Emotional responsibility.

 ”All of your feelings eventually do come out to play. You can either address them willingly- or on your hands and knees” Bart Anderson.

People stress taking responsibility for all kinds of things these days. But what about being responsible to what you are feeling? The overall healthiest thing you can do with a feeling is to express it. Feelings are energy; energy works best when we experience (feel) it and release it. So it would follow that emotional responsibility is committing to whenever you experience a significant feeling, you find someone to express it to. Think of it as being responsible to yourself.

It needn’t always be the same person. One person may better accept one feeling and another person may  more readily accept another. Discernment is essential when identifying someone to share your feeling with. Their ability to accept the feeling you need to express is the most essential quality in choosing someone to express your feeling to. Someone that has a similar life experience may be able to understand and relate to the feeling.

Obviously some feelings are best expressed to the person you are feeling them toward. Relational feelings such as anger and love work best when they are expressed directly to the person you feel them toward.

Journaling is also an excellent tool to express your feelings. Often feelings and their corresponding thoughts will cycle around and around your psyche until you place them outside of yourself. Writing allows you to concretize your feelings outside of yourself so you can relate to them. Just like sometimes you need to hear yourself saying something to someone in order to understand it.

And don’t think about it too much. Note that you are feeling something, identify someone to share it with, and start expressing.

You might feel a little vulnerable afterwards- that means you are doing it right.

Accepting necessary loss

Many of us did not get the love we needed from our parents when we were 6, 8, or 10 years old. We likely translated that that as there is something wrong with us- that we were deficient is some way. We say, “My own father was not able to love and accept me to be the way that I am.”

We often try to resolve this by finding someone that was like that person, and try to get them to love us. This is the classic dating someone that is like a parent or ex and getting them to love us. We figure this will give us reconciliation. It proves we are lovable, right?!

It is a great idea that simply does not work. I might even find someone exactly like my mother, father, or ex and get them to love me. They could love and accept me with all their heart. But it will never feel like it did when I was 6,8, or 10. Or 23 for that matter. I am different now. The person that I was is no longer around. It does not feel the same. I do not have the same perspective or point of reference.

So how do you resolve it? You accept necessary loss. You accept the fact that you did not get the love you needed from your parent when you were 6, 8, and 10. You feel it. Then we realize that it was not about you. There was nothing about you that made that person not love you. They were not simply not able to love you at the time.

And that is very sad. But, it does not mean that you are unlovable.

Once we accept necessary loss, we can cease interacting with emotionally unavailable that are like our parent or ex and start interacting with people who are able to love us.

Change starts with seeing things as they are

It’s a paradox: in order to have things differently, you have to first see things as they are. As long as there is any delusion, denial, or fantasy- it is not possible to create positive change.

You do not have to agree with or condone the way things are. You just have to see and accept that right now that is how it is. It is only then that you can change it.

People get really stuck on this. They feel like if they admit or acknowledge that things are a certain way that they are supporting it or allowing it to stay that way. On the contrary, you are seeing it clearly- so you can change it.

When you are changing something inside yourself, it is usually about looking at things about yourself that you do not want to see and accept. Some Native American traditions call this “coyote medicine.” The coyote makes you look at the things that you do not want to look at. It is for this reason that he is the ultimate healer.

By accepting it to be true, you are in a position to release it away from yourself. You look at what it has done to you. That is, how it has affected you, the people around you, and the things that are important to you. Then you promise yourself to never allow that again. You commit to change.

As long as you deny it, it has control over you. It will blind side you until you see and accept it.

The same thing applies in changing the world and things outside of yourself. You have to acknowledge that right now, this is how things are. Then you have a foundation of truth and reality to create social change or intervention. It follows that sometimes we have to accept that things have become unhealthy or destructive.

It is only through seeing things as they are that we can create something new.

Forgive yourself for not giving yourself what is important to you

“Did they get you to trade

Roger Waters, Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here (listen to song on YouTube)

It was us that made the choices to walk way from the things we wanted most. Nobody took them from us. It just felt like that. We allowed it. We sold ourselves short. We gave up the things mattered most. We let ourselves down. We betrayed ourselves.

Our issue is with ourselves. We just keep projecting it on to everyone around us. It is too painful to admit that we did it to ourselves.

It is time we healed this. We need to make amends to ourselves. We must forgive ourselves for not giving ourselves the things we wanted most. Making amends has two parts: 1. Forgiving ourselves; 2. Promising ourselves that it will never happen again. Dealing with this prevents us from pushing it away.

Because… if we took it from ourselves- then we can still provide to ourselves. It is within our control. Everything you always wanted is still available to you. All of your dreams. They just may present themselves a little differently. The characters and set may be different, but the plot is the same. I promise you it is still there for you- if you just allow it. You have to believe in possibility.

All we have to do is accept that it was us that let our dream slip away, and forgive ourselves. Then we can stop pushing it away and start seeing possibilities.

Could get pretty scary and sad- but the stakes are high. And what have you got to lose? A lead role in a cage?

Stop pushing people away

“You only allow as much love as you feel like you deserve.” This is a quote by Bart Anderson, a spiritual teacher that I studied with for many years. So what happens to the love that we that we do not allow? We push it away. In other words, we push people away when they are trying to love us. When someone is getting closer than we are comfortable with, we push them away. We all do it.