HEALING

Healing is also our responsibility.  That we be proactive in our healing. Like surrounding ourselves with soft places to fall and people who will support us no questions asked.   

However, it is also our responsibility to include in our inner circle, people who have proven that they have no agenda other than to wish the best for us, to kick our behind when we need it.  It is not helpful to surround ourselves with people that simply agree with us – it isn’t healthy and it isn’t what we need – we need someone around us who will be brave enough to tell us the truth – always in a loving way of course, but the truth nonetheless.

Here’s a sample of a figurative kick in the pants, as it asks that you keep things in perspective.  And I offer this because I have no agenda other than to wish the very best for you.

”Losses aren’t cataclysmic if they teach the heart and soul their natural cycle of breaking and healing. A real tragedy? That’s the loss of the heart and soul themselves. If you’ve abandoned yourself in the effort to keep anyone or anything else, unlearn that pattern. Live your truth, losses be damned. Just like that, your heart and soul will return home.”              —Martha Beck

Quoted from: LaPorte, Danielle (2012-04-17). The Fire Starter Sessions: A Soulful + Practical Guide to Creating Success on Your Own Terms (Kindle Locations 1696-1699). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

ASSOCIATION

It is amazing to me how much people give away by mere association – who you hang out with, marry, live with, etc., says a huge amount about who YOU really are.

In fact, I find the perpetually angry, wound tighter than a spring kind of person much less interesting than the people in their inner circle. 

It’s fascinating to me how people are drawn to those that will reiterate and confirm their sense of unworthiness, their sense of not being good enough.  What’s even more fascinating to me is how these people take it a step further and enable and facilitate the individual and their damaging treatment of them.

Here’s the thing, being around perpetually angry people is not healthy.  Being around someone who is disengaged is not healthy, being around someone who tears you down is not healthy.  Most people understand the really obvious ways that relationships are unhealthy but fail to recognize the insidious ways that being around a perpetually angry person is damaging to their sense of worth.

Think about who you’ve let into your inner circle then take a deep breath (take personal responsibility) and disassociate yourself from those that do not bring out, support and represent your healthiest, best self.

SHIFT

Isn’t it interesting that our definition of hell depends on our point of view?  Really, we can turn anything into hell if we really put our minds to it.    
Say for example you have a really long commute into work and you’ve come to hate it.  You’re fighting it every step of the way thinking only of the amount of time that you’re wasting sitting in traffic.  Sure you could change jobs, but what if you like the job, just not the commute? 

By making just a small shift in your perception – you’ve not gone out and bought an expensive piece of equipment to make the switch, you’ve not succumbed to a spell or fallen into a trance – you simply made a miniscule switch in the way you associate your commute with a bad thing.   You’ve instead thought of ways you can make that commute productive:

-       Listening to books on tape

-       Dictating into a tape recorder: memos, schoolwork, ideas for your book

-       Conference calls

-       Letting your mind wander and coming up with creative solutions to problems

Sometimes all it takes is making sure you’ve got snacks and your favorite coffee.  And even if you end up doing nothing but daydreaming (in a safe, paying attention to the road kind of way), the point isn’t what you do, the point is that you direct your thinking in a productive direction rather than a counterproductive one.

What astounds me is how much people resist this notion.  I can feel the eye-rolling as I write this, but it’s true – you can either perpetuate the negative or you can turn it around and make it productive, make it work for you.  The choice is yours, the control is yours, the responsibility is yours.

I find that when you come up against resistance to making this adjustment in your point of view, the critical question to ask is, what are you getting out of the negativity?  Is it because the negativity is easier?  Is it because wallowing  in the negativity means you don’t have to change?

Or is the negativity about one thing really masking a much more serious and scary thing underneath?  You could find out by trying the switch and seeing whether the negativity dissipates.  If it doesn’t then maybe the negativity and anger isn’t about the commute at all but maybe it’s about the job.  Maybe it’s about resenting the fact that you work so far away when you’d rather have a job closer so you can spend more time with the kids?

Let’s be clear about one thing though:  In no way shape or form am I suggesting that you should rationalize abusive behavior into a positive point of view.  Abuse is abuse, plain and simple.  I’m talking about things that are within the sphere of your control.  In other words, you have no control over someone being abusive toward you, however, you do have control over whether you stay and whether you view leaving as a feasible and productive thing to do.  Which it always is.

A Rock...

…and a Hard Place…our decisions created both. 

For example, you hate your job. But leaving it, right now, is not an option.  These are the facts.  The stories you weave around these facts are just what you use to torment yourself with.  Those stories have everything to do with perpetuating a false sense of helplessness than what the actual facts are.

Let’s face it, the fact that you’re even at the job you hate came about from a decision you made.  The fact that you can’t quit right now is also the result of a decision you’ve made; whatever the reason – you’re just a few years from retirement (in other words, you’ve created the situation in that you have decided that reaching retirement at this particular job is more important than not working for another second at a job that you hate), you’ve accumulated too much debt, you’re living from paycheck to paycheck – it all comes back to decisions you’ve made. 

Let’s be clear, this isn’t about laying blame, we all make the best decisions we know how at the time.  But let’s also be clear that we’re the ones who made the decisions in the first place.

The good news is that taking personal responsibility enables us to make decisions that changes the landscape of our lives so that they more closely resemble the life we really want to live.

DEPRIVATION

We can’t indulge ourselves every whim and then complain that our life isn’t the way we want it to be. 

For example, we’ll eat that slice of chocolate cake, because not to eat it would make us feel deprived, but we’ll also turn around and complain that we can’t lose weight.

Here’s the thing.  Trying to satisfy every whim, lest we feel deprived, is applying a bandaid solution to a much bigger problem.  The feelings of deprivation have their roots very deep in our childhood and not getting the love and attention we desperately needed.   But that’s a whole other blog post.

The point, in terms of personal responsibility, is this, we’re adults now!  So when you eat that chocolate cake, have that affair, buy that luxury item you can’t afford, you are making a decision to satisfy that whim.  By doing so, and here’s the punch line, you are in fact, making the decision to deprive yourself of a healthy weight, an honest and true relationship and financial security.

When we fail to take personal responsibility we are acting from a small hurt place – it’s time to explore and heal that.  Until healing happens, we will continue to have a difficult time understanding how we are responsible for how our life is working right now.

ONE, TWO, THREE...

Have you exercised your 'choice' muscles today?  Have you stopped and checked in with your internal GPS before making a decision so far today?  Even the smallest one, you know, the one between the doughnut and the fresh fruit for breakfast.  


That's how it goes, one, two, three...each step requires a conscious decision when you're taking personal responsibility.  It may feel exhausting at first but think about it this way.  It requires so much less energy than all the anger and handwringing and frustration that it takes to regret a bad decision, the 'what the hell' decisions are the worst -- they actually take HUGE amounts of energy that may feel normal to you, but in reality are anything but.

WHO

What your life looks like, feels like and proceeds like is up to you and based on every decision you’ve made up to this point.  Right down to how you’re choosing to perceive things that have happened that are beyond your control.   

It confounds me when I hear people complaining about how unhappy they are with their lives.  How they willingly engage in unproductive/destructive behavior and then look around for people/things/circumstances to blame.

I’m going to explore the issue of personal responsibility this month. It’s so critically important because when you begin to take responsibility for your life, your life changes.