How to Make a Decision You Won’t Regret Later

(11:41):

So I'm not waiting around until some moment in the future when it's convenient or I'm not doing this because of guilt. I am doing this because I choose to act in a way that makes me proud of myself. Do you hear how empowered that is? There's no room for guilt when you own your own decisions. And I want to add one deeper point, and it relates to this like, ah, that can be really frustrating about trying to nail down plans, especially with your parents as they're getting older and they're getting kind of more set in their ways that dance and that kind of like, don't come do, come. I don't know if it's going to work. What do you mean you can only come for the weekend, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It can drive you crazy. But if you take a breath and you drop in a little deeper and you tap into what's actually going on beneath the surface that's driving that kind of ah, at the top, there's something really important happening that we don't talk about in relationships because when you go underneath, whether it's irritation or frustration or anger or this tension that you're not going to stay as long as somebody has hoped you would or that somebody expected something different.

 

(13:03):

What you find when you get underneath the dance, so to speak, is sadness and grief and hurt and loneliness. I think the truth is, is that the older I get and the older my parents get, the more I realize that underneath the tension and the dance and the like, ah, I've trying to schedule time to see each other, all that's there is that we're all just sad. We're sad that we don't live near each other and that we don't know how to express that sadness. And you hear me getting really choked up 

(14:05):

It would be way more evolved for somebody to say, I'm sorry if I sound upset. I just deeply miss you and I wish I saw you more often. I realized it's often the only way that my parents or most people know how to express themselves. It's just kind of the ah, because they haven't done the work to understand the deeper feelings, but frankly, they just don't want to talk about 'em because they don't want to feel 'em because it's really uncomfortable. And so when you don't want to talk about the deeper thing, what happens on the surface is you lash out or you're irritated or you're frustrated or you just kind of vent or you express guilt and it feels like it's over some sort of petty issue. 

(15:10):

Just remind yourself these things that are petty on the surface always tap into deeper feelings, not just for your parents by the way, but they're also tapping into deeper feelings that you probably haven't looked at either about the relationship or the situation or the things that have built up. And so don't let that dance stop you from making the effort to create that deeper connection both with yourself and with them. It really, really matters because that clock is ticking. I book the ticket, I planes, trains and automobiles make my way from southern Vermont to western Michigan. I get home. I love being home. I love how happy my parents are when I'm home. I love sitting out on the back porch and looking at the lake and feeling the breeze. It's just amazing. And I was really excited because even though my dad was not having a party, I can convinced my mother because I'm kind of a pain in the ass for her to have a little surprise for my dad because it is his 80th and show.

 

(16:12):

She invited a bunch of his golf buddies over for a little bit of a surprise. And I went on to Amazon. This is a great hack to steal, and I ordered a bunch of stuff and shipped it to my parents' house. What did I order? Well, I ordered a huge balloon arch because what is an 80th birthday party without a make your own $7 balloon arch with 120 balloons? That was number one. Number two, I ordered all of these happy 80th birthday themed plates and napkins and cups and all this stuff. Number three, I ordered my dad an 80th birthday crown, which of course I made him wear for his entire birthday, and I took photos, but best of all, my mom and dad love to play pickleball. They play pickleball literally every day. So I saw this thing online that I'm like, I've got to get that for my parents.

 

(17:00):

And what I saw was this, it was this video of these four people playing pickleball only. They were wearing these inflatable costumes. And so I want you to picture this picture, four people on a court playing this paddle game, this pickleball game, but they're wearing these costumes that blow up from the waist down. So it looks like they are riding horses, and as they're playing pickleball, every one of them is in this big kind of costume and they're trying to run around. I was like, this is going to be amazing. I'm going to get four of 'em. So I got a flamingo, I got a cow, I got a rooster, and what was the other one? Oh, I got a flamingo, a cow, a rooster and an elephant. They were amazing. And I had them all shipped to my house. And of course when the boxes arrive, my mom's like, what is this?

 

(17:50):

What are you up to? And I'm thinking, I'm going to just let her have that because I know she doesn't want me to make a fuss. But the second this stuff comes out, bada bing, badda, boom, it's party time. And sure enough, his friends come over. We have a surprise party. It's absolutely fantastic. We break out the inflatable costumes. My dad is wearing his crown. He's smiling all night long. My mom makes everybody get into the inflatable costumes and take pictures with my father while he's wearing the crown. I mean, it was absolutely amazing and I am so happy I did it. I am so happy I did not ask my mom if it would be okay if I order decorations or if I get these costumes. I just did it and I'm so glad I did. And that brings me to the second lesson that I learned.

 

(18:42):

You have to stop waiting for an invitation or a celebration and you have to create it. See, there are two things that you and I sit around and wait for when it comes to making plans, particularly with family. One is an invitation and the other is big events that you're celebrating. And I want to talk about these things separately because there's a little nuance here. It doesn't need to be a holiday or an anniversary or a big event for you to spend time with your parents. And if you're like me and you don't live near your parents, that's what ends up happening. When you have kids and everybody's schedule is busy, that's what ends up happening. You wait for a holiday, an anniversary, a big event, some three day weekend when you can consolidate all this time. Don't do that because years go by as you're waiting for the right time to happen or you're waiting for the celebration.

(20:18):

We're going to get a hotel. Tell them you're coming. This is so important because I do think that life has gotten so busy that we're kind of sitting around waiting for someone else to invite us. Don't wait for the invitation. Just say you're coming. Now I have one caveat, okay? Because there was this other thing that happened with my parents earlier this year. And again, a lot's happening with my parents because I'm making it priority to spend more time with them. So every single year, during the first week of July for the past five years, my husband and I have rented this awesome beach house in Rhode Island. And then we invite my parents to come from Michigan. We invite my brother and his wife and their two kids, the two nephews that just turned 16 to come as well. And we spend this awesome week together at this beach house.

 

(21:10):

We've done it for five years. It's always the first week of July. And when my parents were in Vermont in June for my son's high school graduation, I said to my mom and dad, so are you guys going to come to Rhode Island? And they were kind of cagey and noncommittal about it. And a couple days later, I was on the phone with my brother and my brother said, you didn't hear this from me, but I just want you to know the reason why mom and dad are not coming to Rhode Island is because you haven't invited them.

(22:56):

If they cared about me, they would fly to Los Angeles and see me. If they wanted to see me, they would come visit me at my college. If they wanted to spend time with me, they would make the effort. And it's true they should. But what happens for most people I've now realized is that when they see that you busy, they assume that means too busy to take time off to see you. And so when I stepped back and I thought about it from my parents' point of view, even though this has been going on for five years and it's the same week every year when I step into their shoes and I imagine what it must look like to look at Mel and Chris's life and three adult kids and the amount of plans that we have and the coming and the going and the changes and how busy the kids are, isn't it perfectly reasonable for someone to assume that maybe this year wasn't going to work out, that maybe the fact that you haven't gotten a call and said, Hey, we got the house again and these are the dates and we hope you can come that maybe that call didn't come because it's not happening.

 

(24:20):

I mean, the old me would have reacted like, oh, are you kidding?

 

(24:26):

And you probably do this too. Oh, they never come to Christmas. They never come to this. Have you actually invited them for real these dates? This is what I would like you to bring. This is who's coming. You can stay with us. Please bring the dog. I'd really love to see you. I don't think we do that enough. I think we operate in our lives assuming other people know they're always invited and then we hold it against them when they don't come. And when I look at my parents and I step into their shoes and I think, well, of course they need an invitation. They would have to book an airplane ticket. They got to plan this. They've got to have somebody take care of things in Michigan for them while they're gone. So when it's you, your approach is, I'm coming. Here are the dates.

 

(25:19):

When it's someone else that you'd like to see, you have to pick up the phone and actually invite them. So my dad's birthday party fantastic. We got the costumes up, everything's amazing. My dad has a great time. It's really fun. I'm thrilled that I'm there. My nephews are up there, my brother's there. It's just awesome. And it's around this time that my mom discloses that tomorrow when we're going to actually play pickleball, my dad cannot play because despite the fact that he's been smiling this entire time, he has hurt his back horribly playing pickleball and he needs an MRI and that he is pretty convinced that he has dislocated or done something to one of the discs in his back. And now that she's saying it, I'm realizing that he has been not himself. He isn't as smiley. He's kind of pretending everything's okay, but you can tell it's not okay.

 

(26:20):

And he's also a doctor. And so the thing about doctors is that they do think they know everything and they are the world's worst patients. And so he goes in to the MRI, he gets his MRI. They don't have a radiologist on, so when he gets home, he's all grumpy. He couldn't see the film. And that's now how things work Today. The next morning, you know what my dad did? My dad got into the car and drove to the hospital that he used to work at to see if he could find a radiologist to read his MRI thing because his back was hurting so much. My mom, she was just like, your father, I'm not stopping. I'm like, dad, you want me to go with you? He's like, no, no, no, I got it. I got it. I'm like, are you sure you got a back injury and you're driving and you're 80 years old and you're about to go to a hospital?

 

(27:03):

No, I got it, thank you. But I got it. So he goes, and then he comes back and he's even more frustrated because as he tells me, it's not how hospitals work anymore. There's not even a radiologist on site at the hospital for crying out loud. They sit at home and they look at their films, and I can't get somebody to look at this until Monday morning, but I got an appointment on Monday morning. Holy cow. So he gets an MRI. We wait for the results. My dad goes into a doctor's appointment with a back surgeon on Monday, walks out of it and tells me that they have scheduled surgery for the end of the week. Now I got to tell you something. When you hear 80 years old back surgery end of the week, that's terrifying. I don't care how easy of a surgery it is, I don't care that my dad's a former doctor and that he's in decent shape.

 

(27:58):

Back surgery, 80-year-old, oh my God. I immediately knew what I needed to do. I picked up the phone, I called Chris, I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying here. I called my business partner. I don't care what's going on this week at work, cancel it. I'm staying here. There was no way in hell I was getting back on a plane to fly to Vermont while my dad was going undergoing routine back surgery. No freaking way. And so I stayed all week in my childhood bedroom. That house has barely changed in 38 years. I have not spent 10 days at home since I think I got married almost 28 years ago. And I know you're thinking, well, how did the surgery go? It was your classic hometown thing. We drive my dad in to Trinity Health Hospital where he used to practice. By the way, the back surgeon I went to high school with, he also happened to be one of my dad's former partners in orthopedics.

 

(29:02):

Talk about small town Michigan. He greeted us, made us super comfortable. Also, turns out there were a lot of fans of the Mel Robbins podcast that work at Trinity Health Hospital. It was so cute. Bunch of the nurses and PAs came down. One of 'em whispers. I hope this isn't a HIPAA violation, but I heard you were in the hospital and I had to come down and say hi to you and dad. Surgery went dynamite. The issue is going to be that my dad follow the instructions because he's a very active guy and the man is not allowed to golf or play pickleball for six months. He's got to give it time to heal. And then I stayed with my mom and my brother for the rest of the week to, it's not even help take care of my dad to make sure that he actually followed the doctor's instructions.

(31:06):

And my best friend, Jodi, just upended her life and move from Santa Barbara back to White Lake, Michigan to move in with her parents because her parents are getting older and because she is so far away and being there at the same time that she had moved back to be with her parents while I was there helping my mom and my dad as my dad went through surgery, oh my God, it is so eye-opening to not only realize that that clock that you cannot see is ticking and the time that you have is slipping through your fingers. But it's also extremely eye-opening to see your parents' life through their eyes and how they experience it. And it was a real wake up call to truly understand that my parents don't have either of their kids living in the same town and they're surrounded by people who have at least one kid living in the town that I grew up in.

 

(32:16):

And the fact is they have had to create a support system amongst their friends. And so it made a lot of sense to me why my mom would go, well, don't come if the only weekend that you can come is also right on top of some of our close friends coming to see us, something that we have planned on for six months. I can now step into her world and see that relationship is just as important as their relationship with us because we're not near them. So they've had to prioritize their friendships to create that family and that support system that they need. And it also scared the hell out of me about the coming years and what we're going to do. And so one of the things that I've promised myself is I'm going back to Michigan before the end of the year to look with my parents at options around.

 

(33:13):

I just feel like we got to start having these conversations rather than hoping for the best. And that brings me to the final thing. People are who they are. People are who they are.

(34:08):

They don't need to be managed. They need to be accepted as they are. And let's face it, your parents, they've likely not gone to therapy, nor do they want to. I remember once saying to my mom, have you ever thought about therapy? And she literally turned to me and was like, why? So I can find out. I hate my life and I don't want to be married to your father. No, I'm not doing therapy. I like my life. I was like, okay, my mom is a riot. And she also tells the truth, no matter what anybody thinks, and speaking of what I don't like your father, the issues that you see in their marriage that you wish you could change or make better, they've been there forever. They're not changing. They are who they are. They have the relationship they have. It's not your responsibility to do anything about it.

 

(34:57):

And something that's helped me develop a level of acceptance and love with my folks is just saying to myself, they gave me everything they could based on their life experience, and they gave me the support that they had to give. And it was an amazing amount of support because people can only meet you as deeply as they've met themselves. They can only give you what they had to give. And neither one of them got any kind of emotional support from their parents. I mean, most of our parents, yours included, were never provided the emotional, physical, psychological support that they needed. They haven't gone to therapy, they haven't looked at their issues and they're not going to. And the sooner you kind of accept that, the sooner you can get to a level of peace about where you are and why you're where you are. I'll never forget Dr.

 

(35:50):

Romani saying that one of the biggest things that stands in the way, not only of your healing, but of any relationship changing is the hope that someone else will change. See, holding onto the hope that someone else will change creates resistance and friction in the relationship when really what you need to do is stop hoping that someone changes and accept who they actually are and who they're not. Because once you accept who they are and who they're not, then you get to decide, how do I show up? How am I going to choose to be in this relationship knowing that this person is never going to change? What kind of daughter or son do I want to be? What kind of parent do I want to be regardless of the way that my efforts are met? 

(37:57):

Alrighty, thank you for all your amazing well wishes for my father's recovery. I can already feel them coming in. Thank you to Trinity Health for taking a great, great, great job of my dad. Huge shout out to all the nurses that are big fans of the Mel Robbins podcast. And please steal that tip. You want to bring fun, order a balloon arch and order some inflatable costumes and get a crown, and you'll be shocked at what even 80 year adults do, they turn into little kids. And one more thing, mom and dad, I love you. Thank you again for allowing me to share this experience that we had and the insights that I gained with absolutely everybody that was listening already. And in case no one else tells you, I wanted to tell you that I love you and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life.

 

(38:49):

And a blow up costume and a pickleball racket will certainly help do that. Alrighty, I'll be waiting for you in the next episode and for you on YouTube. I want to make sure that in case no one else tells you that, I tell you I love you. I believe in you. I believe in your ability to create a better life and one thing that creates a better life. Inflatable costumes, make sure you bring 'em to the next party. Another thing that creates a better life is to continue to watch these videos and to share them with the people that you love. Do me a quick favor, since I know you really appreciate what we're doing here. Will you hit subscribe? I have a goal to make sure that 50% of the people that are watching here on YouTube have subscribed to this channel. It tells me that you love this content. It's a way that you can support me and give a little love back. And speaking of a little love back, I know you want to watch another video, so this is what I would love for you to watch next.