It’s All Your Fault

It’s All Your Fault

I have a bit of a romantic fancy; sometimes I feel like there is an ebb and flow, a waxing and waning all around us, bigger than the tug from the moon, like the Universe inhales and exhales, tossing me around like a leaf in the wind, or a pebble in a running brook. Like I said, a bit of a romantic notion.

And then I remember that John Wheeler quote about how the only law is the law that there is no law in quantum physics, and that I create my world through my beliefs and filters, and if I am feeling constricted, I am doing the constraining. I am responsible for how I feel.

Dang. Why can I choose?

It seems like it would be so much easier to blame it all on you. Your bad behavior, your immaturity, your callousness. But even there, the quality of your behavior is based on my judgement. You don’t disappoint me, my expectations of you disappoint me. I am responsible for my relationship to you.

Dang. Why am I responsible?

If I wanna live a nice life, all the way through, it’s up to me. If I want to feel honored and respected instead of taken for granted and abused, I have to change that within me. I am the center of my personal universe, and if I don’t like it, I’m the only one who can change it.

Dang. Why do I approve of me?

If I don’t approve of me, no matter how much you do, I won’t feel it. If I don’t acknowledge myself, no matter how much you do, I won’t feel it. If I don’t respect me, well, you see the pattern here.

Why would I respect myself? Why do I choose to honor myself? Why do I own my achievements?

I need to remember that the Universe, if you will, doesn’t do stuff to me, it does stuff for me. Events, circumstances, situations, all appear in my life for the purpose of helping me grow. I get opportunities to learn more about me, to recognize, own, and modify my own bad behaviors, to mitigate my own immaturity, to soften my callousness.

When I am tight, constricted, restrained, clenched, not much can get in or out. It’s easy for me to feel bad because I’ve made my system static, like a stagnant pond, we get stinky, and filled with all sorts of weird stuff feeding on our tight.

Why do I choose to relax? What makes me trust? Why am I safe to be soft?

As we change our ideas and attitudes about ourselves, as we clean up our emo crud, as we practice our new behaviors and beliefs, our lives get nicer. They get bigger. We get more, more love, more satisfaction, more joy. As we come to appreciate and respect ourselves, we can experience it more from the outside in.

How have I changed from blaming you for my life to honoring myself and my accomplishments?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 01092014