SUFFERING
You can’t suffer enough to make someone else stop suffering. I can’t tell you how much this sentence resonates with me. To the point of tears. Nor should you expect the same of someone else. When we believe we aren’t responsible for our own feelings we are in something called emotional childhood. Emotional childhood happens when adults are unable to manage their own emotions. Most of us are still functioning as emotional children; I know this was true for me at times until about a year ago. Basically we are at the effect of the world; the world causes all our feelings, good or bad. We try to change the circumstances in the world to change the way we feel. Our spouses, ex-spouses, friends, bosses, parents, our childhood, the government, on and on. Bottom line, emotional childhood is not taking responsibility for how you feel.
HURT FEELINGS
How we think and how we feel is completely under our control only. We are responsible for how we feel at ALL times. My blog about manuals touched on this. When we blame other people for how we feel, how we act and the results we have in our lives, we are functioning as emotional children. When we are truly children, we don’t have the capacity to decide on our own thoughts and feelings. So often we all told as children, “you were mean, you need to say you’re sorry”, or “did that boy hurt your feelings”? We as a society tend to teach our children that we (as individuals) are responsible for the feelings of others. When Bobby says something “mean” to Sam, we consider it the responsibility of Bobby to apologize and make amends. This notion is nonsense and is in fact disempowering to our kids. We must instill in them the idea that they cannot rely on others for their feelings, good or bad. Ideally, the idea of “hurt feelings” would be nonexistent if we knew our own value regardless of the words of others.
BLAME
When we give our power to someone or something else to make us feel a certain way, it can be very debilitating. When someone doesn’t do the things we want them to or follow our manual to “make” us feel a certain way, we are disappointed. Enter blame. Everyone is to blame for how we feel, the actions we take and ultimately the results we create in our lives. Once blame has entered the picture, self-pity isn’t far behind. We feel sorry for ourselves and the life we have. We cannot take positive action from a place of blame and pity. PERIOD.
Why do some people stay in emotional childhood? It is a comfortable place to be. To take responsibility for the choices we make and what we create in our lives can be a very difficult undertaking. Peeking behind that curtain to see our own faults is painful, and can further feed shame and our feelings of worth (or lack of). Putting your emotional well being in the hands of another will leave you feeling like a victim. The behaviors taken from this place will often involve acting out in ways that perpetuate our state of mind. Act out, blame; act out, self-pity.
CHANGE
So what now? Two words, self-responsibility. Our pain and our joy is ours alone to create, manage and cultivate. We do not expect others to make us feel a certain way; happy and secure being two of the most common. Our feelings are a direct result of what we think about someone or something. ALWAYS. We get to choose how we WANT to feel and take the steps to get there. I know I wanted that. I accepted the challenge and it changed my life. I take actions that produce the results I want in my life. This is true in all aspects of life: personal, professional, parenting, ANYTHING. Does that mean we won’t still make mistakes? Of course we will. But from a place of self-responsibility we can choose to apologize and own our actions. We get to decide who we want to be and how we want to show up in the world. My divorce changed me and I’m never looking back. I show up as the person I’ve always known I could be, I was just scared. Not anymore, I’m all in. Have I mentioned I don’t play small anymore?
Do you want to stay where it’s comfortable; the blame, self-pity and suffering? Or is it time to start producing the results you really want in your life?
It’s up to you. I can help you get there.
