Why do we blame others for how we feel? Why do we find it so difficult to take responsibility for our own feelings? Sometimes we don’t even realize we’re not taking responsibility for our feelings. I’ve been working on this a lot lately through spiritual work and while speaking with a friend/client of mine she used an example that really helped me understand this whole thing better.
Sh*t happens in our lives. We all can experience the same exact thing but each of us perceive it in different ways. Then we each take away from it different things. We could learn from it, hurt from it or grow from it – who knows! When we’re hurt, we carry that with us. My friend/client says its like a hot potato. We carry that hot potato with us and when we meet someone who stirs up this pain from the past, we toss the hot potato at them wanting them to hold it. That hot potato is full of pain, anger, bitterness, resentment and a whole lot of yucky feelings that we’ve accumulated and formed through past experiences that hurt us. But the thing is, those people we try to toss the hot potato to – they didn’t cause that pain. They just showed you something that reminded you of that old hurt and you instantly attacked or blamed them for it all.
These individuals know they didn’t cause the pain and so they don’t want to hold the hot potato. This creates separation, more anger, bitterness and resentment because you want them to hold something that isn’t there’s. It’s yours but the problem is you’ve been carrying it around rather than looking at it and dealing with it. Even at times when you thought you did deal with it – if you’re still being triggered, you didn’t. The hot potato might be small but it’s still hot. Stop trying to pass it off. Start looking it right in the eye and really asking yourself where that pain was created. As you get it up and out, you bring clarity to it and are able to clear it from yourself. You are able to cool the damn potato off and suddenly everything shifts. People don’t look so evil anymore. You don’t feel so angry. You have sudden peace and an overwhelming sense of gratitude for those people you inadvertently tried to hand that hot potato to – all because they SHOWED YOU what you couldn’t see for yourself. Today’s Daily Affirmation is:
