By the way as you listen to this you can substitute any other person in the place of the son and it will still work: your husband, your mom, your daughter, anyone. So listen to this concept and you can apply it to anyone in your life.
There are 2 sons – one in your head and one that’s the actual person in reality out there.
Does the son in your head match(thoughts about your son) the son in reality.
The bigger the gap the more there is suffering.
The smaller the gap the more joy you have. The more love and connection you feel.
Here’s why – you have NO control over the person who is your son but you do have full control over your THOUGHTS about your son. And great news – your THOUGHTS about him will determine how you connect with him. If you accept his just as he is that means the son in your head is matching with the son in reality. IF you do not accept him as he is and wish he were different you are creating the gap between you and him. Because the two people don’t match. This creates suffering. Reality always wins.
Personal examples
My sons back hurts – son in my head – his back doesn’t hurt. Suffering
Son in my head should never get frustrated at his brothers – suffering.
Son in my head should not be so sensitive – suffering.
Son in your head should do a certain job or should call you certain amount of times or should come visit, anything that he should do that he is not doing is what is creating that GAP between imaginary son in your head and the actual person who is your son.
Thinking too highly of your son – he’s amazing, he’s wonderful, he can do nothing wrong- sure you can think that if that feels good to you but be careful – your son is also a human who makes mistakes so when he does that human thing that he does that doesn’t match your ideal image in your head you will also suffer.
So I suggest you always rely on reality to tell you what your son should be doing and who he should be. Not your head.
Make your sons match as closely as possible for your own sake, so that YOU can feel connected and loving and support and be proud of yourself. Not for his sake although he will benefit.
The way to do that is to have thoughts about your son that reflect who he is. he doesn’t have to call me. I love him. He should be frustrated with his brothers. He should have a sore back. He should do all the things he does. He should not do all the things he doesn’t do. Do you see what I mean.
The smaller the gap between your idea of your son and your actual son the more connection you will feel.
FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW
Welcome to my stop fighting with your son podcast. If this is your first time here, I recorded four episodes, especially for you to help you eliminate the fights right away and start connecting with your boy as, as possible, go to episodes 54 through 59. I have four boys on my own, and I know better than anyone, how much you want to have a good relationship with your boy and all the things that can come in your way. If you are a mom of boys, I am the coach for you. Let’s go, Hey God, how are you doing? How was your weekend? My husband and I went on a date with, well, we went out with some friends. It was supposed to be our date, but we just invited some friends over with us and we, uh, grabbed dinner. And then we went to see some standup comedy.
And I just wanted to share with you that I had just been discovering all these comedians recently. And I just realized, which I didn’t really know was aware before of how many of them there are. And I’m loving it. I’m loving it so much. They’re so funny. They’re all so different. And it’s so refreshing too. So if you need a laugh, um, I highly recommend I’ve been really enjoying the comedians in cars, getting coffee. Uh that’s on Netflix and really, um, anyone really just, uh, just to check them out. There’s a lot of specials on Netflix. Uh, but even if going to your local standup comedy place, it’s so for freshing, we really enjoyed it and I highly recommend you check it out. And I think it’s just good for, for your sanity to just go and have that change your perspective and to laugh a bit.
So that’s, what’s new with us and I really enjoyed it. And today I want to talk to you about this thing that I can up with. It’s called sun match. And by the way, if you can apply this concept to any person in your life, this will work. Okay. So this concept I came up with, as I was thinking about you and people fighting with, with their sons, or even like spouses fighting, and I’ve also been reading some, um, teachings on Buddhism and a lot of them, uh, kind of encourage you to make peace with what is right. So then I got to thinking that there are two sons, there are two sons that you have one son, and I know you might have more sons, but I’m talking about this one person. So there is a son that you have that’s in your head, okay?
In your head, you have expectations of your son, which are thoughts, right? So you have a bunch of thoughts about your son. If I ask you, you would describe your son to me, but you would, what you would really be doing is you would be telling me your thoughts about him, right? And there are all of your expectations about what he should do, what he shouldn’t do, how he should behave, what you expect him to do in the future, what he did in the past, um, what kind of person he is, right? What he likes. And so, and then there’s another person. And that person is the actual, that’s your son, he’s out there in the world. And he does certain things and doesn’t do other things. And he says certain things. And so he’s an actual person out there. So there’s two of them.
One he’s ma he’s a person in your head and one person out there in the world. And so here’s my, um, hypothesis. Here’s my suggestion to you that the bigger, the gap between those two people, the more suffering you will feel. Okay? So the smaller, the gap between the person in your head and the person out there, the more love and connection you will feel for your son. Okay? So again, the thoughts in your head about your son are the, the son that you experience, okay? The son out there, the person out there doesn’t doesn’t cause you to feel anything until you have thoughts about him. So, which is great news, because we cannot control what your son does, right? I’m sure you’ve tried. And that’s why you’re here listening to those podcasts because you can’t make him do things and you can’t make him stop doing things.
You have zero control over him. You can nag. You can wish you can hope you can pray. But at the end of the day, he is the one who’s in control of what he does and what he says. So the great news is that you are fully in charge of how you experience him, right? You, you, because of your thoughts, all of your thoughts in your head are what determine how much connection you feel for him and how much disconnection you feel from him as well. Right? So the more suffering you have around him, that means the gap is quite large, quite wide. And so your job is to make that gap as small as possible and hopefully make it disappear completely. Okay. So if you accept him, your son just as he is, and that means your thoughts about him are matching him, his, the actual person.
So that means the gap is not there. And the two people match the sun in your head, matches the sun out there. And if you do not accept him as he is and wish he was different in some way, you are creating that gap between you and him. It is a lot harder to connect with anyone. If you have a gap between the two people, right? So make that gap as small as possible. So you can feel as much connection as possible between you and him. Okay. I have some personal examples I wrote down. So, um, and you know, you, you will have your own because I don’t know how old your son is, but you will apply to any age. Right? So my son’s back hurts. I remember that was a big one for me a couple years ago, because in my head, I thought kids’ backs should not, this is unacceptable.
Why should a child’s back hurt? Like something’s gone wrong. Um, this should not be happening. So a son in my head, the ideal person, my little boy in my head should, his back should not hurt, but in reality, my son’s back was hurting. So I had to do a lot of work within me to, to bridge the gap, to make the gap small and to meet him in reality, where he is. Because as long as I was fighting reality, I was suffering because in reality, he’s back hurts. And as long as I was suffering, I was not able to love him and him in a way that I wanted to. Right. So that was a big one for me. Another one, uh, son in my head should never get frustrated at his brothers. Well, that’s a terrible thought for me to think, because I get, I get frustrated when I think he should not get frustrated.
Isn’t that funny? So my job is to think, oh, of course he should get frustrated with his brothers. Then I have the two sons match in my head and suffering disappears. And then from that place, I feel at peace about what’s going on. And then from that place, I can approach him and the other boys with kindness and love and support them in a way that I want to support them. Right. Um, and another one I wrote down the son in my head should not be as sensitive as he is. He should not be as whiny again. What use does that do be when he’s whining? Totally useless, right? Useless. And makes me again, frustrated because my expectation of my son does not match reality, which creates more suffering would not suggest that. So, so what is your son in your head look like? Should he do a certain job, a certain career?
Should he call you a certain amount of times a week, a month, a day, should he be stop doing something that you don’t like him? What he’s doing? Should he date someone else? Should he, he not date? Should he get married? Should he have kids? Should he not have that many kids? So whatever it is that you think your son should be doing, and if that does not match the re the real son in, in your life, then that gap will hurt only. You, it will not hurt him because your thoughts can only hurt you. You’re only hurting yourself. So then your job is to see that and realize that that expectation that’s not being met is the cause of your suffering. It’s not your son. That’s the cause of your suffering. It’s that thought he should call me. My son never calls me, or I, I want him to stop doing that, whatever it is, all of those thoughts, those sentences in your head are the call of your own suffering.
Great, great news. I’m so happy. You’re hearing this now because you are in charge of those thoughts. Okay? So match your son’s thoughts. Thoughts about your son match the most closely as possible to, to the reality for your own sake, so that you can feel connected. You can feel the love. You can feel like you are supporting him in the best way. You can not for his sake, although he will, of course benefit because there’ll be less nagging. There’ll be more happy mom, less crazy mom. Right? But that will be not that’s of your business. How he experiences you is not in your business because you can’t control his thoughts and his feelings. Your business is your feelings, your thoughts. Okay. So the way to do this is to have thoughts about your son that reflect who he is. For example, he doesn’t have to call me.
I love him. He should be frustrated with his brothers. He should have a sore back because people have sore backs. Even kids have sore backs. Right? I know that takes a while to sink in. Like that one took a while for me to sink in. It doesn’t have to click right away if you do. No, I believe what you were thinking. It doesn’t work. Right. So how can I believe that my kid should have a sore back? Well, the way I did that for me is I rationalize this is that, okay, human adults have sore backs. Why did I decide that a kid should not have sore back? Maybe I was wrong because obviously this child has a sore back. He does work at the desk, just like grownups. Do he too, should have some a back that hurts, right. Even though I don’t like it, but some kids will have a back that hurts sometimes. Right? So that’s the work that is for you to do so that you can feel good is having a conversation like that with yourself. And if you have trouble doing that, that’s what I’m here for. That’s what the coach will do for you is I will point out to you. Hey, did you notice that this thought is creating suffering for you and it’s not matching reality and you don’t have to think that thought anymore. Right? How can we believe something more useful for you? Right?
So, um, the smaller, the gap between your idea of your son and your actual son, the more connection you will feel. And let me also say that if you are thinking something about your son, that’s super amazing. That’s, uh, he’s the best person to have. I love him so much. He’s the best he can do nothing wrong. He’s wonderful. Right, please. I do encourage you to think those thoughts, but I want you to be careful because your son is also human and humans do things sometimes because we’re human. All of us do that. All make mistakes. We do human things. So if you are thinking wonderful things about your son and he, and it works for you, you feel good. But one day he does something and all of a sudden you can’t reconcile. How could my wonderful boy do this terrible thing? I want you to remember that he’s human.
And again, it’s it’s okay. Right? So don’t put him up on the pedestal where you will also fall because the gap there will be big, right? When he does a human thing and you are thinking wonderful things about him. So it doesn’t match, then you’re disappointed. So that’s gap, right? That’s a gap where you fill it with suffering and that’s okay. I do want you to think wonderful things about your son. Just remember, he’s human. Just like you. When you’ve done human mistakes, he’s also going to do them. So you have full permission to think wonderful things about him and allow him to make mistakes. And you can still think, think wonderful things about him, even if he’s done something terrible, right? Like that would be the ultimate, ultimate black belt in love and connection. If you can feel well, love and connection towards your son, if he’s like murdered someone, if he’s done something so terrible and so unspeakable that you would want to withdraw, love and connection, but you don’t have to, his action to is not define him as a person because he is a human person.
He’s wonderful and terrible all in one person. Okay. So be careful, right? Your thoughts will always determine how you feel about him. And the closer your thoughts are to, to reality, to what he’s like in, in real life, the more acceptance you will feel, the easier it will be for you to love him. You’re like, oh right. My son does wonderful things and he does terrible things. And that’s my son. And I don’t expect anything else from him other than what he does. I right. And that’s also a wonderful thing that you can start practicing for yourself. Right? And for your husband, for your daughter, I think this is a big part of why my marriage I feel is been so successful and it’s getting better is because I’ve done a lot of work at just accepting the way my husband is. And it’s a constant, ongoing process for me to do that, but it keeps paying off so well.
Right. And so as I do this, by the way, I do believe as we do this for other people, as we accept them as they are. So we shorten the gap, we match up our thought to them, to the people. Then we can do that to, for ourselves also so much easier because when we are okay with accepting someone else’s flaw, then we can do that for ourselves too, because we have practice of doing that ski ill. So I do encourage you to, to try it out, like shorten the gap between the, the person in your head and the person in reality. Every time, every time you feel frustrated or annoyed or mad or angry, this is your opportunity. How is in my head not matching up with a person in reality, and it’s only hurting me. So how can I shorten that gap? And sometimes it’s going to be like a terrible, terrible experience for you because you’re going to think, okay, Natalia.
So am I supposed to think like he should do this terrible thing? Yes. And the answer to that is yes, because believing otherwise is hurting you. So if you just say, okay, my son should do this, should have done this terrible thing. Then you will make peace with reality. You can change reality, but you can be frustrated about it or you can be okay with it. Right. You’re like he did this terrible thing and it’s okay, he’s human, we’re all human. We all do terrible things. Right. Okay. And if you, the best way to approach this is to look at your thoughts about your son. And the way to do that is you can do that with a piece of paper and a pen. And you can write down all your thoughts, but if you have, have a trouble seeing that your thoughts are actually optional sentences, please do come get coached.
Please come talk to me. And this is where coach I will help you, um, see that your thoughts about your son are actually your thoughts and not the reality, right? I’m gonna help you separate them once you separate the two people. And once you realize, and really on your like body level, you realize that these thoughts are just words in my head. From that point, you have all the power to change them. Okay? But it does take some awareness, which you get from being coached. So please do come get coached. If you are suffering tremendously, if you’re the sons in your head, don’t match with the son in your reality, please do gum get coached. This is going to change your whole life for the rest of your life, with your son and with every other person in your head, because this skill is transferable to every other person. So it’s super easy. The first session is completely free and all you have to do is just invest 45 minutes of your time. Come sign up. Um, it’s on my website is www dot coaching, natal.com. And you go to sign up for a free mini session, pick a time that works for you. And I promise you, this will be a life changer. So make your son’s match, shorten the gap and have a good time. Have a good week. I love you all. Bye.
