It's Easter week and that means schools are out, routine is about to go to pot, sugar levels are high and rising; and you might have travel arrangements made to spend the break with family or to make use of the school holidays.
Times like this tend to require more of us in terms of empathy, judgement reserving and meeting our people where they are so that the wheels don't come off the nice plans we have.
I want to share with you a simple but really effective tool I use myself which I also teach my clients. It's really helpful in creating empathy and putting us in a place of reserving judgment. In other words, it helps us stay in control what's going on for us emotionally without turning into tantruming toddlers ourselves.
It's just three words - just like me - and a curious observation of what's going with who I'm with, noticing the ways that they are just like me, as opposed to separating from them, noticing how different they are from me and standing in a place of judgment (which never ends well).
Here’s how it looks:
My husband forgets to take out the rubbish
Just like me, my husband forgets things sometimes.
My child is persistent in his demands for a sugary snack.
Just like me, my boy loves sugar when he’s tired.
The lady sitting beside me on the plane spreads her arms out on the armrest that we're sharing.
Just like me, she likes comfort.
It's nothing personal, despite how much our brain might like to protest that they're getting on our nerves and doing it to us.
Nothing has gone wrong here.
Just a human doing their human best.
Just like you and just like me.
