the meats and the desserts. Don’t pay attention to the curry. Go in the direction of what you do want. Look at what the different options and choices and go there and stop focusing on what you don’t want.
I hope this has been helpful. Next time, we are going to be talking about how you don’t have to explain yourself. Hopefully, this is giving you some great tools and information and if you want more of us. If you want to work personally with us and dive deep in your own personal situations, have that particular guidance that’s not therapy, but it’s coaching that’s leading you towards what you want or at least in the path of what you don’t want, go to ConnectedCoupling.com.
See you next time.
