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 negative emotions. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando entradas con la etiqueta negative emotions. 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! :-)
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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