You changing me is not possible. Me changing you is not possible. We cannot change anyone else, only ourselves. Think back over your lifetime, has there been someone you have known you could help, if only they would behave the way you wanted them to? If your relationship with this person is good, do you want to keep it that way?
Holding the light.
Asking someone to change for us is a fools errand for many reasons. The first reason is that changing for someone else results in an obligation no one can fulfill. Laying there for both people, unspoken, is the thought “Look what I did for you.” There can be only one effect of this obligation; a corrosive element in your relationship. We have written about relationships often in these blogs. We are in relationships with everyone in you lives, no matter how fleetingly.
The second reason is that they already have a purpose in life. It is highly unlikely that being another you is that purpose. No matter how much better their life would be if you were in charge, they will still be who they are.
A third, and just as damaging, reason not to try changing someone else is this. You have to become what you want to change. Whoops! To identify what we want to change, we have to focus on what we don’t want. You are experienced enough to know that where we give our attention grows. Rather than diminish what bothers you, you actually increase that thing. You create more of what you did not want in the first place.
Why we want others to change.
We say we want to change someone else to help them. This is the first big lie. The truth is we are trying to make our own lives easier. Rather than come to love and understand the person for who they are we demand they be someone else. Visualizing a new “other” is so much easier than changing ourselves. The very aspects of others we want to change are the aspects of ourselves we have yet to embrace. If we tell someone else “You are too judgmental,” what we are actually saying is “I am too judgmental.” We don’t want to take the time to fix ourselves, but we are willing to fix someone else.
Chill out!
If someone you love has an issue you think you can fix; chill out. No change will come about because an outside influence wants change. Change only occurs when it is important to us.
Hold the light
If you care about this person, simply love them. Perhaps you can find a way to accept that person as they are, perhaps not. Either way your best hope is to love them. Hold the light of possibility for them, do not insist on the change you want. Of course you can also read It’s All About Me for some help on this subject too. Click the book cover below and read a sample.
