February became an unexpectedly busy month, but I managed to get one important book under my belt:
Read
The Let Them Theory – Mel Robbins & Sawyer Robbins
Reading
Write Down The Bones: Freeing The Writer Within – Natalie Goldberg
The Let Them Theory caught my eye at a book store not long ago, and the blurb on the back stuck with me.
In essence, the Let Them Theory is about realizing that in spending time and energy and focus on wondering why people are doing what they’re doing and letting that irritate you — Why is that person ahead of me taking so long to pay for their groceries? Why does my coworker always act that way? Why is the passenger behind me on the plane not covering their mouth when they keep coughing? — you’re giving away all the power that you actually have in the situation, because you can’t control what other people think or do, but you can always control how you react to whatever is happening around you.
Let them continue the drama. You can choose to not be part of it.
Let them judge if they want to. You don’t have to do the same.
Let them think what they will about you. It’s none of your business anyway.
Part psychology, part neurology, and part Buddhist practice of learning to stop to think of the appropriate response instead of just mindlessly reacting, the Let Them Theory helps you find more peace, energy and happiness in focusing on yourself and your relationships instead of wasting time stressing over the abundance of everything around you that’s entirely out of your control anyway. With the foundations of that concept set, Robbins then takes it a step farther and introduces the other side of the formula: Let Me. She explains how everything you want to achieve doesn’t depend on others giving you permission to do it, but rather depends on you giving yourself permission to unapologetically be who you are and move forward with your goals and interests in mind.
Let Them act as they’re choosing to, and Let Me respond (or not) to situations according to my sense, values, time, and energy.
It’s a really interesting approach that I’ll be trying to work on for myself. If I was only going to read one book this month, I’m happy it was this one.
Looking forward to what book March will bring.