Outsourcing Emotions

I have become aware of how much I outsource my emotions and also how much my mother does this too. An example of this is as follows:

UM
C: My mother comes over for lunch. We finish the meal. My mother says “It’s probably easiest for you if you take me home now”.
T: Can’t she just tell me what she wants to do?
F: Irritated
S: Tight in my upper chest
A: Ask her what she wants to do; say “I can take you back whenever you want”; get frustrated that she won’t express an opinion – what does she want to do and why can’t she say that?
R: Nobody expresses their opinion.

Just writing this down makes me smile: we are both so desperate for someone else to make the “difficult” decision of when she should go home; we are both trying to outsource our emotions. It would be socially unacceptable my mother to ask to go home too soon, just as it would be socially unacceptable for me to take her home straight after lunch. It feels to me like I honestly just want her to say a time and I would take her home at that time, whether pre-agreed or not, but this seems unnecessarily binding, especially if the situation changes (she becomes more tired, conversation flags etc) but at the same time I am aware that this motivation is “dirty” and I am not taking responsibility. Should my intentional model be like this:

IM
C: My mother comes over for lunch. We finish the meal. My mother says “It’s probably easiest for you if you take me home now”.
T: When do I want to take her home?
F: Curious
S: Shallow breathing
A: Ask myself: “when would it be most convenient to take her home?”.
R: At least one of us has their needs met.

I would be grateful for your thoughts.

 

 

Answer:

Awareness is such a big, powerful step! Don’t forget to stop and celebrate that. Now that you’ve seen it, you have all the options in front of you on how to address this pattern. Whenever we have a question in our model, we need to answer it. How could you shift your question to a statement?

Now for the question you asked before, do some exploring. We can melt away some frustration when we replace it with compassion. Why isn’t your mother able to decide what she wants to do and why can’t she say that?