It was about way more than the coffee.
Every single morning I was annoyed when my husband entered the kitchen and blatantly grabbed himself a cup of coffee while he could see I was so busy making breakfasts, lunches and feeding the dog that I had not yet earned my cup of coffee. Worse yet, he didn’t even offer me a cup! How dare he!
We were not using the same rule book.
These unwritten rules were robbing me of coffee joy.
Unwritten rules are like spiderwebs. You don’t notice them until you run right into them. Then, it takes forever to get the last strands cleared. And, like spiderwebs, these unwritten rules do serve a purpose. We all need to have a common set of understandings to respect competing needs and promote harmony amongst each other. Many households have rules like keeping the noise level down when a baby is trying to sleep or hanging up your towel in a shared bathroom. Most of them were taught to us as children until we internalized them and drove them into the invisible regions of our minds. And usually they run quietly in the background, smoothing out our interactions with others.
But sometimes, these rules are really the ones running the show, and they are feeding you a false story. And shining the spotlight on them is the first step to reconnecting with what actually is. When I told my husband this coffee story the other night, he told me he had NO IDEA that coffee was causing all these problems for me! While we had a good laugh, and coffee has taken on a new meaning in our home, it’s also an opportunity to investigate what went wrong, and to do differently.
Most of these unwritten rules point back to expectations, motivations and stories to make up meaning. Our brains are wired to make connections and it’s always working overtime to make sense of events that are happening around us. When my husband got his coffee, and I was toiling away in the kitchen, I had an expectation that he would help me with the tasks, or at the very least ask me if I wanted coffee. I also had an internalized “rule” that you have to get all the work done before you can “play”. In this case, kitchen tasks were work, and coffee was play. The story I was making up was that my husband is a carefree guy who only thinks about himself, breezing in and out as he wants, while I am toiling away doing productive tasks.
Where are unwritten rules at play in your life? Think back to the last time you were annoyed—what was really going on? Did you have
· An expectation that wasn’t being met?
· A rule that was constraining you?
· An assumption about another’s motivation?
Once you know what’s really motivating the behavior, YOU can make the choice, instead of blindly following the rules.
So, here’s to reclaiming coffee joy and robbing the invisible rule joy-thieves of their power!
If you have a great invisible joy-thief story, I’d love to hear it! I personally read all the emails and would love to connect with you. Christy@morethandoctor.com
And, if you could use some help clearing the spider webs from your life, there extermination has become a specialty of mine—sign up for personalized coaching discovery call here.
