Episode 50: How to Know When They Own You

[00:00:00] What in life deserves our time and attention, and what things don't? I hope that as we consider that question, along with other topics on this show, that we can all learn to live our lives just a little more intentionally. This is Seth Roberts. Thanks for joining me on Skipping Stones - 'How to Know Whey They Own You."

My kids are the equivalent of a Kung Fu master [00:00:30] when it comes to getting under each other's skin. Even my three year old. She knows how to drive her siblings crazy when she feels the desire to do so. Inevitably, when one of them succeeds, the one being affected comes to me to try and get me to punish their brother or sister.

A lot of times they'll come to me and say something like, They won't stop copying me. Or she won't stop humming next to me. The baby keeps singing that song to me. [00:01:00] They keep poking at me when they walk by. Or she keeps sticking her tongue out. And he keeps saying that I'm a baby. So I've drawn some lines for my kids that I'll respond to if they cross, but the petty squabbles are just too much for me to mediate.

So, to the best of my ability, I remind my kids that Those kinds of things are the things they need to learn to figure out themselves, or to just walk away from the situation. Probably the most [00:01:30] important thing I do in these situations is to remind them that when they let their siblings see how agitated they are, they're effectively handing power over to them.

Because they are. When they squirm and protest and freak out some little thing the other one is doing, They are teaching their siblings how to succeed at getting a reaction out of them. There are really only a few options available to them to fix the situation.

They can start hurting their sibling in return, which [00:02:00] is a no no in my house, so they don't often use that solution.

They can ignore their sibling until they get bored, or they can walk away and deprive their sibling of their company. I usually recommend the latter two solutions when my kids come to me, but I sympathize with my kids. One of the worst feelings in the world is to feel so affected by another person. I don't want them to grow up allowing others any more power over them than they deserve.

And I especially don't want people with ill [00:02:30] intentions having that kind of power over my children. The power game of feelings is not so obvious as physical strength, political might, or financial capacity. It's a subtler game, and at the end of the day, may be far more powerful than any other kind of power.

It is the subtle power of feelings that drives the world. Beyond a means to survive, Why do you think money is so powerful? It's powerful because it's a [00:03:00] tool that can be used to satisfy or placate a feeling. Money is used as a tool to validate a person's beliefs about themselves. It's a tool used to make a person feel less inadequate.

It's a tool used to acquire distractions. All too often when I watch interviews of successful people or read biographies about them, I hear the all too common theme of, I wanted to prove them wrong. At award ceremonies, you will occasionally hear some [00:03:30] version of, Thanks to everyone that helped me prove all my naysayers were wrong.

The power of feeling that someone else Inflicted on them is often the driving factor behind incredible success or incredible failure. It is a power so great it can literally set the trajectory of a person's entire life. This is the power of feelings. So it's worth thinking about what actions you are taking in life due to the feelings inflicted upon [00:04:00] you by others.

Because when someone else is the driving factor for your actions in life, Who really holds the power? It's also worth considering if it is truly a bad thing to let someone have power over you in every situation. In a sense, any person that draws close to you also gains power over you. In fact, the closer they are, the more power they wield.

The love of another person can be just as motivating. Is [00:04:30] the feelings of inadequacy triggered by someone that hates you? Most of us would gladly trade our power away in exchange for love because that of all the feelings that a person can experience is the one we actually want to experience. The real question though is how do we keep the people that don't love us from having power over us?

Are all the riches in the world worth the effort if they come from a perpetual feeling of inadequacy that someone else made us feel? [00:05:00] I once watched a guy with a heavy social media presence brag about how he enjoyed looking for the negative comments on his posts, and laughing at them. And in the same conversation, he mentioned that the negative voices on social media could never match the negative thoughts.

He has to deal with from his own mind. After watching him say that, I couldn't help but think that this guy was owned by his critics. Or at the very least, owned by a few people in his past that made him feel that [00:05:30] way. This was all coming from a man claiming to live his best life. Anyone paying that much attention to their critics is owned by them.

Everybody loves to watch the underdog turn the tables on the people being mean to them. And there's a place for that, if it's what's necessary to stop future bad behavior. But too often, we waste energy trying to prove people wrong that literally have no real power over us. [00:06:00] The only negative voices we should be worried about are the ones that can actually hurt us.

Whether it be physically, socially, or financially. But we don't need to allow people that cannot do this. To have any power over us whatsoever. Have you ever reached some high peak of success? A good question to ask yourself is, Who would you most want to see you standing on that peak? Also, if you were in the deepest [00:06:30] depth of failure, Who would you be the most mortified to have see you in that situation?

Then, to follow it up, ask yourself, If you feel that way about someone, Because you love them, Because you hate them, Or because they once hated you. I asked myself this question. There are definitely a few people I love that come up, but there are also a few people I don't. And funny enough, some of the ones that I don't love that come to mind for me are people I knew when I was at school that may not even [00:07:00] remember who I am.

Those kinds of people don't deserve that kind of power over you. And no one but the people that love you deserve any power over you whatsoever. All the riches and all the status and all the good things in the world are wasted on the person that is attaining them to fill a void. You also don't need to let people punish you by buying into what they have to say.

And allowing yourself to fail because of it. How [00:07:30] much energy have we wasted in our lives enduring depression? We're trying to prove wrong the people that do not matter. The only people that deserve to have any stake in your life are the ones that truly like and love you. Don't allow yourself to become the slave of someone that doesn't.

If you're going to let someone own any part of you, make sure that they've paid or are paying for that opportunity. [00:08:00] This is Skipping Stones. You can find this podcast - "How to Know When They Own You" anywhere you choose to listen to podcasts. For more information about me, feel free to visit skippingstonessr.com, and if you enjoyed the show, please like or subscribe.

If there is a topic you would like me to speak on, please feel free to email me at info@ skippingstonessr.com New episodes will be released weekly, every [00:08:30] Monday.