WARNING: do not read if you are easily offended or do not like cold showers.
If I hear one more time someone say: “It’s all his fault, he makes me so unhappy!” Or “It’s her, she is the one that causes the arguments!” I think I am going to scream!
Personally I believe that we all need to learn to either change the way we see things or start taking some responsibility.
We are miserable or angry because somewhere along the line being in that state served us a purpose and over time we have been mastering it until it developed into a real habit. Let’s face it, it doesn’t matter how people behave, it’s what that behavior means to us.
Someone’s comment, even when it comes from a good place, if misinterpreted can lead the recipient to feelings of insecurity and anger. All because we have trained our brain over and over to twist words, situation and actions and have attach to them a whole of personal baggage. We often tend to associate the present with past experiences and those experiences have the ability to trigger certain emotions.
Of course taking responsibility for our own our outbursts and emotional rollercoasters can seem like a scary and hard thing to do. After all that would mean that instead of seeing everyone out there as the enemy, we would need to turn inward, find those triggers and face our worst opponent… ourselves!
That would also mean that all of our efforts to try change everyone around us have been in vain.
Yes, digging up the past and reprogramming our brain is definitely something not everyone is prepared or willing to do. A lot of us despite being fully aware of being our own worst enemy still choose to ignore the fact and go on with our lives.
Well, without trying to sound too harsh, if you just happened to recognize yourself in the previous statement, please do everyone else a favor and learn to OWN your misery! You will feel a lot better for it trust me. Constant complaining, blaming or trying to change others instead of fixing ourselves first is the biggest waste of time and energy. So next time you want to be angry or sad or depressed please stop and look in the mirror and only once you have acknowledged that it is you who crave that emotion you should be going back to your day.
If howler you are tired of hearing your own sad stories and complaints, there is no better time than now to stop and practice looking at the world through new eyes.
The first step is to become aware of your triggers. The more you practice recognizing what situation, word, action triggers your reactions the better you become at it and eventually you will be able to anticipate what is coming and stop yourself before it’s too late.
It sounds a lot harder then it actually is, trust me. I compare it to go to the movies. If you could watch your life for even one day on the screen as if it was someone else's, you would notice for sure all those triggers and patterns.
And so once you have identified your own patterns, then you will start to notice everyone else’s as well as their reactions and that point you will feel compelled, just as I am right now, to share your experience and hope that someone will find those words useful…