A Precious Gift to Ourselves

While improving society is a noble aspiration much in demand today, its achievement is greatly determined by who each of us brings to the table––i.e., how we manage ourselves.  

Conversely, our immaturity in managing ourselves is the reason society needs so much help.  Even those of us hot to change the world often show up wearing the cement shoes of judgment, blame, and any of the other accoutrements of unmanaged fear.  

Why is this?  I, of course, do not know.  But I have a guess at what might be a top contributor.  Our inability and/or unwillingness to be responsible for our feelings.

Here are some comments I bet all of us have heard recently, if not said ourselves:

• • My workplace is stressful.
  • I have no time to relax.
  • My kids are driving me crazy.
  • Everything in the news makes me angry or depressed.
  • I’m having a bad day.

All of those statements are common, understandable, honest, and mistaken.

A more accurate, and useful, sentiment might be something like this: I don’t know how to manage well enough the fear and pain of this situation.

The distinction between those two perspectives is noteworthy—as in gigantic.  

The second is assuming responsibility for our feelings; the first is not.  The second is energetically spacious, pliant, resilient, hopeful; the first is the opposite.  

When we take responsibility for our feelings, there are understandings and practices we can develop to improve our ability to navigate what otherwise would be overwhelming.  

Which is to say we’re operating in a realm we can actually control.  Not that we can control feelings, but there’s a lot we can do to work with them healthfully.  We can reframe situations in larger, more positive and manageable ways––revealing the gifts that can be found in any adversity.  We can learn skills that help us free the oppressiveness of unmanaged fear, pain, loss, injustice, betrayal, and the like.  Gratitude, kindness and generosity become much more familiar. 

The opposite, blaming outside circumstances for our reaction to things we wish were otherwise, leaves us operating in a realm we cannot control.  The realm of the victim. 

There are few things more self-destructive that attaching our sense of well-being to stuff like the behavior of another person, the outcome of the World Series, who is president, whether we pass our exam, misplace our cell phone, or awaken to a hurricane on our wedding day.  

All this, of course, may sound sensible, but really, what do we actually do to turn around habits of a lifetime that, golly, can seem the equivalent of an elephant in the bathtub?  Many of us carry within us an inner voice of criticism that turns on the moment we awake and accompanies us throughout the day.

As a place to start, I can offer only what has been useful to me.

First, motivation.  Feeling the despair of victimhood, how empty it is.  Allowing the agony of it to inflame a desire to make a different choice.  Even just a little desire is useful, for it opens the door at least a crack to a willingness to play with the possibility that how we define our world creates our world.  

For what it’s worth, that principle may be the most important thing I’ve learned in this lifetime.  Certainly up there.

Second, patience.  I can’t tell you how long I’ve been making friends with that principle, but decades for sure: attempting to observe it in action, growing my willingness to be humbled by realizing that my outrage, my admiration, my disgust, my reverence, my every value judgment, is ultimately self-created. 

Third, celebration.  Recognizing that simply our willingness to look in the mirror and ask, “What world have I created that makes this response a healthy choice?” is one of the most precious gifts we’ll ever give ourselves.  

Assuming responsibility for our feelings, our thoughts, our actions is a vital step in becoming a healthy person––one growing the ability to respond to anything with a kind heart.  

Those of us who come to the table committed to that kind of health––regardless of how good we are at it––have the most to offer when it comes to developing a strong, workable standard of human dignity, the improvement our society so achingly longs for.