Thoughts and 'should's in families. A Happy Hour Conversation with Rasmus Carlsson

What a treat it was speaking to transformative coach Rasmus Carlsson about family relationships! Rasmus has such a great down to earth approach and a super-clear understanding of the role of the three principles in how we experience life. He shares such personal and detailed examples here that I defy anyone to listen and not hear something that's useful!

Here were my favourite points:

• Other people's perspective on us are their business"What someone else thinks is never going to be up to me." The only thing that can make us unhappy is when we don't accept reality as it is - we think we can change the way someone else thinks about us.
• Why do we try to control other people's thinking when we can't control our own?We don't choose our thoughts. Seeing that helps us to be more compassionate towards ourselves and others because we see that no matter how bad a thought or a behaviour looks, it makes no sense to judge it when we see that no-one chose it.
• Being compassionate doesn't mean being a doormatWhen we recognise that 'their stuff' isn't about us, it's about them, it means we have access to our natural happy, calm state in which we're going to be much more able to deal with a situation well. That doesn't mean being passive, it means not being reactive. It only takes one of us to calm down and listen, and the other people will often begin to calm down and listen too.
• There are no 'should'sThere's no one way we should be in relationships or life in general. When we can more easily spot our insecure thinking about worrying about what others will think about us, the 'should's begin to lose their grip on us. When we let go of our 'should's we become open to all kinds of other opportunities and experiences.