Hey Brooke and team,

I hope you are having a fantastic day.
I have a question regarding the exercise for day 9 of the relationships workbook – that I seem to be doing wrong as it’s not working. Let me explain.

My person of the week is my dad.

And some of the things I describe in the manual I have for him are : I would like him to accept me as I am (a woman with a strong personality that doesn’t fit his idea of women), to be helpful during important times of my life instead of making things worse with his emotional manipulation, stress, negativity and drama (eg for my wedding), that he respects who I am and supports me instead of always be doom and gloom, that he’d stop trying to manipulate me through passive aggressive comments for example.

Some of the things I’d think and feel if he did that perfectly are : I’d be impressed with how he changed, that he cares for someone other than himself for a change, I’d be grateful to have a supportive and helpful dad who accepts me as I am. I’d be happy to contact him and see him more often as it would be much easier.

Now to the question part : the exercise ends with “Notice that you can feel and think those things now”.
Except that I CAN’T think and feel those things now, because I can only think he’s helpful if he IS helpful, for example. And I can only be grateful for his support if he IS supportive. So it’s not working. Am I doing this wrong?

Thanks and have a beautiful day all 🙂