The flipside of being 100% responsible for your own feelings is that you are NOT responsible for other people's feelings. They are just as responsible for their own feelings as you are for yours: 100%.
You never need to worry about hurting, annoying or saddening others. If they're hurt, angry or sad, that's their problem to deal with, and none of your business.
******
I know you'll think I'm heartless again. :D But this really is a loving attitude. Granting others the power to be fully responsible for their own stuff allows them to be strong, and to get stronger. It shows that you see them as the powerful, responsible creators of their own feelings. It is a compliment.
The other way around, trying to protect them from getting hurt, trying to take responsibility for them, sends off the message to them "You're weak. You're not able to take it.". Is that what you want to teach those you love about themselves?
******
Imagine you're doing some trekking in the mountains, and carrying a backpack. Suddenly some bozo shows up and absolutely wants to help you carry your backpack. WTF. As if you weren't strong enough to carry it on your own!
Now let's assume you are not strong enough to carry it on your own. You might be thankful to this nice person for helping you. But are they really helping you, long-term? If you don't carry your backpack yourself, you will never grow the muscles that you need to carry it. In the long run, you will become dependent on always having someone carry it for you.
Some people don't believe that they're fully responsible for their feelings. They give their power away to external circumstances and let those hurt them. Or they aren't able to deal with their emotions yet. Or in that particular case, it was just too much for them. They do get hurt. Is it a solution to protect them by taking responsibility for them? No. In the long run, you're not doing them a favor. You're depriving them of the opportunity to flex their muscles and grow.
******
Taking responsibility for other people's feelings is not only ineffective, it's also highly disrespectful towards them. You cannot take the backpack off their back to carry it yourself entirely. Other people's feelings are still their feelings no matter what. So when you help them carry their backpack, while their backpack is still on their back, you need to get very close to them.
Too close. By doing this, you trespass their boundaries.Taking responsibility for others is a violation of their personal boundaries. It is abusive. Their feelings are their feelings and none of your business! Stay away.
******
Last but not least, what happens when two persons, closely entangled, carry the same backpack? They have to lean onto each other to walk, and probably stagger around awkwardly. Translate: co-dependent relationships. That's unhealthy. It is also very limiting for you and will drain your energy. And nobody really moves forward with their life.
******
Do you ever try to avoid hurting others? Do you think you are in any way responsible for the way they feel or could feel? Where are you carrying someone else's backpack?
******
The contrary of "well" is "well meant". Taking responsibility for other people's feelings is nice, but totally inappropriate. The only respectful thing to do is to let others go their own path, have their own personal space, and take care of their own shit, without interfering. Who am I to decide whether they can or cannot do it? No matter what it might look like, they do have the power. We all have the power. You're not helping them to discover theirs by acting as if they didn't have it!
I prefer someone who trusts me to be able to deal with my stuff. Even if sometimes I'm not able to, and fall on my nose and get hurt. Their trust in me might be wrong for this one time, but it shows they believe in me. And THAT pushes me to be the very best I can be. Surround yourself with people who believe in you and trust you to be able to take care of yourself, and you will end up living up to their trust. Believe in the people you love. Trust them to be able to take it, and they will. :-)
******
And to begin with, who are you to think your behavior can make others angry, sad or happy? You arrogant prick. Do you think you have this power? That's an illusion. You have none anyway. Their feelings depend entirely on their own choices. They don't have much to do with you - even if sometimes they would like you to believe it, especially if they're smelly orcs or manipulators. And even if sometimes you would like to believe it too, for some twisted reasons, like because it gives you the illusion of having power over them, or because you assume it would mean you're important to them.
******
In the end, the bottom line is that you don't have the power to determine other people's feelings. You also are not responsible for other people's feelings. They are. Don't try to avoid hurting others, it is inappropriate, disrespectful and not very helpful, neither to you nor to them.
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta 100% responsibility. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta 100% responsibility. Mostrar todas las entradas
jueves, 21 de enero de 2010
miércoles, 25 de noviembre de 2009
Your Feelings are Self-Made
Imagine it's early in the morning, and you are standing in the bakery, waiting for your turn to buy a baguette. (There's no baguette where you live? Never mind, just imagine you're French.) Suddenly some guy rushes in, ignores you and loudly asks for two croissants right under your nose. How do you react?
You could feel humiliated, remember that other people always walk all over you, but be too timid to claim your breadly rights (and feel bad about that too).
You could think “Wow, this guy must really be in a hurry today!”, smile and admire the beautiful cake in front of you.
You could be outraged at such rudeness, step forward and politely but firmly ask for your baguette, dammit.
You could feel sorry for the poor devil, because you imagine he gets whipped around by his wife and has to bring her croissants asap or else she'll nag at him for a month.
There is not only one single way to react to a given situation.
The way you feel, what you think and how you behave in any situation is never caused directly by the situation itself. It's only the consequence of the way you perceive this situation.
This is linked to whether you judge what happens as good, bad, neutral, or don't judge it at all. It depends on what the situation means to you. You will see it through the filter of your beliefs and interpret it accordingly. You will be influenced in that by your general attitude and way of being. More generally, your reaction is a manifestation of your mental, emotional and energetic state of being.
The feelings of someone who is usually in a state of fear and insecurity will be completely different from the feelings of someone who is in a confident state of power and peace, even if the situation is the same.
Fortunately, we are not the victims of our beliefs and state of being! We can pick our beliefs. We can choose to engage with certain energies, or not. Therefore, we are free to choose how we react. We are the creators of our own feelings.
Which also means that we are 100% responsible for them. If we are the ones creating and choosing them, then logically they are entirely our own responsibility and nobody else's. Full power and full responsibility go hand in hand.
As I learned in my Soul Realignment training, sometimes we have some blocks at soul-level that create negative thoughts and/or emotions in us. These thoughts and emotions are not truly ours, even though we identify them as such. In such a case, it can be difficult to choose how we feel. No matter how much we work on it, we will just have this negative stuff pop into our mind and make us feel bad.
However, we only have these soul-level blocks because at some point we made a choice that allowed them to be there. We didn't do it intentionally or consciously, but it still was our doing. So, indirectly, our feelings still are the consequence of our own choice. The only difference is that if we are affected by such a soul-level block, we might need some Soul Realignment to get rid of it, whereas if we don't have such a block, we have the full power to change our feelings right now. In the end it still boils down to the fact that we are 100% responsible for them.
I once lost my best friend over the 100% responsibility principle. When I discovered it, I was in a very close friendship with a girl I liked a lot. Realizing that I was responsible for my own feelings was one of the biggest breakthroughs in my life! It was several years ago. Back then, I was emotionally unstable and struggling with negative feelings. The idea of being able to choose the way I felt was like paradise to me. It opened completely unexpected doors.
Of course she was the first one I told about it. To my great surprise, she got very angry. She perceived it as meaning that her feelings would be her fault and that she would not be entitled to feel bad anymore. I tried to explain to her that it has nothing to do with fault. I was so enthusiastic. All I saw was the awesome power such an attitude gives us. But she maintained that others cause her feelings, and that for any normal person, feeling bad is a logical and necessary consequence of crappy life circumstances.
I remember her defending her powerlessness as if it were a right. Or even a duty. Like, if someone is mean to you and you don't feel bad, then you must be some kind of heartless bitch. We had a big heated argument about this and from that day on I never saw her again. She just stopped calling. I didn't call her either. I just knew we were not compatible with each other anymore. So I let her go.
It is true that when we accept full responsibility for our feelings, we cannot blame anybody else for them anymore. Damn. But on the other hand, it gives us so much power! It makes us invulnerable and safe no matter what our life circumstances are. Even when we don't succeed in feeling good all the time, at least we know that when we feel bad, we are the one actually choosing to feel bad. We are the one doing this to ourselves. Nobody else can hurt us as long as we don't accept to hurt ourselves.
Then we don't need to be afraid of things such as rejection, abandonment or judgment anymore. We can let go of control and protections. Bye bye, walls and weapons. What a freedom! :-)
You could feel humiliated, remember that other people always walk all over you, but be too timid to claim your breadly rights (and feel bad about that too).
You could think “Wow, this guy must really be in a hurry today!”, smile and admire the beautiful cake in front of you.
You could be outraged at such rudeness, step forward and politely but firmly ask for your baguette, dammit.
You could feel sorry for the poor devil, because you imagine he gets whipped around by his wife and has to bring her croissants asap or else she'll nag at him for a month.
There is not only one single way to react to a given situation.
The way you feel, what you think and how you behave in any situation is never caused directly by the situation itself. It's only the consequence of the way you perceive this situation.
This is linked to whether you judge what happens as good, bad, neutral, or don't judge it at all. It depends on what the situation means to you. You will see it through the filter of your beliefs and interpret it accordingly. You will be influenced in that by your general attitude and way of being. More generally, your reaction is a manifestation of your mental, emotional and energetic state of being.
The feelings of someone who is usually in a state of fear and insecurity will be completely different from the feelings of someone who is in a confident state of power and peace, even if the situation is the same.
Fortunately, we are not the victims of our beliefs and state of being! We can pick our beliefs. We can choose to engage with certain energies, or not. Therefore, we are free to choose how we react. We are the creators of our own feelings.
Which also means that we are 100% responsible for them. If we are the ones creating and choosing them, then logically they are entirely our own responsibility and nobody else's. Full power and full responsibility go hand in hand.
As I learned in my Soul Realignment training, sometimes we have some blocks at soul-level that create negative thoughts and/or emotions in us. These thoughts and emotions are not truly ours, even though we identify them as such. In such a case, it can be difficult to choose how we feel. No matter how much we work on it, we will just have this negative stuff pop into our mind and make us feel bad.
However, we only have these soul-level blocks because at some point we made a choice that allowed them to be there. We didn't do it intentionally or consciously, but it still was our doing. So, indirectly, our feelings still are the consequence of our own choice. The only difference is that if we are affected by such a soul-level block, we might need some Soul Realignment to get rid of it, whereas if we don't have such a block, we have the full power to change our feelings right now. In the end it still boils down to the fact that we are 100% responsible for them.
I once lost my best friend over the 100% responsibility principle. When I discovered it, I was in a very close friendship with a girl I liked a lot. Realizing that I was responsible for my own feelings was one of the biggest breakthroughs in my life! It was several years ago. Back then, I was emotionally unstable and struggling with negative feelings. The idea of being able to choose the way I felt was like paradise to me. It opened completely unexpected doors.
Of course she was the first one I told about it. To my great surprise, she got very angry. She perceived it as meaning that her feelings would be her fault and that she would not be entitled to feel bad anymore. I tried to explain to her that it has nothing to do with fault. I was so enthusiastic. All I saw was the awesome power such an attitude gives us. But she maintained that others cause her feelings, and that for any normal person, feeling bad is a logical and necessary consequence of crappy life circumstances.
I remember her defending her powerlessness as if it were a right. Or even a duty. Like, if someone is mean to you and you don't feel bad, then you must be some kind of heartless bitch. We had a big heated argument about this and from that day on I never saw her again. She just stopped calling. I didn't call her either. I just knew we were not compatible with each other anymore. So I let her go.
It is true that when we accept full responsibility for our feelings, we cannot blame anybody else for them anymore. Damn. But on the other hand, it gives us so much power! It makes us invulnerable and safe no matter what our life circumstances are. Even when we don't succeed in feeling good all the time, at least we know that when we feel bad, we are the one actually choosing to feel bad. We are the one doing this to ourselves. Nobody else can hurt us as long as we don't accept to hurt ourselves.
Then we don't need to be afraid of things such as rejection, abandonment or judgment anymore. We can let go of control and protections. Bye bye, walls and weapons. What a freedom! :-)
jueves, 22 de octubre de 2009
Example of an Empowering Social Mindset
When it comes to social skills and relationships, I always say it's all a matter of mindset. But what mindset exactly?
That is up to you to decide for yourself. We're all different. You need to find what works for you.
Here is one example of a mindset that works. It works for me. Maybe it can inspire you in finding your own empowering mindset?
Beliefs about Myself
I am a wonderful person.
I am interesting.
I know what I want.
I'm clear about my goals, values, and life purpose.
I am sexy.
I love myself damn fucking much.
People enjoy talking with me and spending time with me.
I am great in bed. Or in any other place than the bed.
I am 100% responsible for my own feelings, actions, and reality.
I am ready to step out of my comfort zone and to accept change - including in my social life.
I am perfectly fine as I am right now. (Still working on this one: sometimes I still dislike my overweight!)
Beliefs about Others
Other people are wonderful persons. There is beauty in everyone. We are all incredibly fascinating creatures. Everybody is interesting.
Other people are friendly.
I trust everybody.
Everybody likes me. When someone doesn't like me, this has nothing to do with me personally. It's because in their eyes I represent something that they don't like.
I love everybody. When I don't like someone, it's because they trigger energies in me that I don't like. It has nothing to do with them personally.
Nobody can hurt me if I don't allow them to do so.
Other people are 100% responsible for their own feelings and actions. I am 0% responsible for other people's feelings and actions.
Trying to protect others from being hurt is highly disrespectful towards them.
Other people are perfectly fine as they are right now.
Beliefs about my Social Skills
My social skills are excellent.
I can talk to any stranger, attract any relationship, and make anybody feel comfortable with me in minutes.
I'm not afraid of anybody.
Beliefs about Relationships and Communication
Friends, lovers and all people in my life are just a reflection of the love and connection that is inside me. As long as I let love and connection flow into my life, I naturally manifest friends, lovers and people.
We are all one. We are all connected. Distance is not relevant, no matter what happens we stay connected. I cannot truly lose anybody.
If someone disappears from my life, lots of other people will show up instead, who will be more aligned with who I am.
I cannot be lonely, ever.
Relationships are easy.
Communicating with others is easy.
Love is easy. It just flows.
I don't take rejection personally. It says more about the other person's choices than about me. Other people's choices have nothing to do with me.
What others think about me is none of my business. I have more interesting things to think about anyway.
If a relationship is not aligned with my highest path and purpose, I leave. Living my purpose and creating the reality I want has a higher priority than any relationship.
Loving someone does not necessarily mean spending time with them. I can choose not to associate with someone if that is not in my highest good, not aligned with my goals, or not appropriate for any other reason, and still love them. Choosing who I spend my time with is not a love issue, it's a time-management issue. (More about this here.)
Beliefs about the World and Life in General
The world is a fantastic place!
Life is so exciting!
I am here to grow and learn. Everything is a growth experience, everything is a lesson. If I learn from them, I am open to any growth experiences, no matter how uncomfortable they may feel to me.
I look forward to seeing what I will create in my life!
Everything is exactly as it should be at this time. This does not mean that we cannot create something better. ;)
Love heals everything. Especially fear.
Create Your Own Mindset
Which ones of those beliefs do you resonate with, and which ones do you not resonate with? Can you think of more beliefs that make you feel good and would improve your social life?
You are free to choose your beliefs. Create your own, very personal, super-powerful mindset!
That is up to you to decide for yourself. We're all different. You need to find what works for you.
Here is one example of a mindset that works. It works for me. Maybe it can inspire you in finding your own empowering mindset?
Beliefs about Myself
I am a wonderful person.
I am interesting.
I know what I want.
I'm clear about my goals, values, and life purpose.
I am sexy.
I love myself damn fucking much.
People enjoy talking with me and spending time with me.
I am great in bed. Or in any other place than the bed.
I am 100% responsible for my own feelings, actions, and reality.
I am ready to step out of my comfort zone and to accept change - including in my social life.
I am perfectly fine as I am right now. (Still working on this one: sometimes I still dislike my overweight!)
Beliefs about Others
Other people are wonderful persons. There is beauty in everyone. We are all incredibly fascinating creatures. Everybody is interesting.
Other people are friendly.
I trust everybody.
Everybody likes me. When someone doesn't like me, this has nothing to do with me personally. It's because in their eyes I represent something that they don't like.
I love everybody. When I don't like someone, it's because they trigger energies in me that I don't like. It has nothing to do with them personally.
Nobody can hurt me if I don't allow them to do so.
Other people are 100% responsible for their own feelings and actions. I am 0% responsible for other people's feelings and actions.
Trying to protect others from being hurt is highly disrespectful towards them.
Other people are perfectly fine as they are right now.
Beliefs about my Social Skills
My social skills are excellent.
I can talk to any stranger, attract any relationship, and make anybody feel comfortable with me in minutes.
I'm not afraid of anybody.
Beliefs about Relationships and Communication
Friends, lovers and all people in my life are just a reflection of the love and connection that is inside me. As long as I let love and connection flow into my life, I naturally manifest friends, lovers and people.
We are all one. We are all connected. Distance is not relevant, no matter what happens we stay connected. I cannot truly lose anybody.
If someone disappears from my life, lots of other people will show up instead, who will be more aligned with who I am.
I cannot be lonely, ever.
Relationships are easy.
Communicating with others is easy.
Love is easy. It just flows.
I don't take rejection personally. It says more about the other person's choices than about me. Other people's choices have nothing to do with me.
What others think about me is none of my business. I have more interesting things to think about anyway.
If a relationship is not aligned with my highest path and purpose, I leave. Living my purpose and creating the reality I want has a higher priority than any relationship.
Loving someone does not necessarily mean spending time with them. I can choose not to associate with someone if that is not in my highest good, not aligned with my goals, or not appropriate for any other reason, and still love them. Choosing who I spend my time with is not a love issue, it's a time-management issue. (More about this here.)
Beliefs about the World and Life in General
The world is a fantastic place!
Life is so exciting!
I am here to grow and learn. Everything is a growth experience, everything is a lesson. If I learn from them, I am open to any growth experiences, no matter how uncomfortable they may feel to me.
I look forward to seeing what I will create in my life!
Everything is exactly as it should be at this time. This does not mean that we cannot create something better. ;)
Love heals everything. Especially fear.
Create Your Own Mindset
Which ones of those beliefs do you resonate with, and which ones do you not resonate with? Can you think of more beliefs that make you feel good and would improve your social life?
You are free to choose your beliefs. Create your own, very personal, super-powerful mindset!
lunes, 28 de septiembre de 2009
Anti-Manipulation Mindset
Nobody can manipulate you if you don't allow it. If there is someone manipulating you, this means that you handed your power over to them. You probably didn't do it consciously, but you did it. It happened because your attitude is disempowering in some way.
Anti-manipulation techniques are nothing without the right mindset. If the way you think gives others power over you, no technique will help you in the long run. To defend yourself against manipulators, it is very helpful to shift your mindset. This means adopting different beliefs and attitudes that do not allow anybody to control you.
Here is some internal stuff that will make you STRONG when confronted to manipulators. :-)
******
Take 100% responsibility for your feelings
You create your own feelings. What others do or say never causes your feelings directly. It just triggers them. What actually determines how you feel is your mindset: your beliefs, judgments and attitudes about the situation you are in.
Knowing this helps a lot in dealing with manipulators. When you think that others have the power to hurt you, you're helpless. Taking full responsibility for your feelings however gives you all your power back. Even if you're not able to control your feelings yet, even if some manipulator succeeds in triggering some unpleasant emotions in you, knowing that you are actually the one creating those feelings, and that you have the power to change that, will make you a lot stronger.
Then you will know that they do not truly have any power over you. Their power is an illusion that you can free yourself from. When a manipulator’s subtext makes you feel bad, remember that on some level you just chose to feel bad. You can just as well choose not to let them impress you. You do have this choice.
When you practice taking full responsibility for your feelings, you will get better at choosing how you want to feel. And then, manipulators really have no power over you anymore.
******
Screw guilt
If everybody is 100% responsible for their own feelings, this logically means that you are 0% responsible for other people's feelings. Other people create their own feelings. You can trigger them, but what they do with it is theirs to decide and has nothing to do with you.
Guilt is frequently used by manipulators to blackmail people. "If you don't do xyz, I will be sad." Well, too bad for them if they choose to feel sad! That's their problem, not yours.
Same with actions: you are NOT responsible for other people's actions. "If you don't do xyz, I will drink myself into a coma." Oh yeah? What they do with their life is their decision and none of your business.
In case you think that is heartless, I disagree. This is the most loving attitude I can think of. You don't do anybody a favor by taking the responsibility for their life away from them. Actually, it is highly disrespectful.
Don't feel guilty for other people's feelings or actions. Never. Also, don't feel guilty for your own decisions. Make clear and conscious choices according to your values, priorities and goals - and stand by them shamelessly. Guilt is a totally useless and draining feeling. Kick it out of your life.
******
Get rid of fear
Along with guilt, another emotion that manipulators love to use for their own benefit is fear. If you are scared of something, it’s very easy for someone else to gain power over you. They just need to trigger your fear. They just need to suggest very subtly that what you fear could come true if you don’t do what they want – and you do it.
Facing and transcending your fears will make you much less vulnerable to manipulators. If you’re not afraid of losing your job, your boss will have a hard time using firing you as a threat to make you work overtime. If you’re not afraid of getting dumped or being single, you are much less likely to be a doormat in your relationship. If you’re not afraid of being unattractive, you won’t feel compelled to buy all the beauty products commercials try to sell you. And so on.
Fear is powerful. It’s not easy to “just” face and transcend it. What you can do as a first step is to become aware of it. When fear shows up, acknowledge it, say hello to it, call it by its name, and then just observe it. If a manipulator plays on your fear of something in order to control you, alone being aware of what's going on will help you.
Keep in mind that you create your fear, just as any other feeling. You have the choice not to take it seriously and not to react to it.
******
Heal pain
I guess we all have some old pain hidden in an obscure closet in the cellar of our mind. Some manipulators are great at spotting such old pain and playing on this weakness to get what they want. For some people, being reminded of it is so extremely painful that they'd do anything just not to have this hot spot triggered. This makes them very, very vulnerable.
If you have such old pain in you, heal it. There are many methods. You can use EFT, talk about it with a psychotherapist, consult an energy healer, or work with a coach specialized in such issues. For example Angela is great in such matters.
******
Be at peace with yourself
The lower your self-esteem, the easier you become a prey for manipulators. The more you have problems with yourself, the more you're vulnerable. If you think bad things about yourself, it’s easy for others to push those buttons. Only what you resonate with on some level can hurt you or have any power over you.
If for example you hate yourself for what you perceive as your laziness, then it’s very easy for a manipulator to insinuate that you would be lazy if you didn’t help them move on Saturday. You will go all defensive inside and resist this idea so much that you will probably help them. What?! Me, lazy? Not at all! Fuck. Now you need to prove, if only to yourself, that you're not lazy, or else you will hate yourself all weekend. And whoops, they got what they wanted. Easy, really.
Now if you are perfectly fine with being lazy, then if some bozo insinuates that you would be lazy if you didn’t help them move on Saturday… Yeah, so what? They have no power over you. You can freely choose what you want to do with your time. You can even tell them that you want to fully enjoy your grandiose laziness this weekend instead of helping them.
If you have no problem with the way you are at this time, nobody can use any of your self-perceived weaknesses to make you do what they want. When your attitude is “Yes! That’s how I am. So what?!”, manipulators have a hard time with you. So, accept yourself fully, as you are. I know this can be difficult, but if you succeed at it, you’re invulnerable!
Acceptance does not mean condoning or not changing anything. It simply means acknowledging what is, and accepting that you are in that place at this time. Doesn’t mean you cannot leave that place later.
******
Cultivate detachment
Keep in mind that you are not the roles that you play or the things that you identify with. You are not your relationship with your lover. You are not your job. You are not a good son or a loving parent. You are you. All those things don't define you.
A lot of fear and guilt stems from our identification with things that do not truly belong to us. If you strongly identify with your job or marriage, then you’ll be very afraid of losing them. If you strongly identify as your mother’s son or as a helpful friend, you’ll feel guilty when you don't behave accordingly. But if you recognize that you are not all that, it will be easier for you to let go of the fear or guilt.
You can never truly lose anything. We are all connected at all times. When things or people fade out of our life, you are still connected to them. And ten new things or people will show up in your reality instead. The Universe is infinitely abundant. All those things change nothing about who you are at your core anyway. You are at all time wonderful and whole. Whatever is, is, and is perfect. :-)
******
This set of beliefs and attitudes is all about disallowing others to have any power over you. When confronted to a manipulator, always remember that they do not truly have any power over you. They cannot possibly control you if you don't allow them.
What has power over you is your belief that your feelings are caused by the situation you are in instead of by yourself. What also has power over you are your own fears, guilt, self-hate or attachment to roles and things outside of you. Fortunately, all this does not have any real power over you either! Only as much as you give it.
You can choose to give your power away - or you can choose to claim it back. You are free. :-)
Anti-manipulation techniques are nothing without the right mindset. If the way you think gives others power over you, no technique will help you in the long run. To defend yourself against manipulators, it is very helpful to shift your mindset. This means adopting different beliefs and attitudes that do not allow anybody to control you.
Here is some internal stuff that will make you STRONG when confronted to manipulators. :-)
******
Take 100% responsibility for your feelings
You create your own feelings. What others do or say never causes your feelings directly. It just triggers them. What actually determines how you feel is your mindset: your beliefs, judgments and attitudes about the situation you are in.
Knowing this helps a lot in dealing with manipulators. When you think that others have the power to hurt you, you're helpless. Taking full responsibility for your feelings however gives you all your power back. Even if you're not able to control your feelings yet, even if some manipulator succeeds in triggering some unpleasant emotions in you, knowing that you are actually the one creating those feelings, and that you have the power to change that, will make you a lot stronger.
Then you will know that they do not truly have any power over you. Their power is an illusion that you can free yourself from. When a manipulator’s subtext makes you feel bad, remember that on some level you just chose to feel bad. You can just as well choose not to let them impress you. You do have this choice.
When you practice taking full responsibility for your feelings, you will get better at choosing how you want to feel. And then, manipulators really have no power over you anymore.
******
Screw guilt
If everybody is 100% responsible for their own feelings, this logically means that you are 0% responsible for other people's feelings. Other people create their own feelings. You can trigger them, but what they do with it is theirs to decide and has nothing to do with you.
Guilt is frequently used by manipulators to blackmail people. "If you don't do xyz, I will be sad." Well, too bad for them if they choose to feel sad! That's their problem, not yours.
Same with actions: you are NOT responsible for other people's actions. "If you don't do xyz, I will drink myself into a coma." Oh yeah? What they do with their life is their decision and none of your business.
In case you think that is heartless, I disagree. This is the most loving attitude I can think of. You don't do anybody a favor by taking the responsibility for their life away from them. Actually, it is highly disrespectful.
Don't feel guilty for other people's feelings or actions. Never. Also, don't feel guilty for your own decisions. Make clear and conscious choices according to your values, priorities and goals - and stand by them shamelessly. Guilt is a totally useless and draining feeling. Kick it out of your life.
******
Get rid of fear
Along with guilt, another emotion that manipulators love to use for their own benefit is fear. If you are scared of something, it’s very easy for someone else to gain power over you. They just need to trigger your fear. They just need to suggest very subtly that what you fear could come true if you don’t do what they want – and you do it.
Facing and transcending your fears will make you much less vulnerable to manipulators. If you’re not afraid of losing your job, your boss will have a hard time using firing you as a threat to make you work overtime. If you’re not afraid of getting dumped or being single, you are much less likely to be a doormat in your relationship. If you’re not afraid of being unattractive, you won’t feel compelled to buy all the beauty products commercials try to sell you. And so on.
Fear is powerful. It’s not easy to “just” face and transcend it. What you can do as a first step is to become aware of it. When fear shows up, acknowledge it, say hello to it, call it by its name, and then just observe it. If a manipulator plays on your fear of something in order to control you, alone being aware of what's going on will help you.
Keep in mind that you create your fear, just as any other feeling. You have the choice not to take it seriously and not to react to it.
******
Heal pain
I guess we all have some old pain hidden in an obscure closet in the cellar of our mind. Some manipulators are great at spotting such old pain and playing on this weakness to get what they want. For some people, being reminded of it is so extremely painful that they'd do anything just not to have this hot spot triggered. This makes them very, very vulnerable.
If you have such old pain in you, heal it. There are many methods. You can use EFT, talk about it with a psychotherapist, consult an energy healer, or work with a coach specialized in such issues. For example Angela is great in such matters.
******
Be at peace with yourself
The lower your self-esteem, the easier you become a prey for manipulators. The more you have problems with yourself, the more you're vulnerable. If you think bad things about yourself, it’s easy for others to push those buttons. Only what you resonate with on some level can hurt you or have any power over you.
If for example you hate yourself for what you perceive as your laziness, then it’s very easy for a manipulator to insinuate that you would be lazy if you didn’t help them move on Saturday. You will go all defensive inside and resist this idea so much that you will probably help them. What?! Me, lazy? Not at all! Fuck. Now you need to prove, if only to yourself, that you're not lazy, or else you will hate yourself all weekend. And whoops, they got what they wanted. Easy, really.
Now if you are perfectly fine with being lazy, then if some bozo insinuates that you would be lazy if you didn’t help them move on Saturday… Yeah, so what? They have no power over you. You can freely choose what you want to do with your time. You can even tell them that you want to fully enjoy your grandiose laziness this weekend instead of helping them.
If you have no problem with the way you are at this time, nobody can use any of your self-perceived weaknesses to make you do what they want. When your attitude is “Yes! That’s how I am. So what?!”, manipulators have a hard time with you. So, accept yourself fully, as you are. I know this can be difficult, but if you succeed at it, you’re invulnerable!
Acceptance does not mean condoning or not changing anything. It simply means acknowledging what is, and accepting that you are in that place at this time. Doesn’t mean you cannot leave that place later.
******
Cultivate detachment
Keep in mind that you are not the roles that you play or the things that you identify with. You are not your relationship with your lover. You are not your job. You are not a good son or a loving parent. You are you. All those things don't define you.
A lot of fear and guilt stems from our identification with things that do not truly belong to us. If you strongly identify with your job or marriage, then you’ll be very afraid of losing them. If you strongly identify as your mother’s son or as a helpful friend, you’ll feel guilty when you don't behave accordingly. But if you recognize that you are not all that, it will be easier for you to let go of the fear or guilt.
You can never truly lose anything. We are all connected at all times. When things or people fade out of our life, you are still connected to them. And ten new things or people will show up in your reality instead. The Universe is infinitely abundant. All those things change nothing about who you are at your core anyway. You are at all time wonderful and whole. Whatever is, is, and is perfect. :-)
******
This set of beliefs and attitudes is all about disallowing others to have any power over you. When confronted to a manipulator, always remember that they do not truly have any power over you. They cannot possibly control you if you don't allow them.
What has power over you is your belief that your feelings are caused by the situation you are in instead of by yourself. What also has power over you are your own fears, guilt, self-hate or attachment to roles and things outside of you. Fortunately, all this does not have any real power over you either! Only as much as you give it.
You can choose to give your power away - or you can choose to claim it back. You are free. :-)
jueves, 29 de enero de 2009
From having no friends to loving everybody
Until my early twenties I was the shyest person on Earth. As a kid I thought other kids were strange and cruel little monsters. Later I still saw others as dangerous. When someone talked to me I got very nervous and tried to hide it. I thought I needed to protect myself from them. After all, I was getting mobbed a lot, so I thought if I let them know me or see my weaknesses, then they'd use the opportunity to hurt me. I was terribly scared of others, and socially isolated.
I was asked how I transitioned from having such social anxiety to my current mindset, which is basically that nobody can hurt me and that I love everybody. (See How to Connect with Strangers and Do you Love Killers? ) Such a fearless mindset makes it very easy for me to build connections and to have lots of lovely people in my life. But how did my beliefs change?
So here is the story. Please keep in mind that this post is not a how-to, it's just my personal story. I don't necessarily recommend to do the same. There are better ways to reach the same goal.
Courage
I remember the first steps very well, because I made a conscious decision to improve my social skills and I remember how I chose to do so. First, I decided to get rid of my fear of rejection. To do so, I grabbed a banknote. I chose a street with many shops in the city center, and in each of these shops I asked one of the salesclerks to change my note. Of course most of them said no. Every time, I replied "Thank you", smiled and left. This was a great exercise in hearing no! I knew it wouldn't hurt me in any way, it was just a game. But this way I got used to having plenty of people say no to me, and it made me realize that a no doesn't hurt.
I trained myself this way for a while. For example I picked a very crowded street on a Saturday afternoon and played being a beggar, asking everybody for some change, politely and nicely. The goal was the same as before: hear no and be fine. Later I switched to exercises with a more uncertain outcome. For example I smiled to every person I met. Then I said hello to every person I met. Then I started small conversations with random strangers. Etc.
Of course I got rejected a lot. Many people looked at me with an incredible disdain on their face when they thought I was a beggar. Many didn't return my greeting when I said hello to them, some said ugly things to me, and so on. But that was the goal. It taught me that no matter how bad others treat me, it doesn't affect me as long as I don't think bad of myself. I didn't think bad of myself, because I knew I wasn't really a beggar, I knew it was just for training purposes. And so they couldn't hurt me. I knew their disdain changed nothing about me. I got used to being rejected and not give a damm about it. My mindset went from "Others are dangerous and I need to protect myself from them" to "Others are potentially dangerous, but I'm strong enough to take it!".
For months and years after that I kept building courage, approaching strangers, talking to people, putting myself in exactly those situations I feared most.
Responsibility
These experiences proved to me that my own mind and nothing else has the power to hurt me. This was the next step. I found a book in a library which opened my eyes about this. It was a book about behavioral therapy. The author explained that not the situation itself but our judgment on the situation causes the feelings we have about that situation. What a big insight that was for me! I realized it was true. So I began paying attention to what I was thinking about the situations I was feeling bad in.
For each social situation that made me feel bad, I wrote down what I was thinking in that moment. This wasn't easy, for most of my thoughts were subconscious. But with time and practice I got used to become aware of them. So I wrote them down. Then I wrote down what I would like to think instead. More positive and empowering thoughts, which would make me feel better. My negative thoughts often sounded like those of a little child. For example in the beginning I wrote things like "Others are dangerous. They're evil. They want to hurt me." I replaced it with "Everybody is my friend. They're all friendly and mean well." Every time I caught myself thinking one of the "bad" thoughts, I consciously repeated the "good" thoughts. I also repeated the positive affirmations every single day ten times in front of the mirror.
From that moment on I decided to take responsibility for my feelings. For many months I spent countless hours working on my thoughts, and covered several big exercise books with old (in red) and new (in green) beliefs. Over time I addressed many of my issues this way, and solved many of my problems. Of course this wasn't enough to stop hurting altogether. I knew it was possible, in theory, not to get hurt if I didn't allow it, but I still lacked the power to deal with my emotions appropriately. However, alone this theoretical knowledge helped a lot. I just knew it was up to me. My mindset changed to "Others aren't dangerous. Nobody can hurt me if I don't let them! It all depends on me."
Self-Love
When I started working on my social skills, I had very low self-esteem and used to hate myself. So I worked on learning to love myself. I struggled a lot with this one. I said to myself in the mirror "Rosine, I love you very much exactly the way you are" - ten times a day as well. At first I felt totally stupid doing this! And I felt I was lying. But with time it became more and more true... I also progressively took better care of myself and did more nice things for myself. I believe self-love is extremely important. If you don't really love yourself, you cannot really love others.
Learning self-love gave me a lot of strength in dealing with others. When you know you always have yourself to love you, it's like you're never alone in front of others: you always have an invisible friend at your side. Others also respond much better to you when you love yourself. They mirror your self-love back to you. Their esteem for you generally is proportional to your self-esteem.
When I got a bit better at loving myself, I started getting friendlier feedback, making friends more quickly. Talking to others became much easier. I wasn't so nervous anymore. Loving myself more, I was better able to accept that others might love me, too. My mindset changed to "Others are friendly" and also to "How I feel depends on me, but no matter what happens, I always have myself in my corner!"
Taking off
At this point, I don't remember exactly what happened, how and in which order. My progress was exponential: at first it took a lot of practice and conscious effort. I had many setbacks and sometimes thought I'd never succeed. But my willingness to learn self-love was the catalyst. I didn't learn it overnight(!), but alone wanting to learn it changed everything. Things began moving faster and faster, and at some point everything just happened to me and I had to let go of control.
Emotional Mastery
At some point I met a fabulous energy-psychotherapist, a wonderful woman who taught me EFT. EFT helped me a lot in dealing with particularly negative or strong emotions. It also helped me get rid of some deeply rooted negative beliefs about people. I wouldn't recommend to you the method I used with my notebooks alone. Such a purely intellectual, psychological approach is a big waste of time. The idea definitely is good, but it's way more efficient to combine this technique with EFT and with visualizations. But I'm digressing, I just want to relate my story here.
So this lady taught me EFT. She also helped me understand, accept and love myself more. She taught me how to get better at dealing with my emotions. This gave me much more Power. It especially helped me not to get hurt so much anymore. I got a feeling that "I'm safe".
Connection
I have always been highly sensitive and empathetic, but my fear had prevented me from opening up enough to other humans. All those walls I had built around myself out of fear made me feel lonely and disconnected. After working so much on myself, my thoughts and my emotions, I got way less scared. I knew I would be able to deal with it, should I get hurt. Once the fear didn't force me to shut down anymore, I became able to feel other people's emotions very strongly just by being near them, and to deeply connect with them emotionally.
Later this applied as well to people who were not even around physically. For example I could physically feel what someone who was thousands of miles away and whom I was chatting with was feeling. Or I knew how someone felt that I was thinking of without even seeing them or talking with them. This showed me that we are all connected in some way. I didn't know how this communication took place, but I added to my mindset the belief "We are all connected".
Oneness
With the therapist I mentioned above, I talked about this amazing experience I had when I was a little kid, where I felt that I was being the whole Universe.
I had never forgotten about this feeling, but when I talked about it with her, it suddenly really made sense to me, for the first time in my life. I realized that we are not only all connected, but all one. I am everything that is, which means that what I call "I" is much, much more than just the little physical person called Rose.
This insight felt more like a big spiritual breakthrough than like an improvement of my social skills... but it made me much better at socializing! I was already able to connect deeply before, however my mindset still had been that we are separate persons. My default state was to be disconnected. After this breakthough, it was the other way around: I was still losing the connection very often, but my default state was to feel connected and one with everybody.
Another difference is that before this breakthrough, the connection I had with others was essentially emotional. Now, it's not only an emotional connection anymore. It feels more like a deep emotional and spiritual connection. We're not just two separate beings incidentally feeling the same. I really feel that this other person or animal or object in front of me IS me, that I AM the whole world. New belief for my mindset: "We are all one Consciousness."
Love, Love, Love
To sum it up, the beliefs I adopted in the last years are:
Nobody can hurt me if I don't let them. I'm safe.
How I feel depends only on me. I'm responsible for my own feelings.
Others are friendly
I love myself and always have myself in my corner
We are all connected
We are all one
I love everybody
Now please don't get me wrong. I am in no way claiming that I totally master all this. I still lack Courage sometimes. Sometimes I still blame others and don't take responsibility for my feelings. There are still aspects of myself that I don't love unconditionally. I still have issues with some emotions, especially with Anger. I can get quite choleric and violent! It still happens to me that I disconnect from others, that I'm scared or that I forget how we're all one. I'm far away from being perfect at all this! It took years for me to learn it and I'm still not done with it.
However, since I got so much into Personal Development and am progressively getting better at loving and accepting myself, at staying in the here & now, at making conscious and deliberate choices, etc, this mindset is becoming more and more true in my life. I feel more and more safe, connected and in love.
I feel very much in Love with the whole planet now. I feel very much in love with you :-)
I still have no friends!
As you can imagine, I have no social anxiety anymore. I don't think others are dangerous anymore, I don't think I need to protect myself in any way. I'm not scared anymore. I can talk to any stranger, have no problem opening up, and I can connect with others easily. I never feel lonely.
I'm saying that I have no friends because for me now, a friend is not something one can "have" in the first place. There are many adorable friends in my life, but having friends is not something I explicitely want or do intentionally. I don't consider socializing to be an action anymore. It's a way of being. The friendships in my life are simply an external manifestation of my inner state of mind, they're an expression of who I am.
As a consequence, I don't fear to lose my friends. No matter how many people disappear from my life, the Love and Connection I feel inside will always manifest as loving and interesting people to connect and have fun with.
People like you. I love you. <3
I was asked how I transitioned from having such social anxiety to my current mindset, which is basically that nobody can hurt me and that I love everybody. (See How to Connect with Strangers and Do you Love Killers? ) Such a fearless mindset makes it very easy for me to build connections and to have lots of lovely people in my life. But how did my beliefs change?
So here is the story. Please keep in mind that this post is not a how-to, it's just my personal story. I don't necessarily recommend to do the same. There are better ways to reach the same goal.
Courage
I remember the first steps very well, because I made a conscious decision to improve my social skills and I remember how I chose to do so. First, I decided to get rid of my fear of rejection. To do so, I grabbed a banknote. I chose a street with many shops in the city center, and in each of these shops I asked one of the salesclerks to change my note. Of course most of them said no. Every time, I replied "Thank you", smiled and left. This was a great exercise in hearing no! I knew it wouldn't hurt me in any way, it was just a game. But this way I got used to having plenty of people say no to me, and it made me realize that a no doesn't hurt.
I trained myself this way for a while. For example I picked a very crowded street on a Saturday afternoon and played being a beggar, asking everybody for some change, politely and nicely. The goal was the same as before: hear no and be fine. Later I switched to exercises with a more uncertain outcome. For example I smiled to every person I met. Then I said hello to every person I met. Then I started small conversations with random strangers. Etc.
Of course I got rejected a lot. Many people looked at me with an incredible disdain on their face when they thought I was a beggar. Many didn't return my greeting when I said hello to them, some said ugly things to me, and so on. But that was the goal. It taught me that no matter how bad others treat me, it doesn't affect me as long as I don't think bad of myself. I didn't think bad of myself, because I knew I wasn't really a beggar, I knew it was just for training purposes. And so they couldn't hurt me. I knew their disdain changed nothing about me. I got used to being rejected and not give a damm about it. My mindset went from "Others are dangerous and I need to protect myself from them" to "Others are potentially dangerous, but I'm strong enough to take it!".
For months and years after that I kept building courage, approaching strangers, talking to people, putting myself in exactly those situations I feared most.
Responsibility
These experiences proved to me that my own mind and nothing else has the power to hurt me. This was the next step. I found a book in a library which opened my eyes about this. It was a book about behavioral therapy. The author explained that not the situation itself but our judgment on the situation causes the feelings we have about that situation. What a big insight that was for me! I realized it was true. So I began paying attention to what I was thinking about the situations I was feeling bad in.
For each social situation that made me feel bad, I wrote down what I was thinking in that moment. This wasn't easy, for most of my thoughts were subconscious. But with time and practice I got used to become aware of them. So I wrote them down. Then I wrote down what I would like to think instead. More positive and empowering thoughts, which would make me feel better. My negative thoughts often sounded like those of a little child. For example in the beginning I wrote things like "Others are dangerous. They're evil. They want to hurt me." I replaced it with "Everybody is my friend. They're all friendly and mean well." Every time I caught myself thinking one of the "bad" thoughts, I consciously repeated the "good" thoughts. I also repeated the positive affirmations every single day ten times in front of the mirror.
From that moment on I decided to take responsibility for my feelings. For many months I spent countless hours working on my thoughts, and covered several big exercise books with old (in red) and new (in green) beliefs. Over time I addressed many of my issues this way, and solved many of my problems. Of course this wasn't enough to stop hurting altogether. I knew it was possible, in theory, not to get hurt if I didn't allow it, but I still lacked the power to deal with my emotions appropriately. However, alone this theoretical knowledge helped a lot. I just knew it was up to me. My mindset changed to "Others aren't dangerous. Nobody can hurt me if I don't let them! It all depends on me."
Self-Love
When I started working on my social skills, I had very low self-esteem and used to hate myself. So I worked on learning to love myself. I struggled a lot with this one. I said to myself in the mirror "Rosine, I love you very much exactly the way you are" - ten times a day as well. At first I felt totally stupid doing this! And I felt I was lying. But with time it became more and more true... I also progressively took better care of myself and did more nice things for myself. I believe self-love is extremely important. If you don't really love yourself, you cannot really love others.
Learning self-love gave me a lot of strength in dealing with others. When you know you always have yourself to love you, it's like you're never alone in front of others: you always have an invisible friend at your side. Others also respond much better to you when you love yourself. They mirror your self-love back to you. Their esteem for you generally is proportional to your self-esteem.
When I got a bit better at loving myself, I started getting friendlier feedback, making friends more quickly. Talking to others became much easier. I wasn't so nervous anymore. Loving myself more, I was better able to accept that others might love me, too. My mindset changed to "Others are friendly" and also to "How I feel depends on me, but no matter what happens, I always have myself in my corner!"
Taking off
At this point, I don't remember exactly what happened, how and in which order. My progress was exponential: at first it took a lot of practice and conscious effort. I had many setbacks and sometimes thought I'd never succeed. But my willingness to learn self-love was the catalyst. I didn't learn it overnight(!), but alone wanting to learn it changed everything. Things began moving faster and faster, and at some point everything just happened to me and I had to let go of control.
Emotional Mastery
At some point I met a fabulous energy-psychotherapist, a wonderful woman who taught me EFT. EFT helped me a lot in dealing with particularly negative or strong emotions. It also helped me get rid of some deeply rooted negative beliefs about people. I wouldn't recommend to you the method I used with my notebooks alone. Such a purely intellectual, psychological approach is a big waste of time. The idea definitely is good, but it's way more efficient to combine this technique with EFT and with visualizations. But I'm digressing, I just want to relate my story here.
So this lady taught me EFT. She also helped me understand, accept and love myself more. She taught me how to get better at dealing with my emotions. This gave me much more Power. It especially helped me not to get hurt so much anymore. I got a feeling that "I'm safe".
Connection
I have always been highly sensitive and empathetic, but my fear had prevented me from opening up enough to other humans. All those walls I had built around myself out of fear made me feel lonely and disconnected. After working so much on myself, my thoughts and my emotions, I got way less scared. I knew I would be able to deal with it, should I get hurt. Once the fear didn't force me to shut down anymore, I became able to feel other people's emotions very strongly just by being near them, and to deeply connect with them emotionally.
Later this applied as well to people who were not even around physically. For example I could physically feel what someone who was thousands of miles away and whom I was chatting with was feeling. Or I knew how someone felt that I was thinking of without even seeing them or talking with them. This showed me that we are all connected in some way. I didn't know how this communication took place, but I added to my mindset the belief "We are all connected".
Oneness
With the therapist I mentioned above, I talked about this amazing experience I had when I was a little kid, where I felt that I was being the whole Universe.
I had never forgotten about this feeling, but when I talked about it with her, it suddenly really made sense to me, for the first time in my life. I realized that we are not only all connected, but all one. I am everything that is, which means that what I call "I" is much, much more than just the little physical person called Rose.
This insight felt more like a big spiritual breakthrough than like an improvement of my social skills... but it made me much better at socializing! I was already able to connect deeply before, however my mindset still had been that we are separate persons. My default state was to be disconnected. After this breakthough, it was the other way around: I was still losing the connection very often, but my default state was to feel connected and one with everybody.
Another difference is that before this breakthrough, the connection I had with others was essentially emotional. Now, it's not only an emotional connection anymore. It feels more like a deep emotional and spiritual connection. We're not just two separate beings incidentally feeling the same. I really feel that this other person or animal or object in front of me IS me, that I AM the whole world. New belief for my mindset: "We are all one Consciousness."
Love, Love, Love
To sum it up, the beliefs I adopted in the last years are:
Nobody can hurt me if I don't let them. I'm safe.
How I feel depends only on me. I'm responsible for my own feelings.
Others are friendly
I love myself and always have myself in my corner
We are all connected
We are all one
I love everybody
Now please don't get me wrong. I am in no way claiming that I totally master all this. I still lack Courage sometimes. Sometimes I still blame others and don't take responsibility for my feelings. There are still aspects of myself that I don't love unconditionally. I still have issues with some emotions, especially with Anger. I can get quite choleric and violent! It still happens to me that I disconnect from others, that I'm scared or that I forget how we're all one. I'm far away from being perfect at all this! It took years for me to learn it and I'm still not done with it.
However, since I got so much into Personal Development and am progressively getting better at loving and accepting myself, at staying in the here & now, at making conscious and deliberate choices, etc, this mindset is becoming more and more true in my life. I feel more and more safe, connected and in love.
I feel very much in Love with the whole planet now. I feel very much in love with you :-)
I still have no friends!
As you can imagine, I have no social anxiety anymore. I don't think others are dangerous anymore, I don't think I need to protect myself in any way. I'm not scared anymore. I can talk to any stranger, have no problem opening up, and I can connect with others easily. I never feel lonely.
I'm saying that I have no friends because for me now, a friend is not something one can "have" in the first place. There are many adorable friends in my life, but having friends is not something I explicitely want or do intentionally. I don't consider socializing to be an action anymore. It's a way of being. The friendships in my life are simply an external manifestation of my inner state of mind, they're an expression of who I am.
As a consequence, I don't fear to lose my friends. No matter how many people disappear from my life, the Love and Connection I feel inside will always manifest as loving and interesting people to connect and have fun with.
People like you. I love you. <3
martes, 8 de enero de 2008
Dealing with Emotions
Do you feel overwhelmed by your feelings sometimes? Is it difficult for you to react to strong emotions in an appropriate manner? Don't you know how to stop feeling bad? That's a problem I've had for a long, long time. I found a few useful ways to handle it and thought it could be of some value for you to hear about them.
Taking 100% responsibility
First of all, what helped me most is to understand that it's never the other person or the situation itself that creates my emotion: it's my thoughts about this person or situation. We don't all have the same reaction when in the same situation. It's the thoughts and judgments we have about this situation that lead us to have the feelings we have.
This means that no situation and no other person has any power over how I feel. Everything I feel is 100% my own responsibility. The downside is that I can't blame anyone else for what I feel anymore, 'cause what I feel is caused by nothing else than my own thoughts. It's all me. The upside is that I'm in control: by changing my thoughts, I can change my feelings. And another upside is that I'm not forced to react to a given situation in a certain way. I'm free to react just like I want to. It's my choice.
(Edit: more details about this here: Your Feelings are Self-Made)
The old stinky sneaker
One very simple way to apply this elementar wisdom is the old stinky sneaker image. I can't remember if I invented that image myself or read about it somewhere. It doesn't matter. Imagine you're in a given situation and you feel a strong emotion you'd rather not have. For example, someone is insulting you, and you feel angry. Now imagine that this person insulting you is throwing an old, stinky sneaker at your feet. You're free to put that old shoe on, or not. You can put it on, and feel stinky (angry). Or you can let it lie where it is. And feel good. You're not forced to react to the insults. It's your choice.
Visualizing this old sneaker in every unpleasant situation helps me a lot! I just imagine myself saying "No, thanks!" to the person or situation throwing this old shoe at my feet, and then just going away. I'm not forced to put the old shoe on and feel bad. It makes me feel very free to choose consciously if I want to be perturbed at their shoe or not!
What about positive emotions?
Sometimes positive emotions overwhelm me too, and make me feel bad because it's just too much. It's more than I can express or bear inside of me without exploding. I had to find a better reaction than to dance around crying and laughing hysterically altogether. The old stinky sneaker trick helps me in that case too.
I wouldn't call beautiful, moving and happy situations an old stinky sneaker, so I found another image: imagine that the person or situation is smiling at you and handing you a big, gorgeous chocolate cake with whipped cream and cherries on the top of it (or some other cake you like). Eating the entire cake would be too much, obviously. So tell this person or situation "Oh, thank you so much, that's very nice of you! I'll have a piece of it!" And then take only a small piece of the cake. You're not forced to swallow the whole cake. A small piece of this delicious cake is enough to make you happy.
When I use this cake image, I'm able to stay in control of myself and to allow strong positive emotions without being immediately overwhelmed by them.
What if "no thanks" doesn't work?
Sometimes a situation or statement bugs me so much that the old stinky sneaker doesn't work so really well. Just saying "No thanks" somehow is not a solution in that moment. Then I need to take a look at another aspect of feelings and emotions: they're but signals. They show you whether what you think about this person/statement/situation is currently positive or negative. In this respect, they're very useful. A positive feeling is the result of a positive thought. A negative feeling points to a negative thought. Here's a method to get rid of nasty emotions by getting rid of the negative thoughts that are producing them:
Identify the emotion //"oh, I'm feeling angry"
Try to be as precise as possible. Observe the emotion: is it anger, or hate, or are you upset?
Allow the emotion to be //"It's perfectly ok to be angry now. That's all right."
Accept your emotion and welcome it warmly.
Thank the emotion //"Thank you anger for being here and showing me that I'm having negative thoughts that are not profitable to me"
Aknowledge that your emotions are just a signal pointing to your thoughts.
Identify the thoughts //"ok, which thoughts are making me feel angry?"
This part can be difficult for you if you're not used to such exercises. Be patient, you'll get better with time. Maybe it can help you to write your thoughts down. Allow any thought to pop into your mind, even if it sounds ridiculous or childish.
Let the emotion go //"Thanks anger, I don't need you anymore now, go in peace"
Now that you're aware of your underlying thought, you don't need the signal anymore.
Change the thoughts //"Which thought would feel better than that?"
Now look for a thought that would feel a bit better right now. It doesn't have to be realistic, or true. It can be complete nonsense, imaginary or a lie, that's not important. Important is only that when you think this thought, you feel a bit better. Concentrate on the new thought for about twenty seconds. You'll feel better. Then look for another thought that feels even better and concentrate on it for twenty seconds again. And so on.
If you practice this method a bit, you'll notice that you're always able to choose how you feel by deliberately thinking thoughts that make you feel this way. It doesn't just happen to you. You have full control over how you feel, because you have full control over what you think.
What if I can't identify any thoughts?
This happens to me when confronted to very strong emotions. In such a case the physical symptoms are so overwhelming that there are just no thoughts. At least no thoughts I could be aware of. Recently I was looking for nice tibetan songs on youtube and by mistake saw a horrible video where some animals were being killed. I felt so bad that I almost vomited. My chest was burning, I was crying and sweating. The emotion was so strong that the intellectual approach above would not have helped me. More precisely, I wouldn't have been able to apply it.
In such cases I use EFT. EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique, is a very powerful way to deal with emotions. It's easy and fast to learn, it works quickly and it's highly efficient. EFT is a more physical approach of the problem. It can be used to cure physical pain too, btw.
The principle is that a negative emotion is a blockade in your energy system. By tapping some energetic points on your body while focusing on your problem, you remove the blockade and teach your body to let the energy flow even when you think of this problem. It won't solve the problem itself. But you'll feel good even when confronted to that problem again. After this youtube accident, these images were pursueing me. I tapped it every time it came up. I had to do it 3-4 times a day for a few days. But now I can think of that video without having any bad emotions.
I highly recommend EFT to everyone. If you're interested, look at eft-therapy.com. There are infos about the theory behind EFT, a nice free tutorial for beginners, and a lot more.
Taking 100% responsibility
First of all, what helped me most is to understand that it's never the other person or the situation itself that creates my emotion: it's my thoughts about this person or situation. We don't all have the same reaction when in the same situation. It's the thoughts and judgments we have about this situation that lead us to have the feelings we have.
This means that no situation and no other person has any power over how I feel. Everything I feel is 100% my own responsibility. The downside is that I can't blame anyone else for what I feel anymore, 'cause what I feel is caused by nothing else than my own thoughts. It's all me. The upside is that I'm in control: by changing my thoughts, I can change my feelings. And another upside is that I'm not forced to react to a given situation in a certain way. I'm free to react just like I want to. It's my choice.
(Edit: more details about this here: Your Feelings are Self-Made)
The old stinky sneaker
One very simple way to apply this elementar wisdom is the old stinky sneaker image. I can't remember if I invented that image myself or read about it somewhere. It doesn't matter. Imagine you're in a given situation and you feel a strong emotion you'd rather not have. For example, someone is insulting you, and you feel angry. Now imagine that this person insulting you is throwing an old, stinky sneaker at your feet. You're free to put that old shoe on, or not. You can put it on, and feel stinky (angry). Or you can let it lie where it is. And feel good. You're not forced to react to the insults. It's your choice.
Visualizing this old sneaker in every unpleasant situation helps me a lot! I just imagine myself saying "No, thanks!" to the person or situation throwing this old shoe at my feet, and then just going away. I'm not forced to put the old shoe on and feel bad. It makes me feel very free to choose consciously if I want to be perturbed at their shoe or not!
What about positive emotions?
Sometimes positive emotions overwhelm me too, and make me feel bad because it's just too much. It's more than I can express or bear inside of me without exploding. I had to find a better reaction than to dance around crying and laughing hysterically altogether. The old stinky sneaker trick helps me in that case too.
I wouldn't call beautiful, moving and happy situations an old stinky sneaker, so I found another image: imagine that the person or situation is smiling at you and handing you a big, gorgeous chocolate cake with whipped cream and cherries on the top of it (or some other cake you like). Eating the entire cake would be too much, obviously. So tell this person or situation "Oh, thank you so much, that's very nice of you! I'll have a piece of it!" And then take only a small piece of the cake. You're not forced to swallow the whole cake. A small piece of this delicious cake is enough to make you happy.
When I use this cake image, I'm able to stay in control of myself and to allow strong positive emotions without being immediately overwhelmed by them.
What if "no thanks" doesn't work?
Sometimes a situation or statement bugs me so much that the old stinky sneaker doesn't work so really well. Just saying "No thanks" somehow is not a solution in that moment. Then I need to take a look at another aspect of feelings and emotions: they're but signals. They show you whether what you think about this person/statement/situation is currently positive or negative. In this respect, they're very useful. A positive feeling is the result of a positive thought. A negative feeling points to a negative thought. Here's a method to get rid of nasty emotions by getting rid of the negative thoughts that are producing them:
Identify the emotion //"oh, I'm feeling angry"
Try to be as precise as possible. Observe the emotion: is it anger, or hate, or are you upset?
Allow the emotion to be //"It's perfectly ok to be angry now. That's all right."
Accept your emotion and welcome it warmly.
Thank the emotion //"Thank you anger for being here and showing me that I'm having negative thoughts that are not profitable to me"
Aknowledge that your emotions are just a signal pointing to your thoughts.
Identify the thoughts //"ok, which thoughts are making me feel angry?"
This part can be difficult for you if you're not used to such exercises. Be patient, you'll get better with time. Maybe it can help you to write your thoughts down. Allow any thought to pop into your mind, even if it sounds ridiculous or childish.
Let the emotion go //"Thanks anger, I don't need you anymore now, go in peace"
Now that you're aware of your underlying thought, you don't need the signal anymore.
Change the thoughts //"Which thought would feel better than that?"
Now look for a thought that would feel a bit better right now. It doesn't have to be realistic, or true. It can be complete nonsense, imaginary or a lie, that's not important. Important is only that when you think this thought, you feel a bit better. Concentrate on the new thought for about twenty seconds. You'll feel better. Then look for another thought that feels even better and concentrate on it for twenty seconds again. And so on.
If you practice this method a bit, you'll notice that you're always able to choose how you feel by deliberately thinking thoughts that make you feel this way. It doesn't just happen to you. You have full control over how you feel, because you have full control over what you think.
What if I can't identify any thoughts?
This happens to me when confronted to very strong emotions. In such a case the physical symptoms are so overwhelming that there are just no thoughts. At least no thoughts I could be aware of. Recently I was looking for nice tibetan songs on youtube and by mistake saw a horrible video where some animals were being killed. I felt so bad that I almost vomited. My chest was burning, I was crying and sweating. The emotion was so strong that the intellectual approach above would not have helped me. More precisely, I wouldn't have been able to apply it.
In such cases I use EFT. EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique, is a very powerful way to deal with emotions. It's easy and fast to learn, it works quickly and it's highly efficient. EFT is a more physical approach of the problem. It can be used to cure physical pain too, btw.
The principle is that a negative emotion is a blockade in your energy system. By tapping some energetic points on your body while focusing on your problem, you remove the blockade and teach your body to let the energy flow even when you think of this problem. It won't solve the problem itself. But you'll feel good even when confronted to that problem again. After this youtube accident, these images were pursueing me. I tapped it every time it came up. I had to do it 3-4 times a day for a few days. But now I can think of that video without having any bad emotions.
I highly recommend EFT to everyone. If you're interested, look at eft-therapy.com. There are infos about the theory behind EFT, a nice free tutorial for beginners, and a lot more.
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