Instructions For Happiness

We might not realize it, but most of us have instructions for the people in our lives. We belive (subconsciously) that if they would just follow these instructions, we could be happy.  And the best part is, they aren't even aware of these rules we'd like them to live by,  and we get mad when they don't.

Now, it is fine to have expectations  and desire to be treated with respect and kindness. But we do not have control over people, so we do not want to hang our emotional well being on whether or not they comply.   

In this episode, you will learn how to uncover these manuals, and release them so that you can have a more fulfilling relationship with yourself and others.     

For more information on The Model:   
The Life Coach School Podcast
Episode 26 - The self-coaching model 

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Transcript

Welcome to " You need a coach bitch with Chris Hale. I'm your host Chris Hale. I'm a certified life coach that helps queer creatives. Take their passion, turn it into a purpose and get paid. If you are looking to make an impact on the world with your work by dismantling internalized, oppressive thought systems by using coaching spirituality and a lot of cursing, you are in the right place.

So let's get to work.

 Hey friends, how's it going? So I'm actually recording this on a Saturday, which is weird for me because I usually record on Wednesdays to release on Thursdays. So in my world, I just spoke to you , and I don't really have a lot of updates because it's only been three days and I guess a lot can happen in three days.

But honestly, I have a pretty consistent routine that doesn't allow for much deviation. Um, and actually as I'm saying that I realized that I did go off plan a little bit this week. Um, So, I'm writing a book finally, and I say finally, but really it's not that big a deal. I know me and I have to wait for all the pieces to come together for me to start something.

And once it all clicks in my head like I'm ready to go. And that actually speaks to my human design. I'm a rough. Flector and our strategy is to wait a full lunar cycle. So basically like a month. Sometimes for me, that can actually be a year. Like with this podcast, I had the desire for it, but the concept and like all the pieces just weren't clicking.

They weren't aligned, and I didn't have the feelings around it, like the intuitive feelings, not like the feelings of. , you know, wanting to get to work on it. I could do the work on it, and I like wrote some things and even tried to record some things, but like the int the intuition wasn't there, like the vibe was off.

So I waited and it turned out to be one of the best decisions I ever made. So, like for me, I, I know that like, waiting until it all comes together is the way to do. Um, but so with the book, I made myself a schedule this week to include working on like things I wanna accomplish. And I was planning on writing on Friday, but I got inspired to write Wednesday morning.

I had woken up at 5:00 AM and couldn't get back to sleep. And then I got up around 6:00 AM and I like had my regular morning with coffee, et cetera. And then I still had all of this time and the opening line of the book just sort of came to me and I started to write. So I write for like an hour and then I called it a.

So then on Friday, which was yesterday in my world, um, I was looking at my day and I wanted to go to Target. And actually I needed to return something to Amazon at Whole Foods, which I actually forgot. I forgot to bring the thing that I was gonna return. But anyway, but I was supposed to write at that time.

And then I reminded myself that I'd already did an hour of writing this week, and that's all I was gonna do. And I just let it be okay. And normally I would spend so much time like negotiating and renegotiating this with myself and I didn't do it. And that's what fucking growth looks like. People. It's that simple.

It's not simple to get to sometimes, but I was able to just be okay with the fact that I went off plan knowing that I'd already did the amount of work I said I was gonna do and that I didn't need to try to do more. Right? Cuz the old pattern would've been, oh yeah, but if you also write on Friday, you'll get there much faster.

You'll get done faster, which means they can feel better faster, which I don't need to feel better about this. I actually feel fine. And then actually a lot, I have a lot to tell you about. Then I had another growth moment at Target and it was that, so, you know, . My car has one of those like electric keys and it's got a battery in it.

And I got there and it was telling me the battery was low and I don't know how low. I don't know what that means. So I'm like, well, I'm at Target. I'll get a new battery. So I have to take the battery out of the key  to know what kind of battery it takes. I do that. I go in the store, I get the battery, I get other.

I'm sitting in my car and I try to start my car forgetting that it has no battery, so that's funny. But anyway, I get like the cardboard backing off of the, the battery con container or whatever, packaging, and then the battery is sandwiched between two pieces of plastic that are literally fused together.

so I could not get the battery out, and I was like using my teeth, and I tried to saw it with my keys and . Then I had this idea that I could just go inside to target. And ask somebody to cut it open for me, which this is huge growth for me because I am so hyper independent that asking other people for help, like doesn't even ever occur to me.

And then once it does occur to me, I'm like, fuck no. I can't do that. There's no way. And in this situation, I went inside and asked someone to help me. And actually it was funny because at first the girl tried to like do it with her nails and I was like, girl, I tried that already. You just need to cut it with a scissor.

And there were scissors, like scissors sitting right in front of me. I almost picked up the scissors myself. I should have just done that, but that's like a boundary I wouldn't have crossed. Anyway, the moral of the story is I asked for help and maybe 2 20, 23 is gonna be the year that I asked for help, which is actually something I talked about in 2022 in regard to my business that I want to actually have help growing my business.

So, We're, we're kind of getting there, and it's gonna be little things. It's not just gonna be my business. I think to build that habit, I'm gonna have to sort of think about it everywhere, um, to become a person who asks for help. So I, maybe that's my goal this year, to become a person that asks for help.

Okay. That can be a goal. Did you know that you can set a goal to be a k a kind of person ? Um, if you didn't know that you can. Anyway onto today's topic, and I have to kind of admit, um, I for sure am doing a bait and switch with the title of this episode because I'm imagining you read it and you were like, oh my God, Chris is finally gonna teach me how to be happy.

Yeah, no, no, I'm not . But maybe what we're actually talking about is a concept that my teacher, Brooke Castillo calls the manual basically. It's a set of instructions you have for other people that you believe if they followed these instructions, that you could be happy. It's basically an instruction manual, but when we have manuals, it's basically us giving away our power when it comes to our emotional wellbeing.

We are literally hanging our emotional life on whether or not people behave certain ways and y'all, we can't control the way people behave, even if we think we can, even if we've tried. And the other thing about Manuels is, is one of the biggest issues. Is that they're usually not communicated. And I wanna say right off the bat, if your brain is like, we are going to bring in some of the other things we've talked about in regard to like boundaries and expectations and how, how those actually play with this concept of the manual.

But for right now, we're gonna leave that aside. I'm gonna do like a quick lesson. The first thing we need to understand, if you don't already know this, and I, and, and you haven't gotten it from listening to this podcast because maybe I've never broken it down before, is that other people don't create our feelings.

No one can make you feel anyway. But we are actually taught from a very young age that other people cause our feelings. Right? Someone does something to you, right? And your mom's like, oh, did they hurt your feelings? No. No, they did not. But we are taught that outside circumstances are responsible for how we feel, but as it pertains to your emotions, and not necessarily like bodily sensations, right?

We've talked about this body up versus brain down, right? This is mostly not true that other people cause your feeling.  and I say mostly because like everything has a caveat. Life is not black and white. It's very gray. But just stay with me. And for this like podcast, we're gonna just go with the premise that other people don't cause you feelings,

And you can feel free to completely disagree with me after we get through this moment, if that serves you. So the main tool I use as a framework for coaching is one created by Brooke Castillo called the Self-Coaching Model. It's sort of loosely based on a C B T concept that your emotions and behaviors are based on your thoughts, um, or essentially the way you perceive the world.

This is also a concept in like, I think stoicism, I think it was Epictetus that said, nothing is good or bad. It's our thinking that makes it. And maybe it was Eckhart Toley, but like he probably got it from somewhere and it was probably ttu. Anyway, I'm not a philosopher. I took like one class five years ago.

Anyway, the model basically categorizes everything into one of five things, circumstances, thoughts, feelings, actions, results. Basic definition of a circumstance is that it's anything outside of you that you do not have control over. And it's a fact. So like we don't have to agree on it like the sky is.

That's a fact. It's not always a fact. Like right now looking outside, the sky is blue. Like it could be other colors at other times, but in this snapshot of this moment, I can see the sky. If you looked at the sky too, you would also be able to see that it's blue. We might not be able to agree on the specific shade, so that might not be a fact, but the fact remains that the sky is blue or that like I can see a tree out that window.

That's a fact. But your interpretation of a thing is not a fact. It's a thought, and we think most of our thoughts are facts, but it's actually not true. . So I could say like that tree outside the window, like I could say like it's an old tree, but like what does that mean? Old might mean something different to you than it means to me.

So the factual thing would be like when the tree was planted, right? And I actually have no idea when that tree was planted, but if we knew the. The tree being planted, we'd be able to say, the tree is X amount of years old. That's the age of the tree. And then I might have a thought that's like, wow, that's a really young tree.

That tree hasn't been here for very long. And you might think, wow, that tree's been here for forever. That's such a long time. Perfect example of. Circumstance versus thought. And this is actually an exercise I do with my clients sometimes where we just like separate out the circumstances from our thoughts, right?

Facts versus thoughts so that we can get more clear about what we're talking about and we have a commonality in our language and we can actually see like what's being created. By thinking certain things. So like if we're thinking about behavior of other people, right? Cuz we're talking about manuals, which is always about, it's not always about other people.

We can actually have manuals for ourselves. I'll get to that. But like your partner eats the last cookie. That could be a fact, right? There were, there was one cookie left in the box and your partner ate it. Your partner ate the last cookie and you might have a thought about that, which is, they are so in consider.

That's a thought. That thought is going to make you feel some type of way, maybe irritated. And then when you're irritated, you behave a certain way, right? So that's your action. So circumstance, they ate the cookie, thought they're so inconsiderate, feeling irritated, actions, you know, you might behave certain way toward them.

when you're feeling irritated, you might very, very often, the actions that we're taking are all in our mind. It's like the inner dialogue, like what are you thinking about them? And so you might be thinking some really like nasty things about your partner because you feel irritated. And one of the things you might not be doing is considering anything about.

So the result there is maybe they're not in considerate, but in that moment you are being, you are not considering them because you're probably not thinking about the fact that maybe they were running late and they were hungry and they grabbed the first thing and the cookie was it. Right? You're not going there because you are believing that they're in considerate, which is in turn making you not consider them.

So that's kind of how the model works.  and oftentimes it can be showing us how like we are doing the same thing that we think someone else is doing, but it, if you take a step back, we can really see that it has nothing to do with you at all. Like Right. If we look at them and we consider them like maybe they were hungry, maybe this has nothing to do with me, but that's the thing.

We are always making things mean something about us or for. So that's the basic premise. If you want more in-depth examples and teaching on the model, I suggest you just go to the Life Coach School podcast and listen to Brooke talk about it. I mean, as an LCS trained instructor, I am qualified to teach it, but I'm not actually interested in doing a deep dive on the model when she's done so already and it's like so simple and it's just such a.

Explanation of the tool she created. I just wanted you to have a basic understanding so that we have a similar language for today's topic. So when it comes to other people in your life, they are circumstances and their behavior is a circumstance and it does not make you feel anything. So in the sense of like behavior, right?

You might say, my partner yelled at me. Is it a factor or is it, is it a. Because everyone's gonna have a different definition of what yelling is. So yelling is not a fact. Yelling is actually a description of the way someone is talking. So really we could say someone like your partner is saying things to you and their volume increased.

That would be the fact. And then your thoughts or perceptions. Or what I like to say, the story you're telling yourself about that behavior is what is calling your feelings and ultimately affecting your level of happiness. Now, you are allowed to want things from others. You can want them to behave a certain way.

You can make requests. For things from people, but the problem comes in is when you hang your emotional wellbeing on whether or not you get what you want or they behave the way that you want them to behave. And that's the manual. The manual is them behaving the way you want them to behave. So how do you know if you have manuals or not?

Well, you absolutely have them , but you might not realize that you do. How you can spot them is that they're usually all the shoulds that you have for others, and even yourself, like right? I said, you can also have manuals for yourself, but the reason why you don't realize that they're manuals is because you think they're just obvious ways that people should be showing up in the world.

It's like obvious behavior to you. There is no universally correct way to handle any situation. We all have different styles based on like our upbringing, our culture, the messaging that we've re received from society. So when you believe it's rude for someone to eat the last cookie, you're unconsciously putting a mandate on how they're supposed to behave.

So why do you do this? Well, it's, we all do it and it's because, We believe that if they behaved the way we want them to.  that we could feel happy with them, right? We believe that their behavior is affecting the way that we feel about them, the same way that we believe that their behavior is affecting our feelings, right?

In general. So I think like, let's look at like a really, like a common example for artists. , I think about things in terms of dance, but you can insert like any scenario that might be relevant to your life, like an art show opening or a play, or joining your M MLM downline, or even becoming a client. Like if you have a service-based job, like, I don't know, like a coaching business, which I know a lot of coaches listen to this podcast, right?

Like you can insert any of those things here. So say you're performing in a show and you believe that your friends should come to see. Because if they don't come, you make it mean that they're not supportive of you. Now you're gonna feel super shitty, but it's not from them not coming. It's because of the belief that they should have that's causing you pain, or more specifically that like supporting you equals.

Coming to your performances, right? Like that's the way you're judging whether or not they support you. Forget all the hundreds of other ways that they might show support. It doesn't matter because around this circumstance, you believe that support looks a certain way again. So that's the instruction. The instruction is they come to my performance.

That equals support. That's a manual, and you're just believing. That in order for you to feel supported or insert any other good feeling, emotion that they must attend the show. But here's the thing, what's so interesting about that? How many shows , right? And is it shows like is it every show or is it just shows that you're excited about or that you're proud of the work?

Does it matter if it's a show that like you think is kind of dumb or cheesy? Right? That's what's so interesting about this is because like, it's not super conscious to us, right? It's just like in the background, like a sh like a, a commitment or an agreement that you have with them that they don't even know about.

So you've probably actually never had this discussion with them because you just believe it's standard practice and you've never questioned why that is or what it is, right? And like, why do you believe it's standard practice Again, that's gonna come back to you and your values and the things that, like you've been taught and or absorbed and or just decided to believe.

Maybe it's what you would do, right? If they had a show, it wouldn't matter what the show is. You would clear your schedule. You would be there at the show, right? But you're not the reference point for the rest of the world. So if we look at them, maybe they would never expect you to come to any event they ever did, right?

Support to them looks different. And so in this situation, they don't know that they've breached this Uncommunicated contract. And here's the really fun part about all of this. There's so many layers to it. Oh, cuz human brains, you know, brains are gonna brain because you think this is just a standard practice.

Right? And maybe it's the thought, the underlying, um, premise, which is a false premise, is a good friend would come to my show. You end up doubling down and never communicate this because the ma the manual just goes even deeper now. It's about how you shouldn't have to communicate. Because they should just know that's what being a good friend means.

They should just want to be there for you. So you shouldn't even have to talk to them about it. And this is really why manuals are not useful. They don't actually bring us closer together. They make you less satisfied in your relationships. Another common example from life is in dating, right? So like maybe you think a guy should call me after.

Date. But why ? What will you get to think and subsequently feel? If he does right, maybe you get to think he really likes me, and so then you feel secure. But here's the problem. If he doesn't call you, then you think maybe he's not into me. So what do you do next? Well, instead of managing your own emotion, And realizing that this is about you, you're gonna wanna try to control him.

And like I said, we can't control people, but you'll be like, you know, you'll go to him and be like, if we're gonna be together, I need to hear from you X amount of hours after we've hung out. This rarely goes well because not only can we not control people, people do not like being controlled. You can ask, but if he doesn't want to, Then you guys are just not a want match.

You don't want the same thing, but that is again, when you need to check in with why you want it. If you cannot feel secure unless someone communicates a specific way, you need a coach bitch. Or maybe a therapist or both, cuz this is a you thing, not a them thing. It's not a him thing. And well, maybe it's a him thing too.

Like maybe, you know, if we go back to attachment styles, which like, I don't know, did we talk about that? Maybe slightly. I can't remember. But maybe he's avoidant. Right? And maybe that would make sense because you are anxious. So in this example, like you guys are just perfect for each other. Because like him being avoidant is totally gonna feel familiar to you and now you go into like your anxious attachment stuff, right?

So it would make sense that like you would be like relationally drawn together so that you can keep living out that dynamic. So I mean, again, this is why there are, I say there are nuances, but we're not gonna like go there. Right. I digress. , this is where we can actually segue into boundaries. So like I can have a boundary that if you don't call me for a week, then I'm not gonna continue to invest in the relationship.

But that's actually focusing on what I'm going to do and not trying to control the other person. They get to do whatever they want to do, and for some boundaries we don't even have to communicate them. Right. It's just like, I know for me that if someone. , and this is not an actual boundary because I'm, I'm totally fine.

My relationships with people are like, we talk, we don't talk. What's what? It doesn't matter. You don't ever have to call me back. I know that you love me, whatever. But for this example, I could just know for myself that if I'm, especially in a new relationship, right? Um, if. We're like starting to get to know each other and you don't really communicate with me.

You don't invest in a, in the relationship, right then, then I'm gonna stop investing in the relationship. Right. And I don't ever have to communicate that to the person. And in relationships that maybe have been going on longer, maybe you do wanna like communicate those boundaries. So like if you have a friend who you're close to that consistently behaves a way that you don't like, right?

So it's a consistent thing. It's not just like they did it once and then you get scared that they're gonna do it again because of all your stuff. It's just that like they consistently like keep doing the same thing, right? So they call you when they're busy and doing other things and like they're running errands, whatever.

So they're not really focused on the conversation. You can simply let them know you'd prefer to talk when you can have their undivided attention. And then the next time they call and they're in line at Starbucks, you can simply just say to them, Hey, I'm gonna go call me back when you have time to talk.

It's that easy. What you do not need to do is go on a rant to yourself or to someone else about how they never make time for you. They don't value your friendship. They're so rude, blah, blah, blah. Right? That is the thing. Making you feel bad, that rant, all those thoughts so you can really take care of yourself by setting and reinforcing a boundary, and you're gonna feel so much.

And they get to go on being exactly who they are. And you don't know, like maybe you even begin to like have a laugh about it, right? It's like, oh, here she goes again, calling me at Starbucks. I knew this was gonna happen. And that's the thing, if you start anticipating like your friend's behaviors instead of wanting them to be different than they are, your friends, your partners, whoever, then you can just like make decisions.

Around those behaviors. Communicate them, don't communicate them. But your emotional life is gonna be so much better. You're gonna learn how to sooth yourself. You're gonna take care of you. And it might even impact, it's definitely, I'm gonna say, definitely gonna impact the quality of your relationships.

And this is because you're gonna find it easier to connect cuz you're, you are not gonna be so defensive. You're not gonna be so needy, right? For them to behave a certain way so that you can feel. You might even get curious, right? Like kind of with the last cookie thing, right? You might ask your friend why they only ever call you while they're running errands, and then maybe they'll tell you it's because it's the only time they ever have to themselves and they wanna be able to spend a little bit of it with you.

They might tell you that having a quiet moment is actually not available to them, but they wanna keep in contact with you and so that might even change the way that you decide to interact with them. Right. Maybe you'd be more open to those unfocused chat or maybe you'd be okay with less Interac. Or you'd suggest something like sending each other voice notes or using Marco Polo so that like you can keep the conversation going when it's convenient for each of you.

But there doesn't have to be that like dependence on certain behaviors. And you might also decide this relationship is not fulfilling your wants. And I say once because you don't ever need anyone to call you. You absolutely do not. Um, and there are so many other things you don't ever need from people that you actually think you do.

Right? Like, you're calling them needs, but they're actually want. So for me, I really think about needs.  being like things that we actually need for survival, of which, yes, security and relationships is one of them, but that's a 50 50 thing, right? It's not just about like you getting what you want and the other person treating you the way that you want.

It's about like having mutual desire to meet each other's needs. And deciding what safety looks like within the context of your relationship, right? So if we go back to the show, what does support look like? And you guys can have a conversation about that and get on the same page. The same page does not always mean that you agree, but it means that like in this instance, you both want to make an effort to show the other one that you care about them and you're gonna come to an agreement on that.

You can also. Drop the manuals that you have for people when it comes to your kids or in work environments, but it's just, it's a slightly different thing, right? So you're allowed to give your children a list of like expectations or rules You're allowed to give your employees or people who work under you, right?

Expectations, rules, and you can have consequences when they do not follow through. , you can decrease the pain you might feel by not personalizing their behavior. So that's the difference between a manual and an expectation or a rule, right? Or a boundary. It means nothing about you or about them. When they don't do the thing, they're not ungrateful or selfish or rude or disrespectful.

They just broke a rule, right? They just overstepped a boundary. It's a. What is the consequence? We don't need to be emotional about it and the way it pertains to ourselves. Is in the ways we tell ourselves we need to show up in order for us to be happy with ourselves, in order for us to feel good about ourselves.

So if I go to the gym five times a week, then I can be proud of myself. If I go to the gym five times a week, then I can be proud of myself. But if I eat an entire bag of chips in one sitting, then I have to feel disappointed in myself. I have to tell myself shitty things about me. But if you stop tying your emotions to your behavior, You're actually gonna find that you're much more likely to do the things that you're believing you want to do because you won't be in this cycle of like shit talking and then shaming and then like not doing the thing.

And then, right, and then it's been three weeks since you've gone to the gym because you've been in that spin. Right? It's just like, oh yeah, I didn't make it to the gym this week. Next week's a new week. No. I'm not making it mean anything about myself. I'm not hanging my happiness on whether or not I do a thing.

And this goes back to that morality conversation we had last week. I'm not a good person or a bad person based on behavior. I'm not just gonna generalize my character based on one or two things that I did or did not do. So that is the manual. Be on the lookout this week for where you're believing that if only someone was different, you'd be able to be happy, right  and ask yourself how true that is.

You'd be surprised how much less conflict both in relationships and internally you have when you give up the operating instructions and start accepting people and yourself for who they are. And yes, there can be nuance to this. I work with my clients on this all the time, and we get really clear on like manuals.

Expectations, want matches and deal breakers. So those are all things that like are a part of this conversation. But if you find that your brain wants to reject this and goes immediately to the, yeah, but what about blah blah, blah, and what about this, that, this, that and the other? Notice that it's probably your brain fighting for your feelings, being dependent on other people.

It really, really likes that. And one of the reasons it really, really likes. Is, it means you don't ever have to look at your responsibility in any of it, which is actually. Huge. It's really all of it. If we go back to the show idea, how did you actually feel about the show? Were you excited about it? Were you proud of the work?

How much did you market it to your friend and your loved ones? And when I, when I say market it, I mean, were you talking about it? Were you taking it seriously? Did they know how invested you were in it? Sometimes we need to invite people into things. Sometimes we need to sell them on it by showing them how much it matters to us.

If you didn't do. Why not? That's the place where you can look at where you are responsible maybe for the outcome that happened there. Which is you being disappointed that people didn't come. It's not that they didn't come. It's the disappointment you have. Where did you make it more likely that people would not show up?

right? This is where like that creating a space, right? Creating an opportunity for people, talking to them, to them about it, telling them how important it is to you is more likely to yield them coming, and then if they don't come. Right. That gives you the opportunity to have that conversation, get to get a little curious about them, where they're coming from, and come together on maybe an agreement about how you wanna move forward in your relationship and what sorts of things you can expect from each other.

That are gonna help improve that relationship. So that's what I have for you friends, if you are realizing that you need more support around this book a consult. I work with people on relationships all the time. It takes commitment and willingness to look at your own actions and behaviors with a lot of compassion.

But the work is worth it because all of your relationships are gonna improve, especially the one with yourself. Talk to you soon. Bye.



If you are loving what you're hearing here on, you need a coach, bitch, please subscribe like and share with your friends. And if you want more information on how you can work with me, one on one. Go to theonlychrishale.com where you can find me on Instagram, theonlychrishale.