“Sock it away for a rainy day.”
“Debt is the worst thing in the world.”
“I never go to bed owing anyone a penny.”
I heard those three sentences from my father for much of my life.
Morty and I were in debt, and it drove my dad nuts. So the lectures went on and on. At the dinner table. On the phone when I called just to say hello.
And every single time, I came apart.
I would cry. Then I would defend myself, explaining our finances to a man who had already decided what he thought about them, and then explaining them again, louder.
I was a grown woman. And there I was in my parents’ kitchen, sobbing.
Then one day I said something different
I don’t remember what prompted it. I remember being calm.
I said:
“Dad, I love you. I know you have my best interest at heart. But I can’t stand the lecture any more. I just can’t listen to it. So, from now on, when you start to talk to me about our financial situation I’m going to say ‘Dad, eh eh eh.’ If you continue, I will leave the room. I hope you understand.”
My dad said, “OK.”
The next time he started in on our finances, I said, “Dad, eh eh eh.”
He said, “OK sweetie.” And he smiled.
After a lifetime of getting upset and crying, that was all it took.
Why?
What I’m sure of, and what I’m not
By the time I said that sentence to my father, I had done two different kinds of work on myself.
I had eliminated some beliefs. One of them was “What makes me good enough is having people think well of me.” I call that one my Martin Luther King moment, because when it went, the little voice that had whispered will they like me, will they approve of me my whole life finally fell silent. I also eliminated “I’m not capable.”
And after Morty created the Lefkoe Occurring Process, I had been dissolving the meanings I gave my father and brother’s behavior in the moment for years.
So which one made the difference that day in the kitchen?
I honestly don’t know. Probably both.
What I am sure of is this. I didn’t take what my father was saying personally. So I wasn’t angry. And because I wasn’t angry, I didn’t speak to him in a way that made him defensive.
He didn’t have to protect himself from me. So he could just say OK.
There was a stretch of years where I could watch my father and my brother have their outbursts and feel nothing at all, as if they were puppets on a string being run by their own beliefs. It was a miracle to me. It still is.
What changed, and what didn’t
People get this part wrong when I tell the story.
They assume I stopped disliking the lectures. That somewhere along the way I became okay with them.
I did not.
After I stopped giving meaning to my father’s lectures, I still had a preference. I still didn’t want to hear the same thing one more time. That never went away, and I don’t think it should have.
What changed was what the preference could come out as.
For most of my life, my wanting him to stop came out as tears. It came out as defending myself. Those were behaviors, and they were caused by what the lecture meant about me. That he thought I was careless with money, and that I had failed at being a competent adult in front of the person whose approval I had wanted since I was small.
When the meaning stopped, the tears stopped with it. And the same preference I’d had all along could finally come out as a request.
I asked my father for what I wanted. Calmly. And I got it.
If you’ve rehearsed the line and still can’t say it
Maybe you know exactly what you want to say to someone. You’ve written it down. You’ve said it in the car on the way over.
And then you’re standing in front of them and it comes out hard, or it doesn’t come out at all.
If that’s you, I’d suggest looking somewhere other than the words.
Something about that conversation still means something painful. And as long as it does, you’ll either swallow the request or throw it. Neither one gets you what you want.
My father was a very loving man who often spoke without thinking and said things he didn’t mean. So are most of the people we can’t seem to have these conversations with.
The last years
My dad didn’t stop all at once. He would start in on our finances, and I would say “Dad, eh eh eh,” and he would catch himself. It took a few rounds of that.
And then he stopped.
We talked about other things. Better things. And I got to have something with my father in his last years that I hadn’t had before, which was mutual respect. The ordinary, easy kind, where two adults who love each other can say what they need and be heard.
It was so wonderful. And it was possible because of the work I did on myself.
If something here is landing for you, our free belief-elimination program at recreateyourlife.com/free is a good next step. It walks you through eliminating some of the beliefs that most commonly get in people’s way.
And if you’d like personal help in making a change, I offer free strategy sessions. We look at your goals and dreams, what’s standing in the way of them, and whether working together would be a good fit. You’re welcome to apply at mortylefkoe.com/application.
The reactions you have been living with are behaviors caused by beliefs you formed a long time ago, in circumstances that no longer exist.
And those beliefs can be eliminated.
