It’s right before 7pm in the Gomez household and I’m about to start the usual evening routine with the kiddos. I’m by myself. Mom has been gone every night on this particular week because of work and I’m left playing zone defense. It’s two on one. Depending on their mood, the kiddos are either super cooperative or anti-everything; and if it’s the latter, each step in the evening routine could be quite adversarial.

Going upstairs,Taking off the clothes,Jumping in the tub,Being shampooed,Coming out of the bath,Toweling off,Moisturizing,Brushing the teeth,Brushing the hair,Putting on the PJ’s,Calming down for story time,

I mean each step could be a battle with one or both kids. You can imagine the potential chaos here.

These days, I find this to be a fun process. It’s truly something I enjoy more often than not, because honestly, I am keenly aware that I will not be in this season of life for that much longer. I know that I will blink and they will be teenagers, so my goal is to enjoy it as much as possible. I love to witness their fun, silliness and playfulness. I even find their refusals to be entertaining. What person wants to be told what to do, right? So I empathize with their refusals and on my best days, I try to meet their refusals with playfulness in order to get them to cooperate.

But it wasn’t always like this.

If we travel back to two years ago, you would have found me collapsing under this challenge. You would have found me unconscious, yet physically awake. You would have found me not enjoying the process at all. In a moment of bath time fun where my kids are laughing and splashing in the tub, you would have found me just wanting to get it over with. In my worst moments, I’m either scolding them or quietly fuming because Mom is gone. You would have found me blaming everyone, especially my wife, for being in a circumstance I felt trapped in.

What’s worse is that I was either internalizing all of this and not speaking up OR I was unfairly lashing out at my wife out of this entitled sense of victimhood. She’s doing this to me and therefore I need to retaliate.

It all came to a head when my wife came home one night and started to cry out of a deep disappointment in being let down. It was her biggest week of the year, culminating with dance shows that she produced. A production she’s worked so hard on for the last 8 months. Instead of me celebrating and appreciating her hard work, and admiring her talents and gifts; she was coming home to a complaining, whining and blaming husband.

I was unfair.I was mean.I was hurtful.I was selfish.

What happened? How did I get here? As I explored these challenging questions with my coach, I discovered that my wife and I failed on creating agreements with each other. We didn’t spend time becoming clear on what we both need during this time. The outcome was a lot of resentment on my end.

Resentment comes from the Latin root word “sentire” meaning “to feel, or think”, with the prefix re meaning “again”.

Therefore, resentment means to feel or to think again.

This became the invitation for me in the coaching space. I needed to go back over my assumptions and feelings I bypassed and reexamine them.

I’ve learned a lot in this process but I’ll give you one that stands out. The framework I want to introduce is the Drama Triangle, first introduced by Stephen Karpman back in the 1960s. The triangle is this dynamic we enter into with others or within ourselves. There are 3 archetypes in this dynamic: The Rescuer, The Persecutor and The Victim. In this dynamic, we have believed that we are disempowered. Challenging circumstances have gotten the best of us and we believe there is no way out. We stay in this loop jumping from one archetype to the next and here is how it played out for me.

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* The Victim. In this dynamic, I was in blaming mode and I gave away my power. I made myself the victim by believing that my wife didn’t care about me or the success of my business. She only cared about her work. Of course, none of this was true but it was how I unconsciously justified my anger and frustration. I didn’t want to own those feelings so it was easy to blame her.

* The Persecutor. It’s hard for me to ask my wife for time away. Instead, I was expecting her to read my mind and anticipate my needs for me. Comical right? It feels comical to say now, but during this time two years ago, I felt so entitled. I truly believed she should just know and because she didn’t read my mind, I attacked. I became the persecutor. I lashed out and I hurt her.

* The Rescuer. Initially, one might think the rescuer is a positive trait but it’s not. It’s an enabler. It’s the self-righteous martyr in us. It’s still rooted in resentment. For me, this looked like begrudgingly staying up late a few nights. I said to myself, “Well then fine, if my wife doesn’t want me to succeed, I’ll just take matter into my own hands and resentfully watch the kiddos, clean the house, and stay up late to finish my work. Life’s just gonna be this way so I’ll just do it all.” I was playing the martyr. I was giving myself this elevated sense of righteousness and I was no longer in partnership with my wife. I continued to withdraw myself away from her.

If you’re in the drama triangle, no one wins. Everyone loses. It sucks. And you know that it sucks, for everyone.

The solution is to wake up. Become aware that you’ve entered the triangle, learn the unconscious patterns that continue to keep you trapped in the loop so that you can begin to step out.

If you find yourself in Victim mode, the way out is beginning to ask yourself, “What do I want?” See yourself as the Creator.

For me, I realized that what I wanted is quite simply some time for myself as well. To do what I whatever wanted. Whether that means time alone to strategize on my business, to go do something by myself or have a night out with the guys. But instead, I played victim. I whined. I didn’t spend time to go inward and get clear on what I want, and if I was clear, I didn’t ask for it.

If you find yourself in Persecutor mode, the way out is seeing yourself or the other as a Challenger. From a self-compassionate place, begin to ask yourself empowering questions or begin to receive challenging questions openly.

In this instance, the challenger was both my wife and my coach. My wife, though I didn’t deserve it, started to lovingly challenge and create space for me to grow in this. She started to ask empowering questions like, “How can you also feel free and fulfilled after my dance shows? What do you want for yourself?” My coach asked empowering and challenging questions like, “Do you like feeling this way?” “How would you actually like to show up for yourself and for your wife?”Becoming open to challenge creates room for you to shift your mindset and into the next version of yourself.

If you find yourself as Rescuer, start to see yourself as a problem-solver. I explained earlier that I went deeper into my victimhood by doubling down on my tasks in a resentful way. I begrudgingly cleaned the house. Begrudgingly stayed up to finish the work I didn’t get to do. It was all out of resentment. To step out of this rescuer/martyr mindset, begin to establish boundaries, co-create powerful agreements and make sure they are rooted in partnership.For me, I stepped into an invitation to create clear agreements with my wife. There was no vagueness around the vision we saw for our partnership and the behaviors we needed to show to follow up with the shared vision. She didn’t need to rescue me. She can expect that I will speak up and ask for what I want and she will also do the same.

What’s interesting is that when I began to discover these behaviors and the insidious mindsets behind them, I started to see them show up in my business. I started to notice the areas of my coaching practice where I hid from what I want. I started to notice when I didn’t speak up and resentment built up toward the other. Sure enough, it leveled up the work I partnered on with my clients.

Thank you for reading A Sunday Kind of Blog. I’d love for you to share it if you find it valuable.

We started to notice places in which they withdrew from asking a higher fundraising amount, a new title, a raise, requests from their employees - areas where unspoken expectations were in place without ever explicitly coming to an agreement about them.

When we shine a light and do the work in one area of our life, it tends to cascade into others!

Where in your life are you playing victim? Where are you ready to be a creator?Where are you ready to step into powerful agreements?

My invitation is to reply to this email, set up a time with me or another professional if you’re going through this. You are not alone and there’s an effortless and more enlivening way to live this life on the other side. If it’s available for me, it’s certainly available for you!

Much Love.JomarPS: If you want to learn more about the Drama Triangle, click here»

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