Tag Archives: personal responsibility

Standing Tall

Posted on by
Reply

I talk a lot about  assertiveness, because, let’s be honest, I’m a big fan, and unfortunately, many of us don’t put it to its good use as often as we could!

In a nut shell, assertiveness is our ability to express our thoughts and feelings and assert our rights while also acknowledging and respecting the rights of others. It’s about being appropriately open, honest, and clear about where WE are at. People often confuse assertiveness with aggressiveness, which is when we express our feelings, preferences, and needs in a way that is disrespectful, inappropriate, critical, or unfairly blaming of others. Thus, because treating others like this often leaves many of us feeling guilty and disappointed in ourselves we chose to avoid the whole thing and be passive instead. Passivity is just that: passively keeping our mouths shut and thereby not expressing our own feelings, needs, preferences, and rights. This is no good either and usually results in feeling like a victim, feeling anxious and stressed out, and feeling secretly hostile and bitter because our needs are not being met… because we don’t express them.

Let’s picture this with an illustration. You are standing having a conversation with a friend and then something comes to a head in what you are talking about. You have an opinion or preference in the situation so now you have 3 choices on what you can do. You can either say nothing, and metaphorically lay down on your back and let the other person dominate, and walk all over you to get what they want (that’s being passive); you can forcefully lurch toward them, blame and criticize them, call them down, and squash them to get what you want (that’s being aggressive); or you can stand firmly upright and let them know you’ve heard what they’ve said, and are also going to share your thoughts and feelings on the matter (that’s being assertive).

For most of us, assertiveness is an art to be learned and does not always come naturally. It can take practice, but it’s worth it since people who work at and get good at being assertive have closer and more meaningful relationships, and are also happier and less stressed out. A pretty good trade off.

Again, I’ll reiterate, assertiveness is the ability to express one’s feelings, thoughts, preferences while also acknowledging and respecting the feelings and rights of others.

Here’s one example of a simple little formula to try out:

When you__________ I feel______________.

Give that one a whirl.

Between a Rock and a… Smaller Rock.

Posted on by
2

As a counsellor I often find myself reading psychotherapy and mental well being books in order to help me learn and grow professionally. One of the perks of this part of my job is that what I learn through my research tends to rub off on me, thereby contributing to my personal growth and emotional wellness. Funny how…

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been reading and writing about boundary setting because this is an issue that often comes up with clients so I thought it useful to learn and understand more. A couple weeks ago I spoke about being responsible to others and for ourselves, and part of being responsible to others is helping each other as we are able either physically, emotionally, or mentally. In the book I am reading the authors talk about the difference between carrying a burden and a load. Apparently the Greek word for burden means those things that are so heavy they weigh us down and may even crush us like boulders. We need help carrying our boulders – in times when we are facing crisis or tragedy we need others to help us through.

Apparently then, the Greek word for load means cargo, or the things we are responsible for on a daily basis. These are our own feelings, behaviours, and attitudes as well as the things that we are more responsible for carrying on our own with our God given talents, skills, and abilities.

Problems begin to occur when we treat our boulders like daily loads and refuse help, thus putting ourselves through unnecessary pain. Conversely, some of us treat our daily loads like boulders that we don’t think we should have to carry resulting in irresponsibility which can also lead to resentment and frustration in others if they see us shirking our manageable responsibilities off onto them.

One of the keys then is to take an honest look at the boulders and loads in our lives and both allow others the opportunity of growing closer with us by helping us with our boulders, and also free others from the responsibility of carrying the loads we are perfectly capable of carrying on our own.

* The book I am currently reading is called: Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life. By Cloud & Townsend.

Two Four

Posted on by
Reply

Feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, and exhausted because of putting everyone else’s needs before ones own has been a topic that has come up surprisingly frequently in my personal and professional life the past few weeks. As relational beings and perhaps more so for those of us who consider ourselves people pleasers, we often find ourselves feeling as though others’ well being and happiness is our responsibility to create, nurture, and maintain. Not only is this an incredibly ambitious undertaking, but in actuality, not humanly possible. Although sometimes it might be nice to have ultimate power and control over our spouses, children, parents (especially when they just won’t do things our way), unfortunately there’s this really interesting (and sometimes annoying) thing called free will.

Here then we’ll look at the concept of being responsible to our loved (and sometimes not so easily loved) ones as opposed to being responsible for them.  Try as we might, we are not responsible for ensuring others are happy, content, burden free, relieved, or satisfied. Believing and acting as though this is our responsibility is almost always bound to end up in us feeling exhausted, hurt, resentful, and angry because trying to control something or someone we have no ability to control is a discouraging and hopeless undertaking.

However, throughout our life’s journey we ARE responsible to be loving, respectful, kind, generous, patient, helpful, compassionate, and understanding. We chose to treat others how we might, and they chose how they will or will not respond. For better or worse those around us have the full right and ability to take what we give and do as they like.

In a shell of nuts, we are responsible to others and for ourselves.