Pushing On in spite of Resistance - By: Linda Greven

My granddaughter and I were watching the TV show, Brothers and Sisters, last night. It stars Sally Field, Calista Flockhart and Rob Lowe (among others). It was the first time I had watched it, and it took a while for us to get to know who the characters were in relation to one another.

But we both enjoyed it. Sally Field's character (Nora Walker) was putting on a baby shower for one of the girls and the chaos that ensued and the number of individual and personal crises caused a lot of short tempers, shouting matches, and frustration. In the end, all was forgiven and they all -- being family -- hugged each other and said loving words to each other.

I was able to resonate with Nora's frustration; she wanted the whole thing to go off without a hitch, but delays, lack of cooperation, etc made that seem like an impossibility. At one point, she was trying to get them all to play a baby shower game, and NOBODY was interested! Claiming that she was a traditionalist, she pushed forward in spite of everyone's resistance.

Boy, could I ever see myself in that!

My granddaughter (who is 13) commented that Nora reminded her of me. Yikes!

Have you ever done that? Pushed on inspite of everyone's resistance, I mean?

You know that you are right -- that you should move forward, that tradition has it that your course of action is the correct one.

So why is everyone getting their backs up? And why won't they co-operate? Why won't they just shut up and listen?

Sound familiar?

To be honest, this is pretty much the story of my life. They all come to me for advice; they all know that I'll have the answer they need, the suggestions that make sense. But then they go their own merry way and do something completely opposite and wonder why it didn't turn out right.

I get pretty ticked off at them, actually.

If they weren't going to listen to me, why did they ask in the first place? It's not like I was suggesting they do something difficult, or ridiculously 'out there'! But really, most of the time they do whatever they were going to do before they talked to me, so I don't get it. Why did they ask?

I've gotten my knickers in a knot more than once about it. They come to me for advice and I refuse to give it to them. I tell them "I don't want to hear about it; you're not going to listen to me anyway!" And they say, "Mom; don't be like that."

Does this sound at all like your experience?

Or perhaps you're the one doing the asking; and you have your own version of Nora who expounds on what you should do and you go away and do your own thing.

I've been reading "How to Talk so Kids will Listen, and Listen so Kids will Talk". It's a good book, and was well recommended by a friend. And I'm learning a few new tricks. But I've gotta tell you, it really is hard for an 'old dog' to learn a new trick. My old habits are clinging on to me for dear life. And they don't want to let go of me,

I keep promising myself that I'll start each day without nagging, preaching, lecturing (all of which I'm very good at, by the way ...) and just let others make their own decisions, find their own solutions, get by without my advice. But it's hard.

I'd love to hear from you if you have any thoughts on the above. Tell me why you don't listen; or why you ask. Or how you cope with all of that in your family.

About the Author

Linda has been coaching and counselling women and care-givers for over 5 years. Her clients may have forgotten how to play, or dropped themselves completely off the priority list. After working with Linda, they report that they sleep better, feel better about life, and experience more joy. Many of them say that they feel like a kid again. For a free sample coaching session visit http://www.fun-wey.com/sample.html

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