The Little Things
April 1, 2013

Oh yes- I’m still talking about boundaries here. Here’s what we’ve talked about so far: Introducing Boundaries, Influence vs. Ownership, Respecting the No, and Health Attracting Health.

Today I’m going to talk about something that seems to be really hard for us humans to get (unfortunately easy and healthy don’t always line up). In life, there are a lot of things that happen to us that we never signed up for or ok’ed. A lot of bad or unfortunate things happen to us in life, things beyond our control. However, even in those situations where we had no say in what happened, we still have control over what we own.

No matter what is happening, we still control our thoughts, feelings, and actions. When we use a phrase such as the following, it is a statement of not owning our property: “__(insert name of person or situation)_____ MAKES ME so ___ (insert emotion)___”. When we have an explosive reaction to someone because “they make me so angry”, we are choosing to give up our control of our property and become a helpless victim.

If I want to control my happy emotions in life, then I also need to control my unhappy ones as well. This is where we tend to struggle. As humans we want to push any badness or “yuck feeling” off ourselves and onto someone else. Owning our reactions means that we stay in control of how we feel and behave. This doesn’t mean that you can’t be angry or upset. It does mean, however, that no one is “making me” anything. Because YOU own your reactions, YOU are the only one who can be responsible for them. YOU are responsible for owning the health of your reactions. NOT the other person, no matter what they did or what happened.

Here’s my challenge to you this week: OWN your reactions this week. When the crazy things of life happen that you can’t control, invest your energy in controlling what you can control (your thoughts, feelings, and actions). What for statements that something MADE YOU upset/angry/annoyed, etc… and take back control! OWN your reactions!

Now it’s your turn to share! What’s so difficult about owning our own reactions? What makes us want to push the “badness” onto someone else? Why don’t we acknowledge the control that we do have instead of focusing on the control we don’t have? 

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