Handling the Folk in Your Life

As the sign above says, YOU get to choose who is allowed in your life. You get to evaluate, promote demote terminate, excoriate, restrict, avoid, allow, disallow, accept, or reject.

Imagine a path of concentric circles. You are the center.   The Uber driver is outside the circles. Your brother’s wife’s sister-in-law who no one can stand, is also outside the circles. What she says to you, you blow away in a puff and do not consider. You may speak politely when necessary.

Your doctor, dentist, ophthalmologist may be on the next circle in; you see them when you need them, follow their advice when it is necessary, and treat them politely. They have certain limits of touching your body that are restricted to their area of practice. For instance, I really like the lady who cleans my teeth. I let her put her hands in my mouth to clean my teeth. If I happened to meet that lady in the grocery store, I would greet her nicely and maybe chat a few minutes. She would not put her hands in my mouth.

In the other circles closer to the center, you will find the people who are closer to you. You may move those people up and down and back and forth as their behaviors and your preferences allow. You have the right to choose who you are close with and who you keep at a distance. When others offer opinions or advice, it is courteous to listen politely and say “Thank you.” You are allowed to ignore, decide, consult those you trust, or do the opposite, depending on who the person is and the quality of the advice.

Choose a few people to be trusted advisers, interview them first, work with them, see if their counsel works for you. And if it does, you can build a core of people you trust and enjoy, and they can be in the circle closest to yours. These trusted advisers need to have the skills and willingness to stand behind you, to “have your back”, to lead, guide, and teach you the ways to get what you want, and to support you while you do that. They might be a sponsor, or two, a doctor, dietitian, therapist, friend, parents, sibling, lawyer, and so on. But they are the ones you need and the ones you can rely on to be there for you

And my Gertrude? Your Inner Critic? Addiction? Negative Inner Voice? What will you do with her?

Perhaps you will learn that she has skills you can use. Perhaps she can warn you of danger, of con men, of fake posts in your inbox. My Gertrude is really intuitive about other peoples goals. And she has incredible attention to detail, and she is dogmatic, perfectionistic and demanding. Some of these characteristics are helpful in certain situations.

But you and I get to relax in the center of the circle with who? Our Higher Power? Our CEO? And one or more of the people we love and trust. And without the food to distract us, and with the help of those we trust, we get to focus on creating the life we have wanted and dreamed of, and that is the point of this whole issue.

Blessings to you and best wishes in finding the people who you need to be your trusted allies, and help you create the life you have dreamed of,

Theresa