Going up and down the steep trail, I gave him lots of pats on the back and verbal encouragement, “Good Boy Steve, you can do it!” Annie Oakley, that famous bareback riding and straight shooting lady, was probably rolling over in her grave: no doubt wondering what went wrong with frontier women over the last few hundred years.
However, it wasn’t long before I got a clue; ‘playing nice’ and trying harder were not getting the results I wanted. Then, I did what many people do when stuck in a pattern that is not working. I moved into complaint, “Come on Big Steve! What’s your problem? Get a move on!” Predictably, no matter how much I goaded, Big Steve did not alter what he was doing.
Finally, I had an ‘aha’ moment and remembered the definition of insanity; continuing to repeat the same behaviors over and over again, hoping for a different result! I recognized that this mule was not going to change his steps unless I changed mine.
I had been reacting in two ways; first denial and then complaining. Once I admitted that both were ineffective, I shifted from feeling like a victim of this big animal and started taking ‘response-ability’. Blaming him had been keeping me stuck and feeling powerless.
I moved from passivity into assertion. I began to experiment with new moves and noticed what he did with them. As I adjusted my behavior and finally began to ‘own’ my motivator (wrangler’s euphemism for whip), guess what happened?
Big Steve got motivated to give me more of what I needed! My ineffective behaviors were replaced by communicating my desires in a way that a 2000 pound beast could understand. Believing that Big Steve was the problem had only perpetuated my problem.
The real problem was that I did not like using the motivator; the only thing that worked. I was afraid of making him uncomfortable. Similarly in relationships, it is tempting to avoid speaking our truth because it may cause discomfort. Only by facing my reality and stepping into my power, did I earn his respect. And, Annie Oakley stopped performing her graveyard gymnastics. :-)
Until next time, Blessings! ~ Deb