Happy Friday!
Last week I said we’d go deep. It’s time to jump in.
If you’re like me, your ex could be described as a difficult person. A difficult ex presents a whole host of issues beyond the typical ones associated with being a single mom.
For example, my ex used to routinely badger me with long, aggressive text messages.
It was always so hard for me to determine if there was something important in the text or if it was all noise. People would say just ignore him, block him, etc. However, when you are attempting to parallel parent with someone, you must learn how to communicate. Ignoring wasn’t the solve because that would enrage him (and he’d take it out on the kids). Blocking wasn’t the solve because sometimes there was an important piece of information about the kids buried under the aggression.
The problem was that I was letting him get inside my head.
I realized I needed to assess my boundaries. Not surprisingly, they were the equivalent of a sagging, cardboard box with holes punched in it. And I felt it. I needed to make them impenetrable.
Now, when my ex starts to badger me, I manage expectations. I send an immediate, short response. The badgering stops. It looks a little like this: “I understand. I will get back to you by [timeframe I need to process – could be an hour or a week].” It gives me time to catch my breath, reach out for help if I need it, and craft a response that is emotionally neutral and focuses on the facts. My flimsy cardboard fort is transformed.
How did I figure that out? Was just about setting boundaries and managing expectations? Not exactly.
Today, I’m going to give you the tool that changed everything for me.
Before I do that, let me back up and give you some context. I’m a narrative strategist. I’ve built my career around the power of stories. I spend my days looking for big ideas (or themes) in the stories that consumers tell about the products and services they buy (e.g., what their daily coffee ritual is like, how they decide what computer to buy). Using storytelling tools, I then help companies shift their narratives to sell products in a way that will resonate with their consumers.
One day, I thought, what would happen if I started to look at my own life more like a story? What if I could take control of my life narrative (the sum of all my stories) with these same tools?
I’m a single mom, so I needed to be efficient about it.
There is one tool that I’ve found to be the most powerful. It’s called the deep metaphor.
Here’s the gist: there are seven deep metaphors* running through our lives (anyone’s life actually). They are: Resource, Balance, Connection, Journey, Control, Container, and Transformation. (No need to know what they mean now; we will get into that later on).
In the example I gave, it was Container that helped me. Containers do two things: they keep good things in and bad things out. I’d realized that I’d let negative language seep into my Container (aka my brain). By reframing my situation as a story with a metaphor I could see a clear path forward. It gave me perspective.
I’m happy to report that the aggressive texts are few and far between these days, and when they do arrive, I know exactly what to do about them.
Next week, we will delve more into Container.
Exercise: This next week, look around at the physical or metaphorical Containers in your life. Is anything getting in that shouldn’t be? Sometimes it’s super obvious stuff like “I need to change the locks on my front door” (house as Container) to subtler things like “I love how I feel after going to the gym. I feel strong.” (body as Container). Good luck and have fun!
How did the paying-attention-to-the-stories-you-are-telling-about-your-life exercise go? What do you hear about yourself?