You Are Your Responsibility

Hello There,

How often do you feel offended?  How many times a day do you say that something made you feel one way or another?  Do you feel responsible for yourself or do you feel like other people should or should not do something in order for you to feel good or bad (or anything else)?

Today notice how often you ask, indirectly or directly, someone to take care of you, to be responsible for how you feel.  Do you feel like you can actually create happiness for someone else?  Are you responsible for creating the world of those around you or your own world?  How do you hold other's accountable for taking care of themselves?  Do you hold yourself accountable?

I don't mean intellectually.  I am sure many people understand the idea, but how many people live it?  I mean, when you are in the middle of being upset that you didn't get something you wanted, do you chill the hell out and realized that no one owes you anything?  Everyone has the right to choose to do or not do something whether you want them to or not.  I remember when this point was made über clear to me.  I was in counseling with my then girlfriend.  We were having issues communicating and I was very upset that she would sometimes refuse to speak to me.  I remember wanting to go to a counselor so that they could tell her that she had to talk.  Ha!  The counselor sat there and said, "She doesn't have to do anything."  I realized at that moment that I was going about so many things all wonky.  We are gifts to one another not mandates.  We can choose our behaviors and responses.  We are in charge of how we see and react to the world.  How someone reacts or treats us has nothing to do with us!  It is about where they are.  We help by being something to react to, answer to, bounce off of, but ultimately we are working out our inner stuff by dealing with the external world.

Think about this the next time you take someone's treatment of you personally:  Imagine, just before your interaction, that you won the lotto jackpot of 345,000,000 tax-free, discovered the cure for all disease, healed all your emotional wounds, and had the body of your dreams, how do you think you would feel?  Would you feel as hurt, wounded, slighted?  Would you have an easier time brushing it off?  What about when you are having a rough moment?  Do you think it is the fault of everyone else that your feelings about your day aren't yummy?

Please think about taking charge of your life and letting others do the same.  It just might be what we all need.

xo

a