(This blog is based on episode 225 of the Emotionally Equipped for Life podcast.)

My story.

So this happened last week on a Saturday morning. I had already done my yoga practice in my bedroom upstairs and I came downstairs to find my dad and my two boys on the porch having breakfast. I sat down for a few minutes just to be with them. My dad told me that my mom was out doing some errands and that she’d be home in a few minutes.

A few minutes later I got up and walked back into the house. At the same time, my mom was walking in from her errands. She had some bags in her hands and she dropped them down on the kitchen floor just a few feet from where I was.

I greeted her, “Good morning!”

She responded back, “Good morning. Shira, we do the sheets in this house on Sunday so I’ll need your sheets.”

The pause.

Now, I’m pausing for a moment just to paint a picture of what literally happened, because, between confusion as to what she was saying and why she was saying this to me first thing in the morning on a Saturday, I had to pause just to collect my brain cells together and register what she was talking about.

It took me a few more seconds and then it dawned on me she was talking about the bedsheets. She was referring to the fact that she washes her bedsheets on Sundays and she was asking me to bring mine down and my boys down so that she can wash the bedsheets.

And once I understood that, the next thing that came to my mind was, she doesn’t need to do our laundry. In fact, she’s not doing our laundry while we’re visiting for the month. My kids and I are doing our own laundry. And my parents graciously gave us permission to use the machine as needed – and as far I know, there haven’t been any problems.

So, I responded, “Oh, thanks. It’s ok. I can take responsibility for doing our sheets.”

But my mom didn’t like that response. She said, “No, we do the sheets in this house once a week on Sundays, so I need your sheets.”

And I’m still not quite getting it because I’m thinking to myself, if she wants to do her sheets today (which was Saturday anyway, but we’ll put that aside), if she wants to do her sheets today, great. Why is concerned about when I do my sheets and my kids’ sheets?

So, I just repeated what I already said, just to reiterate that she doesn’t need to worry about our sheets. But, she again, she wasn’t having it. She said, “I will not have anyone live in this house and go a week without having their sheets changed. Please bring down the sheets.”

Feeling STUCK.

And I knew I was so stuck.

Remember getting stuck is about recognizing that while it is so easy to blame someone else for how you are feeling, it’s about taking full responsibility for your thoughts, feelings, and actions. And I was stuck on disappointment.

And before I tell you how I got unstuck, I just want to say this part of the process, the awareness part, is crucial, because the reason most people stay stuck is because they are unaware. They don’t have the consciousness to realize that the only reason they are stuck is because of the thinking they place on top of the facts to the story – that the facts themselves don’t create stuck spots – it’s the thinking on top of the facts that do.

So, I knew I needed to take a stop.

The unSTUCK Method.

S – While I could have fought my mom and tried to rationalize with her, I removed myself from the situation. It sometimes is the best stop that exists. Just leave the situation if you can, and if you can’t, just tell the person or people you are with that you need to use the bathroom. And as I was going upstairs my mom said, “You don’t need to do it now. I just need to have the sheets by tomorrow morning.”

I continued upstairs and as I started to frenetically rip off the sheets of my bed and my two kids’ beds. This was a part of the “T” step. The truth is I had so many emotions running through me, disappointment, frustration, anger, annoyance, resentment, confusion – and I just gave myself permission to feel all of them. I Definitely let out some grunts and other sounds for sure.

U – Once the sheets were off, I uncovered my thoughts:

I believe my mom doesn’t like the way I turned out.

I believe my mom is disappointed in my choices in my life.

I believe my mom wishes I would do everything the way she taught me.

I believe my mom wishes I would be a carbon copy of her.

I believe it really makes my mom uncomfortable when I do anything that is different from the way she does things.

I believe my mom is judging me.

I believe my mom shouldn’t be treating me like a little kid.

I believe my mom should treat me with respect, both as a human and as a guest in her house, just like I am doing my absolute best to respect her by following the rules and guidelines I received when we came on this visit.

So, after you do the kind of easy work of uncovering your thoughts, which of course is not always easy because sometimes our thoughts are so unconscious, we have a hard time uncovering them, but, after we do that, we need to do the hard part, which is to investigate into them, which is hard because we are so attached to our beliefs that we often believe everything we think is true, even though the opposite is true. Almost every thought that comes to our mind isn’t a Truth (with a capital “T”), but rather an opinion or a judgment of a circumstance or a fact.

And so when I look back at my thoughts, I can’t know for sure that any of my thoughts are 100% true. While there may be some truth to them, I cannot know for sure they are 100% true, and actually holding on to those thoughts are not serving me at all.

So, knowing that none of my thoughts were true, I got to “C” for Consider.

One of the easiest ways to look for Considerations is to flip them around, like flipping “me to “you” or “positive to negative” to see if you can find a deeper truth. Like, for example:

I believe my mom doesn’t like the way I turned out, can be flipped to: I believe my mom loves how I turned out. Yes, I believe that is true.

I believe my mom is disappointed in my choices in my life. The flip of that would be, “I believe my mom is not disappointed in my choices in my life.” I believe that’s also true.

I believe my mom wishes I would do everything the way she taught me. I don’t believe that.

I believe my mom wishes I would be a carbon copy of her. I don’t believe that either.

I believe it really makes my mom uncomfortable when I do anything that is different from the way she does things. I do believe that, and that’s ok.

I believe my mom is judging me. I do believe that too, but it’s ok because the truth is, that’s what the human mind does. It judges. It receives stimuli and it judges it as good or bad. If the mind didn’t do that, we wouldn’t survive. So, yes, I do believe my mom judges me, but you know what, I also believe that I judge my mom, if I’m being honest. And that’s normal. The question is, is it serving us? And I’ll get to that in a moment.

I believe my mom shouldn’t be treating me like a little kid. Yeah, I kind of want to believe that’s true, but at the same time, I know what’s even more true is that my mom should be doing whatever she wants to, as I’m not responsible for who my mom chooses to be and what she thinks and how she feels. That’s her responsibility.

I believe my mom should treat me with respect, both as a human and as a guest in her house, just like I am doing my absolute best to respect her by following the rules and guidelines I received when we came on this visit. Again, while I would wish for that, that’s not my choice. How my mom chooses to be in the world is her choice.

Judgment – the source of all suffering.

And so I’d like to go back for a moment to talk about this very important topic of judgment. I have a friend whose name is Netta Cohen. I consider her a very wise woman and in fact, I dedicated my second book, The CLEAR Way, to her. She has a very important teaching that I’d like to share with you now. She, of course, gave me permission to share this on this episode. This is what she says.

Often when we are feeling stuck, we may not realize it, but we may be unconsciously judging something or someone. The root cause of almost all emotional suffering is judgment. If you can consciously uncover any judgment you may be holding onto, then you come to an actual choice point to do something else besides judging something or someone as wrong or bad.

So, for example, while it may be true that I was feeling judged by my mom in that moment, I was also suffering. I was feeling stuck. And the only reason I was feeling stuck was because I was judging my mom! Isn’t that funny? Like, the irony. Like, I’m thinking the whole source of the problem here is that my mom was judging me, but the truth is, I was judging her which was why I was feeling stuck. Interesting, no?

And so, what Netta suggests is that if you can uncover any judgments, try to turn your judgments into appreciation and praise instead. She says judgment is like a poison and when we look at the relationships and experiences in our life that feel the worst, they are like a little poison. So, if you were able to uncover any judgments you are attached to, notice if you can consciously choose to pause and appreciate something in that person or in that situation instead. And if you can find something to appreciate, you may even be able to take advantage of the opportunity for the practical application of appreciation which is praise, the antidote of judgment

And so, I am creating this podcast episode a week or so after the fact. I will tell you what I considered in that moment, which was to accept my mom for who she is and for who she is not, which I did.

The shift.

And with that, I went downstairs and brought the sheets to the laundry room.

And when I saw my mom, I smiled and gave her a hug and told her I love her. In fact, this may have been the first time I told her I loved her on this vacation. And I have to tell you, I am proud of myself because it’s just about this time of our annual trips that our trips go sour. In fact, it is this kind of incident that would have ruined the rest of my trip. I would have been so mad, so resentful, so bitter at being treated like a little kid and feeling judged and disrespected that I would have just wanted to go back home at that moment.

But, my friends, witness what prevailed. I gave my mom a hug and I told her I love her because I committed to being accepting. And I “K” held myself in kindness for having gotten stuck in the first place.

But, I have more for you, my friends, because a week has passed and I’m now creating this episode while on a family getaway for 4 days, and it’s my mom’s birthday. She’s celebrating her 73^rd birthday today.

And I want to take a moment and internalize Netta’s words, and take a moment and turn my judgment into appreciation and praise and hopefully give my mom the best birthday gift I can ever give her.

You know, during COVID my mom took on a project of organizing all the family photos she collected over the years. She arranged 5 albums for each of her children so that each album only has the child’s memories in it. My mom mentioned that she took on this project, but I didn’t think twice about it. And then last week, after the laundry incident, I went upstairs again later to my room and took down one of the albums I found in my old bedroom. And that’s when the tears started to flood because the albums brought back all the memories I have forgotten over the years.

Turning judgment into praise and appreciation.

And so I want to begin by praising my mom for doing that hard work because I know it’s something I wouldn’t have done and now it’s all done. It’s all organized. And I don’t have to lift a finger to create that and it’s a gift I will cherish forever.

And I want to praise my mom for… my life, really.

For being the kind of mom who made her kids the center of her life – and while there are certainly pros and cons to that (and I’m saying that now as a mom), I certainly benefited from it.

My mom drove me to all my dance and sports classes and to all the birthday parties and she knitted my clothing and she made 3 meals a day for me, and she taught me how important it is to be organized and neat and tidy (even though I’m still sometimes learning that lesson) and she was kind to all of my friends whoever came to visit and she always showed an interest in them and attended my graduations and my award ceremonies and anything related to anything – she was there. And she taught me the importance of writing thank-you notes. And she organizes these family vacations, which we do every summer. And you know what she does? She heads down to the pool area like an hour before it’s open so she can grab the best chairs – so we can have shade during the day – and she heads to the evening show also an hour before, so we can have first row seats – which is mainly for the benefit of my kids. And even now, as I’m visiting her with my 3 children, she’s illustrating to me how to love your partner and how to have his back and how to praise and appreciate him. And there’s so much more. I mean really. There’s just so much. She’s always thinking about everyone, she really is. And I know I have been judgmental towards her in the past and I know it’s been my judgments that have created a big space between us, and while it’s taken me a long time to learn that lesson, I’m really ready now to drop the judgments. I am committed to dropping the judgments and instead just loving my mom and appreciating her and praising her.

And so with that, Mom, I hope you had an amazing 73^rd birthday with the family and I hope you continue to enjoy your celebrations this month and in case it wasn’t already clear, I love you from the depths of my heart.

Practice makes possible.

OK my friends. Relationships are not easy. They simply are not. But when you can practice accepting those people in your life, for who they are and for who they are not, things can powerfully shift. But yes, it’s going to mean letting go of expectations and letting go of what is “right” and letting others live their lives as they wish, and accepting them radically for who they are and for who they are not.

And so I invite you to take a moment now and ask yourself where can you practice accepting someone in your life today? And I mean really accept them for who they are and for who they are not? And doing that not for their sake, but for your sake. For you to become a more accepting person, especially with the people who are closest to you. Take a moment and reflect on that now and see what you come up with. And if it’s possible, I would challenge you to even consider where you can appreciate and even perhaps praise that person today. I’d love to hear from you if you do.

Thank you for your comments below!