Take Responsibility..
I just want you to know, whoever is reading this, that if you have been feeling like you’ve been held down, not feeling like you are where you’re supposed to be, you’re anxious, you’re on edge, you live every day just to get by…let me be the first to tell you, that in order to be free.. and I mean truly free…is taking responsibility for your own actions. I am a firm believer that taking responsibility takes a tremendous amount of emotional baggage off of you. So many of us, including myself, come with so much baggage when entering relationships, that the ability to take responsibility will not allow you to take things personally because you cannot allow yourself to take on the emotions of the person you are with. Not only is that unhealthy but it’s unfair to you as well as the person you’re in a relationship with.
After my marriage ended, I have learned to be more aware of the feedback that I get from women. The feedback I look at, is not from the lens of something surface, like material gifts and dates and flowers and whatnot. My meter does not take monetary things as a priority (maybe I should change that philosophy) because when I begin to see whatever I say or do is negatively effecting the other person, it sends a signal to my heart now instead of my brain. So I now immediately turn the mirror to myself and ask, “What am I doing that is contributing to this person having a negative reaction to me? Especially if whatever effected my significant other was not coming from a malicious or negative space to even warrant that response to just whatever it is that you may be going through. I’m just using my experience as an example of what my thought process is when I go through a tough time with someone I’m dating. It’s just something that I observe and just wanted to express because I think that there’s more people out there who feel the way I feel.
Nobody should ever want to be the reason they bring someone unhappiness. I know I sure don’t. Although conflict is good, because you’re always going to go through things in relationships, no matter what level you’re at. Wether if it’s the beginning stages of your relationship or you’re well into your marriage years. I just know that when I was able to take responsibility for my actions, it made me a lot less argumentative and it takes the pressure off of the other person, in my opinion anyway… maybe someone can tell me if you disagree, but that’s just how I feel and what’s worked for me.
I think think that if there is conflict that happens every once in a while and you figure it out, It builds relationship health. But if there’s constant conflict, then I have to take a step back and analyze the situation and see what did I do.
in order to be able to take responsibility, you must first have to be completely honest with yourself. If you know you’re a jerk or stubborn, or whatever negative trait you may have, you have to acknowledge that and understand how that effects the people you deal with on a daily basis. Be honest with yourself. I know that I can be guarded and sarcastic and egotistical and also a little privileged at times as well as being hurt in the past and not fully healing from those circumstances yet. All of these thoughts about myself come into play. I zoom out and take a birdsye view and begin to make an honest assess and then make a choice as to either I’m going to push past or is it something I need to move past altogether. It’s in everything I do really. I don’t get it right all time, by any means, but I do try to live by these set of values because well, quite honestly, it helps keep my peace. And if I can’t keep my peace and my lack of peace is starting to beak your peace too? Then I have to go to the drawing board. And notice I didn’t say “We” because it starts with YOU.
So before I go, I just want to encourage you to take responsibility always for your own actions. They always say, “Be the bigger person” But what it really means to me is to be “Bigger than the person you were that helped cause this friction or fallout in my relationship? How can I be a bigger person, internally, than the person that may have either made a mistake or may have caused some pain to someone else? How can I be bigger and better than that person? That totally begins with you and how much you love yourself and do you forgive yourself enough to take responsibility for your own actions. Until next time… much love ❤️
-Jermy
