Hi Brooke,

Thanks for a great first call, pick up a lot of good aha’s but I still feel stuck about my family question. I asked the question “I’m stuck in the river of misery!” and you told me to pick a specific example to address and then challenged me to ask myself SO WHAT? These are my answers:

C: My mom speaks to her husband (my stepfather) and he does not respond
T: He’s ignoring her, he’s such an asshole
F: Angry, frustrated, annoyed, resentful
A: Ignore him
R: Keep thinking he’s an asshole

I think he’s an asshole, SO WHAT?

T1: I wish he wasn’t in our lives
T2: He took my mom away from me and now he makes her miserable
T3: He treats my mom like garbage
T4: Relationships don’t work, people always show their true colours
T5: How could my mom settle for him
T6: I don’t trust men

These thoughts cause me to feel angry and resentful. I know he gets to be who he is and I just want PEACE so that I can stop feeling awful when I’m around him and when I think of him. But everything I try to do to achieve peace is not believable. I literally want to scream everytime I see his face or hear him make a sound. In theory when you told Stevi on the call to practice feeling how she wants to feel regardless of what her daughter does sounds lovely, but it feels so fake to me at this point.

Do you have any other advice I could try for my situation?

Many thanks,

Samantha