Bloom Your Mind

Ep 122: Manuals

• Marie McDonald

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Have you ever stood behind someone in the grocery store thinking they should put the divider between your groceries and theirs? 

Or thought someone should turn off their fanny pack music blasting down the hiking trail right behind you? 

Have you ever thought someone was watching too much TV? Not spending enough time with the kids? Following too closely behind your car on the freeway?

Yeah, me too. We all have. 

These are all examples of the “Manuals” that we are all walking around with, inside our heads.

A manual is an instruction guide that we have in our heads for how other people are supposed to behave in order for us to be happy. The really wild thing about this manual business is that although our brains tell us that everyone around us is supposed to be living up to the rules in our heads, we never show the manual to them. 

We are holding them accountable to it…but they never get to see it.  

Another wild thing about all of this is that the premise of our manuals is that we think we would be happier if someone else changes their behavior. This just isn’t true, or when it is, it’s true for a hedonistic hot minute. 

This causes us a ton of suffering, because we’re handing over the power of our happiness to someone else. But we can learn to see the manual for what it is, and we can learn to let it go. 

What you’ll learn in this episode: 

  • How ridiculous manuals can be, via a pretty ridiculous morning story 
  • Examples of the manuals we have for people we don’t know, friends, and even our very closest relationships
  • Why manuals suck your creative energy 
  • How different brains interpret the same interactions in oppositional ways 
  • The single best thing we can do to increase happiness for ourselves (spoiler: it has nothing to do with how young you look or how much money you make) 
  • A four step process to releasing your manuals for the people around you 
  • Choosing compatibility in friends and lovers makes manual work lighter
  • How laughing at our own manuals for other people can help us let them go 

How to connect with Marie:

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We'll take all these ideas and apply them to our lives. Follow me on Instagram at @the.bloom.coach to learn more and snag a spot in my group coaching program!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Bloom your Mind Podcast, where we take all of your ideas for what you want and we turn them into real things. I'm your host, certified Coach Marie McDonald. Let's get into it. Well, hello everybody, and welcome to episode 122 of the Bloom your Mind podcast. Well, my friends, today I have a podcast episode that is on a topic that I love so much, and I've been meaning to make an episode for you about this because it's so fundamental to our happiness and well-being and to making ideas real in the world. And I've had this idea of making this podcast for two years, and I just have the funniest example of it, which made me finally make this episode. And you know how much I love to make fun of myself If you've been listening to me for a while, you know that and so this is an episode in which I get to do that. I'm going to tell you something awkward, which is that I just paused our recording to take out my Invisalign, because I have Invisalign right now, and I wonder if you can tell a difference between how I was talking and how I'm talking now. Let me know if you can tell a difference, because I can't, all right. So here's the story.

Speaker 1:

I was in the kitchen and it was five in the morning Maybe actually by this time it was 530 in the morning. I had this little glowing candle in front of me and the glowing candle was lighting up these beautiful handmade coffee cups that I use in the morning to make my coffee and make the coffee for my husband, and I use this little whiskey thing that creates froth and I make some coconutty oat milk to put in the coffee and I use a Chemex pour over. I really have this little routine that is very lovely for me. And my husband comes walking out of the bathroom where he was brushing his teeth and we're going to get ready to do a workout. It's like hit class and stretching and my husband turns on the lights and starts doing the dishes next to me and he's scrubbing and he's doing dishes and there's bubbles you know like bubbles and scrubbing noises and my mind is just like don't do the dishes, it's too loud, and I just start feeling like a little bit grumpy, but I don't say anything yet because I'm trying to be cool. Then he's finished with the dishes and there's like the clattering of the dishes and then he walks into the other room and he starts vacuuming the floor and he's trying to get the space really nice for us it's a concrete floor that we made together and he's trying to get like the, the leaves that the dogs and the children brought in and out of the of the house Right and he's trying to get them off the ground.

Speaker 1:

And again I have this annoyance come up that's like, oh, why vacuuming noise right now, so annoyed. And then we go into our class and we go into the meditation and I know I'm like trying to not be weird, but I know that he can feel a little bit of annoyance. I'm not as like jovial as usual and I'm just like shaking it off a little bit. And we go into our class and it's not like a big deal, but usually I'm just real mellow and like so blissed out early in the morning. So later on we talk about it and I'm like, hey, baby, I am sorry for being weird about the noises. You're trying to vacuum and clean up the ground and I so appreciate that. And you're trying to do dishes to help, and I so appreciate that, and you're trying to do dishes to help, and I just need you to know that the morning time for me is the one time that I get to get up in the morning before anybody else and have it be quiet and have the level of stimulation be really low. It's literally like the only time that my stimulation level is low and I like to keep the lights low and I like to keep the sound low and I like to keep it kind of meditative when I'm up that early and I've always been the only one up and so this is my time and it's so precious to me. And he was like I totally get that. I'm not going to vacuum and I'm not going to do dishes, I will keep the lights low and do that. And I said, yeah, we could just do that stuff after. Is that cool?

Speaker 1:

And he's like, oh, totally, that's totally cool and it was so great. And then a couple of days later we're like keeping the lights low, everything's cool. And then he starts talking to me about taxes at like five 30 in the morning and he started asking me about calendaring and I started getting grumpy again. I started just getting this feeling of like no, not really grumpy with him, but just like please, please, don't pull my brain into the functioning world when it's still my candlelight chill time. That usually is my only time. And we had the same conversation a little bit later where I was like hey, sorry, I know you're just trying to start for me weird, I know you're just trying to take care of business and that early morning meditative time it's really good for my brain not only to have not stimulation in like sound and light, but also it's really good for me.

Speaker 1:

It's really important to me to have that time be a time where I'm not thinking about what other people need and how I can take care of them and how I can organize stuff for them or get them where they need or what they need, and I don't have to think about stressful, like operational life stuff. Think about stressful, like operational life stuff. So can we also not do that stuff until afterwards? Because the whole rest of my life I'm aware of other people around me and like thinking, anticipating needs, and you know like that's just part of my job and it's part of having kids is just doing that stuff and so if we can keep that, that would be so helpful for me, can keep that, that would be so helpful for me. I had to tell him really directly that what I need is to not do.

Speaker 1:

Any of the fake stress of the life of the real world, like the taxes and the drop-offs and the permission slips, like none of that fake stress gets to come into my like half hour when I'm a human in a body with like a warm cup in my hands and the flame of a candle, and maybe like birds waking up outside and I get to watch it go from dark to light outside. It's my favorite thing. And he was like oh, yeah, yeah, oh man, let's not talk about that. That's great, right. But I had to tell him directly in this story and I had to remind myself that he can't read my mind and I you might be listening to this thinking well, of course you did. I'm like, but you'll hear in a little bit what I mean here I had to overcome any internal critic that I had, any internal criticism of him being like why are you going to make the noise?

Speaker 1:

Why are you going to talk about the taxes? Right, but also of myself. So for me, I had to overcome this internal voice that was like why can't I just be cool and go with the flow? This is his space too. Why can't I just let him do his thing. Why do I have to be uptight about this? Why do I have to have special needs around my coffee and my special things? You know, around lights. He's trying to help. He's trying to do dishes and vacuum and take care of stuff and I've got this specific need and I had to be like, okay, listen to that little self-criticism and say, but in reality, this is my space.

Speaker 1:

I always have woken up super early and it's my chill space and he's joining me now and that's great, but I get to communicate directly what I need. How do I know he doesn't think I want him to be vacuuming the ground, like who doesn't want that? Probably I'm the only one that doesn't want that, but I don't. I don't want that at five 30 in the morning. And once he knows specifically what I'm requesting, he can either say, um, yeah, that's weird and that's too much for me to remember and I'm going back to bed, or he can say, okay, I'm a hundred percent cool with that. Or he can say I'm cool with 80% of that, but here's the stuff that I need you to bend on. And I can be like, oh, okay, but what actually happened is that he was so happy about it he didn't want to be vacuuming or doing dishes or talking about taxes. He loves having that space too, and so I now have the best mornings with my husband.

Speaker 1:

This morning, I literally had two moments of just being like thank you world, because I was just sitting next to him with a candle between us, holding two cups of coffee for five still minutes before we started working out together, watching the sky start to lighten, hearing a couple birds, and just had total gratitude. That happened a couple times this morning, holding hands in savasana, breathing a little bit together before we start the whole job of being co-parents in the world, right? So what this is is an example of what we like to call the manual. A manual is an instruction guide that we have in our heads for how other people are supposed to behave in order to make us happy. Think back to the story. Do you hear all the little rules I had? The lights, the sounds, the vacuum, the birds, right Like.

Speaker 1:

I have this manual in my head of what I want from him, and the really funny thing about manuals is that we all have them for everyone around us, and everyone is supposed to be living up to our manual, but usually we do not ever show them the manual. We are holding them accountable to the rules in it, but they never get to see it. It's like they're playing a game that is keeping score but no one ever gets to tell them the rules. They're like what's happening? Am I winning or losing? And the other really amazing thing is that the deeper a relationship is that we have with someone, the bigger the rule book is for all the situations that we have specific expectations about how they behave in All the things they need to do. So we can be happy. That's how our brains work. That manual gets bigger and bigger.

Speaker 1:

So if it's our primary partner, we probably do not have one manual. We probably have like an encyclopedia where they have to like look up the topic by the volume of the first letter of that topic in order to really know the rules. Like examples might be, using the bathroom probably has a lot of chapters for people on toothpaste and toothbrushing and knocking on doors and towels and bath mats. And we probably have whole manuals on birthdays and holidays, whole volumes by themselves about gift giving and what to do at the dinner table and with family and how to prepare correctly for one's birthday and anniversaries all these things, right? So just think of someone right now that you're really close to and just think about what might be in your manual for them, all the little things that are like they should be doing things like this. And then think of someone that you're just only meeting for the first time because you have a manual for them too. In that manual are things like whether they shake hands, smile, hug, how long that hug is if it's a side hug, whether they make eye contact in that manual, or topics that are okay and not okay, how serious the conversation gets and how fast and how much they talk about themselves versus ask questions about you, right?

Speaker 1:

And then what about a person in the grocery store? We have manuals. Should they hand you the separator for the groceries when you're checking out or not? Do you get your own separator? Should they make small talk with you, or are groceries kind of private, like how close can they stand to you while you're paying for groceries? How close should anyone stand to you? For that matter? You have manuals for that too. So do I. Should people have earphones in? Should they talk loud or not too loud or only quietly? Should they smile or not smile if they make eye contact with you, should they write thank you notes, should they text you back right away, should they listen without interrupting. Drop off soup when you're sick, watch a lot of shows. Watch a lot of TV. Not watch TV. Spend time with kids, do more laundry. You get it. We have manuals for everyone, depending on the type of relationship that we have with them. So you get the point here.

Speaker 1:

The killer thing about all of this is that the premise of our manuals is that we think we would be happier if somebody else will change their behavior, and it just causes us a ton of suffering, which is why we're talking about it, because we're handing over the power of our happiness to someone else, and it definitely just saps the juice out of the ideas we're trying to make real, because we're so focused on waiting for other people to do things differently and do things right so much of the time that we focus way less of our energy on our own actions, our own plans and our own movement towards what we want. Other people's behavior truly only has an impact on us if we choose to let it. No matter what others do or how they act. We get to determine how we feel, which is why the manuals don't make that much sense. The manual, if you remember, the premise of it is if others act this way, I'll be happy. So maybe, when I say other people's behavior only has an impact on us if we choose to let it, maybe you're like okay, there are caveats there. Of course we are not talking about actions that cause true harm okay, physical harm, any kind of abuse, anything like that. Of course that is an outlier. And let's take this example Someone overreacts, they kind of freak out in an unreasonable way and they yell, they raise their voice and they say some unkind things about us.

Speaker 1:

When I say that other people's behavior only has an impact on us if we choose to let it listen to this, these are some examples of how different people might react on us. If we choose to let it listen to this. These are some examples of how different people might react. One person would get really upset and really spin out at the unfairness, maybe letting it wake them up in the middle of the night, replaying the interaction over and over again and thinking about how unfair it was that the other person acted like that. Yet another person would do the same thing spinning, not being able to let it go thinking about it all the time. But they'd think what did I do wrong? How could I have done differently? What could I have done differently to make that not happen? It was my fault. Someone else would be grateful that it happened, because they know how the other person feels and even though it was delivered in a harsh way now they can maybe work through it with them. Yet another person would be relieved because they're glad they saw that behavior and they're not having it and they're not spending any more time with that person, because one more person might have very little reaction except to know, hey, this isn't about me and I'm not a big fan of that, and that's the other person's journey and they clearly need space, so I'm not going to think about that again unless they come to me.

Speaker 1:

So truly, all different reactions to the same behavior, and that is within our control. So the best thing that we can ever learn for our own happiness is to focus on what we can control, to try to let go of the manual for how we want other people to behave in order to make us happy as often as we can, because that's something we can't control and focus back on what we can To start to learn how to meet our own needs, make requests of others and set boundaries. Those are two episodes that you can listen to as follow-ups to this Requests and Boundaries. So here are four steps to work on manuals, and then I'm going to share one more idea. That's a little bit of a caveat.

Speaker 1:

Step one notice your manuals, and if that's all you do this week, that is all right, because noticing is the biggest part of all of it. Right, because noticing is the biggest part of all of it. Step two notice how having that manual is making you give up the power that you have over your own happiness. So if we're thinking about the example that I gave about this morning, that was me, you know, when I was grumpy, I was giving up my own happiness because I had all these rules. Step three take back your power by taking ownership over your own emotional reaction and instead make some requests and set some boundaries about what's okay and not okay with other people, while holding that responsibility for your own emotional reaction. And step four, of course, is to giggle a little bit, because this stuff can be kind of funny when we let it be, when we realize the awkwardness of having a rule book for other people that they don't get to hear or read or see. It's kind of funny when we catch ourselves in it.

Speaker 1:

Okay, the last thing, the caveat that I wanted to say, is that, while all of what I said in today's episode I'd love for you to try on as concepts, see what you think. I think it's pretty true. Stuff rings true for me in my life. What also rings true is being with a partner. Friends, hanging out with people that are compatible and have somewhat similar manuals to ours can make things much easier. So, while we ultimately have control over our own well-being, let's make it as easy as we can from the get-go by finding people that we don't actually want to change and by setting boundaries around things that we're just not okay with.

Speaker 1:

All right. So try on the four steps. Don't forget the giggling part. Notice your manuals. I can't wait to hear what you find out, and that is what I've got for you today, and I will see you next week. If you like what you're hearing on the podcast, you got to come and join us in the Bloom Room. If you like what you're hearing on the podcast, you gotta come and join us in the Bloom Room. This is a year-round membership where we take all of these concepts and we apply them to real life in a community where we have each other's backs and we bring out the best in each other. We're all there to make our ideas real, one idea at a time. We'll see you in the bloom room.