It’s All About You, All the Time, in Every Way

 

There are so many ways to internalize this statement.  It may make you feel selfish, it may make you feel small, it may make you feel powerful.  Regardless of your reaction today, I think it is SO important to learn the lessons from this statement.

I first heard this statement during a training weekend when I was telling the story of an incident.  We tend to get in to great detail about how the other person “made” us feel something, or they did something that prompted our reaction.  My imminently wise trainer simply said, “Deb, just remember it is always about you.”  It stopped me dead in my verbal tracks, and it was like little sparks started pinging around in my brain.  I had, of course, heard before that “nobody can make you feel something you don’t allow them to”, and other similar sayings, but I had not yet internalized the truth that my feelings were JUST about me.  Uh oh.  Time to sort some things out.

Nobody to blame, nobody to get angry at, no way to feel sorry for myself if it was all about me.  That truth was a HUGE lesson for me on my journey.  What is interesting though, is that for the first few years after understanding this statement (or at least I thought I did), it made me feel ashamed of myself.  It made me beat myself up for not doing, being and feeling better.  And that is NOT what this statement is about.

I believe this statement has a core in compassion and especially self-compassion.  So the next part of my understanding was that yes, I may have been playing victim way too much in my life, but I didn’t know any better at the time.  Thank you, Maya Angelou, for saying, “When you know better, you do better.”  She is right.  Once I knew that it was my responsibility to manage my emotions and my reactions to people, it was a whole new world of emotional control.

Here is a list of what this statement means to and for me.  I encourage you to think of it often and just let new awareness sink in each time:

• My happiness is completely dependent on me – my thoughts and my behaviours.  Nobody is coming to save me.  Nobody can hurt me but me.  There is so much responsibility to this statement, but please let it empower you as you create a life of happiness and success.
• My reactions to others are all about my life lessons, my beliefs and the lens through which I see the world.
• The behaviour, thoughts and feelings of others are truly none of my personal business.  For all of you “helpers” in the world (this includes me), this is a tough one, but my experience has shown me that the best way to serve others is to live, learn and be the best version of me right now.
• How I interact with the world is my choice every day.
• How I think, feel and react is not only my responsibility, but are triggers for how others react to everything about me (and those reactions are none of my business).
• My job is to be true to me, and trust that I am perfectly in the right place for my lessons, for my life, for my experiences.

So if you find yourself stuck in situations, emotions or turmoil that you are trying to sort out, please put the whole situation in the context of “my feelings are all about me. So what can I do about that?”  The solutions become pretty obvious from there.

From my “all about me” perspective, in the hopes of helping yours,

Deb