Do Not Hold Others Responsible For What You Feel
Everyday language shows that we are full of formulas to blame others for what we feel or do.
“You drive me crazy!” is one of the frequent phrases or “That person fills me with bad energy.” Both phrases are very common and both contain great sophistry.
How can others be responsible for your anger? Are you his puppet, his slave or his instrument? How is it possible that your emotional world is nullified in the face of possible influences from another person?
One of the defining traits of an adult is precisely that of being able to take responsibility for their emotions and their actions.
The others: a pretext
No matter how limiting the circumstances, you always have a margin of freedom to act. Even if they put a revolver to your temple and intimidate you into doing something, you still have a choice to give in or not.
Without taking things to those extremes, daily life allows us to choose between multiple possibilities. And, of course, in relationships with other people we also have the option to act in different ways.
“You need two to fight,” says the popular adage. And it is totally true. Faced with an attack, you have the option of hooking, ignoring or understanding it.
The same goes for sadness, fear and the whole range of emotions: they do not depend on others, but on yourself.
It is a lie that if others do or do not do something, we will find the balance. It is a lie that if others change, we will change too.
What happens is that sometimes we do not want to take responsibility for what we feel. It is then that others become a pretext to justify our lack of self-control or the inability to take charge of who we are.
Hence, we build wrong explanations about what happens to us: if she were not so passive, I would prosper more. If he was more affectionate, I might stop feeling sad. These types of complaints, when translated, mean: the control and management of what I feel is in the hands of others.
We are not an island either
The influence of other people on our emotions is reduced to a contribution. They facilitate or inhibit certain feelings, moods and attitudes. But in no case do they determine them.
The most obvious thing would be to say that if you feel more irritable in the presence of someone in particular, or sadder when talking to him, you should stay away from that person. However, this is not so simple.
Human beings are full of ambivalences. So while you feel more prone to get angry in the presence of someone, that same person gives a special dynamism to your life, or poses challenges that you find attractive.
Nor are we in a world divided between “good” and “bad”, or “healthy” and “sick. ” We all have a little bit of everything. We also go through times where we enjoy tormenting another person, or we become unbearable from complaining so much about our sadness.
There is no ideal world where you behave unflappable like the Dalai Lama, or where you manage to be surrounded only by people who maintain a foolproof balance.
What you can do is work to eliminate that mental device that leads you to a lie: thinking that your feelings depend on others. That it is not your responsibility to work on your negative emotions, but that it is others who must do it.
If you manage to get out of that logic, you will realize that everything becomes easier. And that sooner rather than later, situations evolve. You will get to know yourself better and possibly discover that up to now you have been tormented by situations that are not worth it.
Then, you will be better prepared to rank conflicts. You will increase your ability to give value to the problems that really have it and you will put aside those excuses that do not let you advance.
Image courtesy of Saltatempo
