Step Three: Sources and Creators of Rules
Welcome Back. Step Three is where you begin to find out where all your rules come from and where the rules in your various systems and relationships come from.
Our rules come from all kinds of sources. Things in life like experiences, events, and other sources write many rules for us, and our reactions and/or responses to things also write rules for us. Other people write rules. Teams, clubs, organizations, and institutions write rules. Rules come from everywhere. Rules are everywhere. Its a big reason why conflict is endemic to all systems.
Relationship is everything, as you have already heard and are beginning to learn. Conflict is endemic to relationships and conflict is really simply a rule dispute. Now, we try to understand where those rules come from, and in doing so, get exposed to and stumble upon one of the most core and key concepts about relationships: self-awareness is required for relationship awareness.
To begin understanding yourself- and some of your rules- look at your family of origin. Here is where a ton of rules were made. You played by these rules. Got in trouble when you broke rules within your family system. Some rules were known by you and not your parents, some were known by your parents and not by you, and some were not known by anyone. Yet, they all influenced patterns of interaction and behavior in your family system.
Did you sit down at the table for dinner and talk about ideas and experiences with your family or did someone hurl the chicken across the table in a drunken moment of assholia? I bet those experiences wrote some rules for you about food, family, cooking dinner, and being vulnerable.
Did someone beat the daylights out of you or was someone really protective of you?
Were your grades never good enough for Dad or your body never thin enough for the Mom or Grandma who was “just trying to help you?”
Got ADHD? That diagnostic condition writes a ton of rules. And when you take that show on the road to school, your teachers talk about rules like “why can’t you sit still” or “what is wrong with you” and then you learn that shame and masking become important rules.
Did you get rewarded for conformity or did your family celebrate your independence? There’s a rule.
This is just your family of origin. Now think about school, friends, extra curricular activities, bosses, co-workers, lovers, spouses, your government, your jackass neighbor. You can begin to see so many sources of rules. These are among all the places we look to move to Step Four.
Some rules are good and we keep them. Some suck and we get rid of them. Some are okay but need to be refined. And often, we also need to add new rules. Welcome to the jungle.
