Releasing Responsibility

I want to share a quote I found recently.  This quote sums up how I pretty much feel about my parenting style.

"Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon them and to let them know that you trust them."  ~ Booker T. Washington

A few years ago you would have found me full of anxiety over my parenting skills. 

Back then I used to hang onto every little thing.  I had control over everything and I didn't give responsibility to anyone in my household.  No one could do laundry or dishes quite like I could.  I used to parent based on what others thought was best for my kids, not what I thought was best for them and I was always afraid of what someone might say if my kids weren't dressed just right!

No wonder I was in full panic mode most of the time!

This quote reminds me of our recent trip to the cottage.  Our older two sons (17 & 14) are both working and of course in school.  They weren't too keen on taking a trip and missing out on work opportunities (our oldest son has just started his first job and so didn't want to take time off) and so we opted to leave them behind. 

We opted to give them responsibility and trust them for the nine days that we would be away.

I was more emotional about not having them with me than I was about leaving them to their own devices for nine days.

They did great.  They got along well, they didn't starve and the house didn't burn down.  Their time without parental supervision was a success.  Who'd have thunk it?

What I would have missed as a parent had we not given them that opportunity, was to see just how responsible and capable they are.  Handing over responsibility to your child shows you just how well you have parented them up until this point.  It's like a parenting report card. 

If you are one of those parents who doesn't allow your child to do anything without your supervision, you are missing out big time!  Not only do you not know how well your child will cope in a situation where you are not with them to make their decisions for them, but you are missing an opportunity to show your child just how much you trust their judgement.  You are missing an opportunity to empower your child!

Ahem.  This goes for all you parents of adult children as well.

Granted you are not going to leave your eight year old home alone for nine days.  But there are things you can do for your younger children that will empower them.  It was always helpful in our house to let the boys dress themselves the way they like, pack their lunches the way they like and (as much as it pained my control freak ways) to let them do their chores the way they would like. 

Trust me, letting go a little bit now when your kids are younger makes it WAY easier to get into the passenger seat with them when they are working on getting their drivers license! 

So, do your kids a favour, heck do everyone in your life a favour; give over responsibility to those you have been withholding it from and then trust that all is well.  

You get what you need!

I hate to be the bearer of bad news.

But someone's gotta do it!

To those of you who are experiencing so much flux in your life.  Relationships in crisis.  Finances in ruins.  Children running amok, etc. etc. etc.  You've asked for it.

Ouch!

Now, I'm not really that big into 'law of attraction' stuff, I don't believe that just because you have a negative thought something negative is going to come of it.

What I have noticed though, in those who seem to be in chaos and crisis mode right now (and what I've noticed in my own life as well) is that what is coming about right now is an accumulation of negative thoughts, not just last weeks thoughts, but last years and the year before that and the year before that.

Yikes!

I don't know about you but I've thought and said some pretty negative/damaging things over the past years and yes I can see all of that creeping up and showing itself to me now in fits and spurts.  I do understand where they are coming from and thankfully I've learned some tools on how not to let these things bring me back to that negativity.  One of them is staying in the present moment.

I think it's extremely important to recognize where it was we may have asked for what we are currently receiving/experiencing.  I'm kicking myself now for not knowing this before or I'd have been asking for a million dollars all those years ago!  For those of you that had the foresight to do that, I commend and congratulate you on a job well done (can we do lunch?).

Anyway, I have a theory on all of this "past thought haunting" that happens to all of us.  I believe that as we grow and mature and realize our personal responsibility to ourselves, these past thought accumulations come into our lives at beautifully timed intervals to help us hone our responsibility skills even further.  It's not necessarily the Universe sending us 'tests', it's our own thoughts coming back to us.

Here's one:  If your child has been giving you a run for your money since he was 2 and all your thought energy (and what you tell everyone around you) is put into "He's such a handful, he never stops, he's going to be the death of me, etc." then what you are going to experience when that child is 10, 14, 18 is exactly what you have been thinking about him since day one!

Here's another one:  If your marriage (relationship, career) has entered a rocky area and that's all you can think about even when you have surpassed the rocky area and are doing well, and all you do is talk about 'when so & so did this or when so & so did that" a hundred and one years ago, then guess what?  Yep, you guessed it, your marriage (relationship or career) is going to deteriorate little by little until one day it just doesn't exist anymore.

This one reminds me of a guy I knew who worked for one of the big 3 automotive companies years ago.  Nothing this guy ever said about his job, the pay and the company was nice, not one grateful or appreciative comment.  Then one day (as well all know) these companies started laying off their employees because of decline in auto sales.  This guy went berserk!  How dare they lay him off, didn't they know he worked for them for 20 years, didn't they know he was a committed employee, blah blah blah!

I couldn't help but say to him "Isn't this better than working for them?  Aren't they doing you a favour? You seemed miserable working there, nothing they did was right.  What's the problem?"

Needless to say he didn't like me pointing out the obvious.

Here's what we need to remember about life.  Negative attitudes and people bashing don't get us what we want, they get us what we need.  And sometimes what we need is a kick in the ass to get us on the right track.

From my perspective, all of his thoughts and words acted like a prayer "please, please, please get me out of this miserable job that doesn't pay enough, that I hate, that I despise going into every morning"!

And the Universe responded to that prayer.

It wasn't his version of what he wanted (suddenly the crappy pay was better than the alternative which was NO pay).  But it was what he needed.

So my advice to you.  When your faced with a situation like the ones mentioned above (or any of the other gazillion experiences we can have) take a moment to see where you might have asked for what you are experiencing. 

And if you can feel this kind of situation arising (and trust me we can all sense when the shit is about to hit the fan), do something about it.  You still have time to change what happens. You can do this by thinking loving thoughts and praying a new prayer.  Change your attitude, put a smile on, do a happy dance. 

Or accept what happens, learn from it and move on but don't make it part of who you are, don't let it establish another 10 years of unhappy thoughts and unappreciative words... 

Because guess what you can expect then?

Whose walking your path?

I don't know about you, but I get really excited about my spiritual/personal journey. 

I sometimes get so excited that I feel that others need to be on the same journey as I am.

This tends to happen alot with my husband and I.  And recently the Universe reminded me that my husbands personal journey is none of my business!  (you gotta love it when you get those reminders)

It all happened while we were taking part in a 10 day metabolic cleanse with Metagenics.  We were doing fine, eliminating foods from our diet everyday and taking the "prescribed" product to help our bodies eliminate toxins.

Around day 5 my hubby started to get a little grumpy about what he could and couldn't eat (we were down to eating only broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, apples & pears).  Generally he is a meat and potatoes guy with a strong tolerance for his wife's nutritional tricks (which I have to admit once in a while border on obsessions).

Anyway....

We had a brief phone conversation one day about how he was starving because he didn't know what he could and couldn't eat and I reminded him that the instructions were well laid out in the booklet that lay in front of him on the kitchen counter. 

I hung up the phone and felt my body tense up.  How could he not know what to eat?  How hard is it to open the fridge and pull out some veggies and eat them?  Why was he choosing to be so difficult?  Why is this so hard for him to do, it's only 10 days for goodness sake?  ARGH!!!

I no sooner got all bent out of shape when it dawned on me.

He only chose to do this cleanse because I came home with the product for him.  He only chose to do this because he believes in me and my vision for a healthier lifestyle.  He only chose to do this because I was so excited and convinced him it was "the right thing to do" for us.

Hold up! 

For "us"?  Yah, right...  Cause I don't have enough living to do on my own, I have to live his life for him too....

The truth:  I dragged him into this whole cleanse thing because I wanted him to follow along MY path.  I want him to live a healthier lifestyle for ME.

But his path is NOT my path.  Not even close.  I forget this every once in a while because he is so supportive of me, and it's not fair to him when he gets caught in my "best laid plans".

I think in our excitement of all that we are personally learning in our experience, we are eager to put what we have learned onto someone we love, in the hopes that that person will experience greater self awareness.

Think back to a time when someone has put their own expectations of what your personal journey should look like on you.  How did that feel?  Did it feel like you weren't being trusted with your own life?  Did it feel like someone didn't believe in your own talents and abilities?  Did it feel uncomfortable?  Did it feel disrespectful?

I know for me, I can reason away my behaviour in the guise of "but I love them, I want what's best for them".  As much as this is true, sometimes we can show an even greater love to someone by letting them live for themselves, in a way that is comfortable for them.

This isn't always easy to do.  It's getting easier for me to do this with my husband and yet a little more difficult to do with my teenage sons :)  But still, everytime I catch myself putting my standards upon them it gives me another opportunity to readjust and get back on my own path.

Afterall, if I'm walking on someone else's path.  Then who is walking on mine?

Becoming Responsible

This is one of the main points (I believe) of becoming more self aware and spiritually evolved (and by spiritually evolved, I mean more connected to your divine state). 

It is one of the main points to finding true peace and empowerment in your life. 

Becoming responsible for yourself. 

Ask yourself these questions:  Who has responsibility over your happiness?  Your level of self esteem?  Your success?  Your thoughts?  Your goals?  Your dreams?  Your anger?  Your lack of financial independence?  Your relationships?

Very rarely do we accept ownership or responsibility for these things in our life.  How silly is that?  I mean why do we want to give our ability to be happy over to someone who has no idea what happiness even looks like?  Or what about making it someone else's duty to ensure our self esteem levels are at a healthy standard when their own self esteem is suffering?

It's an utterly ridiculous concept and still we see it all too often, don't we?

We put expectations on friends to ensure we are entertained when we are in need.  We complain to our spouses that we aren't happy in the relationship and place the blame on their shoulders.  Our children insist it is you who must find them something to do when they are bored.

Granted, it's a beautiful thing to love someone so much that you try to make them happy, successful, wealthy and fulfilled.  However, it's a much more beautiful thing if you insist on being the person that does this for yourself and encourage those around you to consider the same.

We take a wrong turn in life when we hand over power and control to someone outside of ourselves.  It results in internal and external conflict, marriages fail and friendships implode, people become increasingly miserable and blame everything under the sun on external sources.

This behaviour does nothing more than feed the victim within.  The person inside of us that insists on not taking responsibility for their life absolutely loves being able to blame someone else for their misfortune.

It's not fair when you think about it.  The husband who has been put in charge of his wife's happiness will most surely fail.  There is no room for success since he most likely hasn't got a clue as to what makes her happy (how many women actually know what will make them happy)!

The point is, there is only one person who can be responsible, who has control over your happiness and that person is YOU.

How do you become more responsible?  How do you take charge of your life? 

Here are some tips:

1)  You want to become aware of your emotions in every situation.  Our feelings are our first indicator that we need to explore more deeply.  If you are feeling sad, it isn't because someone caused you to become sad, it is because you placed unfair expectations on another person or experience and the outcome disappointed you, therefore you are responsible for your own sadness.

2)  You want to actively engage in "turning it around".  If Joe is frustrating you because he won't pick up his socks turn it around "Joe should pick up his socks" becomes "I should pick up his socks".  If you want something done and no one is doing it (regardless of your nagging) take responsibility and do it yourself since you are the only one that wants it done anyway.

3)  Remember that no matter what the situation looks like on the outside, people are NOT out to get you, they are NOT out to make your life miserable and there is NOT a personal vendetta against you.  When we get to this place inside of our heads we really have no sense of responsibility for our selves and so it feels like every single person on the planet is against our quest for happiness.  Again, awareness of these thoughts is a great first step because awareness moves us into a new phase of growth and realization.  To get past this you can use the "turning it around" tip.

I have to say that it has been my experience that becoming responsible is not all that hard.  Since the reward is almost always automatic in that you begin to feel empowered and that is where the domino effect starts to happen.

Soon, you will be able to recognize when someone is putting their responsibility on you and you can make the wise decision of not accepting it.  When we accept the responsibility of making someone else happy, or useful or whatever we are perpetuating the problem.

And we all know where that road leads......

Simply J is a self awareness mentor and certified Reiki teacher. 

If you wish to learn more about her work visit www.stateofbeing.ca