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Melanie: Yeah.
Chana: Ask her if you can go into the kitchen. See if you can sit down next to her.
Melanie: She’s okay with that.
Chana: We’re going to inquire into this belief she has, that she is taking advantage of your father. But rather than me facilitating you, we’ll facilitate her.
Melanie: Okay.
Chana: Great. So the first question we ask is, “Is it true that you are taking advantage of Dad?”
Melanie: She’s nodding.
Chana: Can you absolutely know that you’re taking advantage of Dad? Can you be totally sure?
Melanie: I guess not.
Chana: How do you feel when you believe that?
Melanie: I get sad, and I’m embarrassed. I don’t feel like eating.
Chana: What are you unable to do when you believe you’re taking advantage of dad?
Melanie: I can’t have fun with him. I can’t fully enjoy dinner.
Chana: What else?
Melanie: It’s hard to do my homework. It’s hard to focus.
Chana: Now imagine that you’re sitting there doing your homework not thinking that you’re taking advantage of Dad. How are you?
Melanie: Oh. Um. Just doing my homework, which is not so hard when I can focus. And then I have time to talk to Dad about my Girl Scout troop. It’s my first year and I really like it!
Chana: And how does your body feel without the thought?
Melanie: Just normal. I’m okay. My stomach isn’t all knotted up.
Chana: Good. Now I’m going to ask you to play a game I call Turnaround. Okay?
Melanie: Okay.
Chana: Tell me the opposite of, “You’re taking advantage of Dad.”
Melanie: Um… I’m not taking advantage of Dad?
Chana: Yes. Great! Now, in this part of the game, we give three reasons why that’s true.
Melanie: Um…
Chana: Look at his face. How do you think he feels about making dinner?
Melanie: Oh. He’s happy. It looks like he likes making dinner.
Chana: Is that how you feel when you think someone is taking advantage of you?
Melanie: No. So, I guess I’m not taking advantage of Dad. Cool.
Chana: What’s another reason?
Melanie: I didn’t ask him to make dinner. He’s just doing it.
Chana: What else?
Melanie: I don’t know.
Chana: Big Melanie, can you help out here with an insight?
Melanie: Yeah, actually. I know about custody now; Dad didn’t have to share custody, but he chose to. He wanted to be with me. And he sometimes took me home extra nights to spend even more time with me.
Chana: Which meant he’d also have to feed you.
Melanie: Yeah. He was happy to feed me. He wanted to take care of me.
Chana: So you weren’t taking advantage of him.
Melanie: No.
Chana: Little Melanie, can you give me another opposite? Perhaps this time, change “him” to “me.”
Melanie: I’m taking advantage of me?
Chana: Yes. How’s that true?
Melanie: I’m not letting myself be comfortable and happy. I’m expecting myself to be all grown up. I’m not letting myself be a kid and let someone take care of me.
Chana: So even when your dad is doing something nice for you - Melanie: I don’t let it in. That sucks.
Chana: Big Melanie, are there times in your current life when you feel other are taking advantage of you?
Melanie: For sure.
Chana: Like when, for example?
Melanie: So, the last guy I went out with, Brad, he used to take advantage of me all the time.
Chana: Give me a specific example.
Melanie: One time, he asked if I wanted to rent a movie. And I said, yes. And then he asked me what movie I wanted to see. And I said, Princess Bride. And then he said, what about Batman? I said, okay. So we watched Batman.
Chana: How did he take advantage of you?
Melanie: We ended up seeing a movie I didn’t want to see.
Chana: So why did you say that you did want to see it?
Melanie: I wanted him to be happy.
Chana: So who took advantage of you?
Melanie: Oh! I see! I did!
Chana: Yes. Why did you say you wanted to see it when you didn’t?
Melanie: I didn’t want him to be mad at me.
Chana: What are you afraid would happen if he was mad?
Melanie: Then he wouldn’t like me anymore. He’d break up with me.
Chana: So you traded your happiness for his approval.
Melanie: That’s so true.
Chana: But then you resented him for it.
Melanie: Yeah. I thought he was taking advantage of me, that he was manipulating me.
Chana: Turn it around. You were…
Melanie: I was manipulating him?
Chana: Manipulation is all about being sneaky and dishonest to get something from someone you don’t believe they’ll give you if you speak truthfully. Brad was making a suggestion of a movie he preferred. He didn’t put a gun to your head, correct? Yet you lied when you said you were okay with Batman.
Melanie: Exactly. I wasn’t honest with him. I thought he wouldn’t like me if I was just myself.
Chana: Let’s go back to our earlier turnaround. Give me another way you take advantage of yourself ?
Melanie: Sometimes I take shifts at work even though I don’t want to. I want to be super accommodating to everyone in the staff.
Chana: Everyone but you.
Melanie: Everyone but me. It means I have to cancel plans or flip my life around. It’s such a pain! And then I get mad at them for asking me.
Chana: How could they be so inconsiderate!?
Melanie: (Laughs). But really, I’m not being considerate of myself.
Chana: One more way that you take advantage of yourself ?
Melanie: It’s not just extra shifts. I really just want to quit my job, but I feel like I’ll let the team down.
Chana: So you let yourself down instead.
Melanie: Yep.
Chana: Feel that.
Melanie: I’m feeling it. This is amusing. I thought this process would hurt, but it’s actually pretty funny.
Chana: Go back for a moment and picture yourself in the kitchen with your father. What do you see now?
Melanie: He’s sweet. He’s happy to make me dinner. He loves me and wants to do something nurturing. My dad is so great.
Chana: And how do you want to repay him for this kindness?
Melanie: I’m pretty sure he’d be happy with just a hug and, “thank you.”
Chana: Can you give him that?
Melanie: Yeah. That feels good. We’re both hugging dad. He’s making one of his silly faces, and we’re copying him and all giggling. It’s a sweet moment.
Chana: So now you have a new memory.
Melanie: Yeah.
Chana: And what do you think of the idea that you were taking advantage of your father?
Melanie: That’s ridiculous! He was just making me dinner. He was being Dad, and I could just be a kid.
Chana: How do you feel now?
Melanie: I want to call my dad. I want to thank him. I don’t think I’ve thanked him enough. I’ve been too busy trying not to take advantage of him. But I bet that hurt him so much more.
Melanie believed a thought about herself that was discordant with her character. A trip in the Time Machine encouraged her to guide herself towards clarity and peace. She was not only able to feel more confident but also more grateful and loving towards her father.
Use the Time Machine when you’re dealing with beliefs you struggle to shake or experience as being either central to your identity yet painful and unhelpful.
That which you have the power to control, impact, and change.
There is so much we can do to render service, to make a difference in the world - no matter how large or small our circle of influence.
—Stephen R. Covey
Stephen Covey teaches a concept that has significantly impacted my family: Circles of Influence and Circles of Concern In The 7 Habits of Hi hl Effective People, he shares that there is a slew of ideas, events, and people we get exposed to daily: the neighbors are getting a divorce, there are starving children in Africa, some politician is havin an affair
If we’re exposed to these issues and are concerned about them, then they lie within our Circle of Concern.
The question is: can we do anything about them? Do we have the power to effect
their outcomes? Are these areas where we choose to exercise the power available to us?
Also in my Circle of Concern is the diet I eat. Being the family chef, I exert a tremendous amount of power over which groceries I buy, what gets served at the table, and what I choose to eat. Accordingly, in addition to falling into the Circle of Concern, my diet also falls within my Circle of Influence.
The Circle of Influence includes everything in the Circle of Concern over which I have control to affect change, such as my mood, what charities I support, or how I vote in an election.
Stephen Covey says that when I focus my energy on affairs of the world that I cannot influence, my Circle of Concern expands, while my Circle of Influence shrinks, as I only have so much energy to spend.
It’s also true that the more I invest in my Circle of Influence, the more it expands, and the more effective I am in the world.
So, do I want to be a concerned citizen or an influential one?
When we’re hanging around that part of our Circle of Concern over which we have no influence, we tend to feel angry, sad, or frustrated. Byron Katie says that’s because we’re mulling about in others’ Business and have abandoned our own. We become victims of our concern about what we can’t control.
Stepping into other people’s Business can be like stepping in gum: we don’t always know we’ve done it right away, but before long, we find ourselves stuck in one place, unable to progress forward.
We tend to think that anything we care about or that affects us is “our Business,” but in terms of Inquiry, Business includes only those things over which you have immediate control and the power to affect change. In other words, your Business is what lies in your Circle of Influence. Let’s see if Ralph’s concern over his neighbor’s divorce lies there as well:
Ralph: They’re fighting all the time, and the kids are distressed about losing their family. It’s so sad because the guy is a great husband and father. He’s trying so hard to be there for the kids. He didn’t even want the divorce in the first place! She’s being rash in leaving him.
To Ralph, this situation feels like his Business because these are his neighbors, they’re in his community, and he cares about the kids and their future. The reality is that he’s not the one who has to live with this marriage day in and day out. He doesn’t know all the information, and he’s not the one who decides to stay or go at the end of the day. He’s entirely out of his Business and in trying to hold up his neighbors’ marriage, he’s divorced himself
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