00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 166, "Imaginary Friends." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:20 

Alright, hello there, my friends. Super glad to have you here with me today. Thanks for coming. If you're brand new, welcome to the podcast. If you are back, thank you so much for being back and thank you for sharing this podcast with others and thank you for sharing other great things out in the world. What an awesome time of the world that we live in. It is so easy to share positivity. It's so easy to share things that make a difference in the world, and when we feel directed by God to share something with somebody, it is so easy to do it through text messages, through social media, through emails, through phone calls. We just have such an amazing opportunity to make a difference in the world and I hope that you are taking opportunities to do that and to help people. 

01:07 

Alright, we are going to jump in today. We are talking about imaginary friends. So do you remember how cute your little kids were when they had these imaginary friends that they would play with and they could stay entertained for hours with this person that they imagined in their brains and the person would do everything they wanted them to do? They would say what your child wanted them to say. They would show up exactly how your child wanted them to. It was so cute and sweet, right? They could create this whole imaginary world for themselves. 

01:37 

But here we are. We are all big adults now and guess what? Some of us are still dabbling in imaginary friends. However, our imaginary friends, although we can keep entertained with our thoughts about them for hours, they are wreaking a lot of havoc in our lives. The reason being is that we believe that these imaginary friends should be real. We create in our minds an imaginary idea about how our spouse should be. They should always say the right thing. They should jump in and do what we'd like without asking. They should take care of things by reading our mind. They should agree with everything that we want them to agree with. They should be romantic and bring us gifts for no reason at all. They should have the same wants and desires as us. 

02:23 

We create in our minds an imaginary idea of how our children should be. They should call at least once a week to let us know how they are. They should always remember us on Mother's Day and our birthday. They should come over and volunteer to mow our lawn. Hello, kids. Where are you? They should have the same degree of religiosity as we do, and they should emulate us in all good things. They should do the work we always imagine that they would do when they grew up, and they should marry the kind of person that we think they should. 

02:53 

And we could say the same thing about our imaginary parents, our imaginary siblings, our imaginary friends, we create these imaginary relationships in our lives where the other person or people should behave exactly how we want them to and if they do that then, guess what? I get to feel good all the time. I never have to feel frustrated. I never have to feel angry. And to keep that from happening, I never have to manage my mind. We feel good because these imaginary people always do everything exactly the way that we think they should. So this, my friends, is the definition of having a manual, a list of things we want other humans in our life to do so that we can feel a certain way. And we never have to manage our minds around other people's behavior because, guess what, our imaginary friends always do it just right. Relationships are so easy with our imaginary friends. Aren't our imaginations just amazing? Amazing, so cool that they can do this, they can come up even with these imaginary, Incredible endings where we all end up living happily ever after with no conflict, no contention, no need for tough conversations, no need for compromises, because this imaginary friend of ours always acts exactly how we want them to. 

04:15 

But here is the deal, my friends. It is all imaginary, which means, I know, shocker, it is not real. Okay, and if it seems to be  real, if the other person is always acting how we want them to, then I can almost guarantee you that the other person is most likely so deeply entrenched in people-pleasing, in pleasing you, that they're not showing up as themselves. And they are miserable and they are gaining resentment as we speak. When we create these imaginary relationships, we are setting the relationship up for failure. When we create these imaginary relationships, we are not accepting and embracing the other person for who they are. And we are creating a space of judgment and shame. Our relationship programming says, "if you do all of these things, then I will operate well. If you do all these things, then I will be happy. If you do all of these things, then I can truly love you." But if they're doing things just to please us, are they really showing up? Are we allowing them to be them? Or are we just loving the imaginary person? No relationship can survive, and more importantly, no relationship can thrive, under the circumstances of this kind of a manual. 

05:42 

So much of the media that we've consumed in our lives has fed us a diet of imaginary relationships, where people end up in these happily ever after scenarios. So our brains get this idea that in a relationship the other person should always act a certain way, but "should" kill relationships. When we're in a place of expectation that the other person "should" act a certain way, "should" say certain things, do certain things, we are adding poison, drop by drop, into our relationship. So first of all, when we have expectations of other people, we will always be unhappy with the reality. Our imagination creates something that is not real, not even obtainable by the other person, because they're human, right? But our primitive brain loves to create scenarios where there is no pain, where things are easy, where everything goes our way. And this, my friends, is not reality. And when we argue with reality, we will lose 100% of the time, guaranteed. That is why so many of us struggle to be happy. We want people and things to be the way that they are in our imagination, rather than us learning to be happy with reality. 

07:02 

Second of all, we tend to get very judge-y of others when they don't behave the way that we imagine that they should. We think that there must be something wrong with them. We can't believe that they would act that way, or not see what we see, or understand what we understand. And this makes life very painful for us, because it does not feel good to us to be judge-y of other people. And this makes life also very painful for the other person, because it doesn't feel good to be painfully judged by someone else, especially someone who we believe is our ally. 

07:39 

And third, when we have imaginary expectations of how others should behave, we are giving up control and power over our own lives, thinking that someone else should behave a certain way so that I can feel loved or so that I can feel appreciated, gives all of my power to the other person. "If they don't behave a certain way, then I can't feel love. If they don't say a certain thing, then I can't feel appreciated." This puts how I feel into the hands of another person. And even if someone loves us desperately, they will never be able to be exactly what we need them to be at all times. Who they are will never match up to what we have created in our imagination. So choosing to be in charge of my own happiness regardless of how other people show up is the best way to guarantee that I'm happy. I don't need other people to behave a certain way so that I can think or feel anything. I get to have complete control over my thoughts. I am in charge of them and nobody else and my thoughts create my feelings. I get to create all of that. 

08:55 

Does this mean we can't want something different from people in our relationships? Absolutely not. We can always make requests. But letting go of our imaginary fantasies about how other people should act and what they should say for things to be just right is one of the best things that we can do for our relationships. Allowing people to show up as them, like 100% real them, with none of our shoulds hanging over their heads, is one of the greatest forms of love that we can give and that we can experience. When we truly love someone, we love who they are, the real them, not our imaginary version of who they are or who we think they should be. We don't wish them to be someone that they're not. We don't want them to be anything or anybody that they aren't. We just accept them for the person that they are right now, today. And this creates the greatest space for love and love helps things grow. It helps us to grow and it helps them to grow. It creates a space for growth for all of us involved. If we want to grow as a person, it is vitally important that we let go of our imaginary friends and we accept and love the people in our lives as they are. If we want other people in our lives to grow, it is so important that we let go of our imaginary expectations of who we think they should be and that we accept and love them as they are. Love someone exactly as they are and then watch as they begin to transform into the greatest version of themselves. Loving others as they are empowers them to move into a space of growth because we create a space safe space where they feel  seen and accepted as they are. 

11:00 

As humans, we crave three things. We crave food, we crave shelter, and belonging or connection. And this is the thing. Manuals that we have want other people to be something that they're not: imaginary people. And these imaginary people are not anybody that we can connect with. Relationships are stilted because we have an imaginary person standing between us and our real person. Real us, a real other person. This is what creates connection. We cannot have connection with an imaginary person. So, the imaginary person is always going to disappoint in the long run, because they don't exist. The imaginary person is never going to show up in our lives. We think they will, but guess what? They never do. They never show up. For example, if you have an imaginary mom, "my mom should always be available to call when I talk. My mom should never criticize me. My mom should never tell me what to do. She should always just listen without judgment," right? If that's not your mom, if that's an imaginary mom for you, guess what? She's never going to show up. And when we expect her, that imaginary mom, to show up, we will never connect with our real mom because we will always be disappointed in the real mom. We will never accept the real mom for who she is and the amazingness that she has to offer us. 

12:41 

So we create disappointment by trying to connect with the imaginary. We create this alternate reality where we get to think and feel a certain way with our imaginary friends. But guess what? Disappointment comes when the imaginary person never arrives. And then, gosh, we have to deal with the real person. We have to actually learn how to manage our minds around a real person. When we can let go of our imaginary friends, our imaginary and unrealistic expectations of how others should be, of how they should show up, of what they should be doing, both of us will find a healthier, more empowered space of growth. Giving up our shoulds creates a world of possibility: possibility of true, deep, intimate connection with the real people in our lives. Because this connection can only happen between two real people, not a real person and an imaginary person. Learning to accept the people in our lives for who they are and not for who we think they should be, opens the door to this deeper connection. So my friends, pay attention to your shoulds. Pay attention to your shoulds. They are an indicator that you have imaginary friends going on, that you are not loving people for who they are, that you have a manual for how other people should behave. Stepping out of our imagination means that we embrace the humanity of the people in our lives. 

14:25 

So let me ask you this question, because some of you may be wondering this. What happens when we really love this imaginary person we've created but we don't really love the real person in our life? When we set aside that imaginary person and we're standing there staring at a person and we realize that I don't really love this person, I loved what I thought they were supposed to be? Well, where does love come from? What line in the thought model? It goes in the feeling line and what creates our thoughts. We get to choose. We get to decide to connect with a person over and over and over again by choosing what we think, rather than thinking judge-y thoughts, like "they should be doing this." What if we just embraced who they were and said "I'm so grateful that this person has showed up in my life? I'm grateful for the lessons that this person teaches me." Right? There's loads of thoughts we can think that are going to create that emotion, that feeling of love. Love is a decision that we activate again and again and again, because relationships are fluid. No relationship stays the same because we as people never stay the same and because we're both changing all the time. We get to work to know the real person over and over and over again as we both change. 

15:59 

When we establish a relationship and expect for it to always stay the same, we're going to be sorely disappointed because relationships do not work that way. We are all constantly changing our ideas. We're constantly receiving new information that changes how we think about things and how we relate to things and our relationship takes consistent constant effort to keep up with those changes, to really get to know that real person over and over again. 

16:34 

So if that's difficult for you, then we can work on a thought ladder. Now, we've talked about this before. So saying "I love her" or "I love him," which would be maybe at the top of our ladder, we may not be able to say that when we take that imaginary person out of the equation, when we move them out from hiding the real person that's standing behind that. When we move them away and we see that real person, we may not be able to say, "I love that person," but we can start by doing thought ladders. So we may be at, "I don't know this person, I don't know that real person standing in front of me." We can move to "I want to know more about this person." That's a step in the right direction. That's a step that will move us  closer to "I love this person." Even if we can't say "I love this person" yet, "I want to know more about this person." 

17:32 

So then we can start with some curiosity, with some amusement about the things that we see. We can ask ourself, "what are they going to do next?" It might actually be funny. I have a person in my life who would always say things that I thought were annoying. And I got some coaching on this and my coach just worked me over and I was like, "okay, okay," because I would get so frustrated when this person was around. And my coach helped me realize that it was all my thoughts that was creating the frustration. And so I looked at the words that this person would say, which were neutral, because words are neutral, and I decided "what if I just totally expected and anticipated this person to say those words, wouldn't it be kind of funny if I could predict it?" And so the next time I got around this person, gosh darn it, if this person didn't say word for word what I had predicted? And inside I was totally laughing. I'm like, "of course this person was going to say that. Of course." And I predicted it. How awesome is that? Isn't it funny that this person is so predictable that I knew that they were going to say that? And isn't it cute that they think that? 

18:50 

And then I can start moving into curiosity. Like, "I wonder why that's so important to them. I wonder why they do that." And so then with this person, I started to ask more questions. And I started to understand more, and then I developed even a deeper curiosity, maybe like an intrigue, right? Like, I became really intrigued by what they were saying. And then I started to find that once I understood their thoughts behind these these statements that I thought were so annoying, once I started to understand where they were coming from, guess what? Gosh darn it, if I didn't start to like this person. And if I didn't start to go, "wow, that's actually pretty cool that that's their viewpoint, that that's what they think." And that opens up the space for love. 

19:33 

So this is how we start to move up that thought ladder, that thought ladder, right? We start creating space for me to allow this real person to show up. In my instance, I had a very imaginary person going on, and I thought that this person should should say do certain things and should do certain things. And as long as I was keeping my story about how that person should show up, I was giving up my peace. So here's the deal. Let me put that in a little rememberable phrase for you. We can keep our story and give up our peace or we can keep our peace and give up our story. In my situation with this person, I decided to give up my story about how I thought she should show up, of how I thought she was being annoying, of how I thought she should change what she does. I gave up that story and guess what I gained? I gained peace and I gained a new appreciation for her, and I started to really like this person. So we can keep our story and give up our peace. Or we can keep our peace and give up our story. What do you choose to do? 

20:56 

Many of us have this imaginary story going on in our heads. We get to choose. We get to choose whether to keep that story or whether to give it up and whether to engage in real deep intimate connections with people when we start to engage with the real people and not the imaginary ones we've created in our friends in our heads. And this is a piece of middle age growing up that I adore so much. This is why middle age, to me, is the best time in my life. I feel like I'm at the best stage I've ever been at because this information keeps growing me and pushing me to love and to engage with people, and at levels I've never been able to before. So my friends, this is what this about is about. If you need some help seeing your imaginary relationships, your imaginary friends, let's chat. This is what I am trained to do, to help you see your thoughts, to help you see expectations that are making your life difficult, to help you see your stories that are keeping you from having peace. You can go to tanyahale.com. You can book a free 30 minute coaching session to get you started. 

22:14 

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23:06 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation be sure to sign up for my  free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale.com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.