When my brother Jack was engaged to his wife some thirty-ish years ago, she remembers that they had a hard time being apart. As such, Jack would sometimes fall asleep at her parents’ house when they were watching TV after a date and get home in the wee hours of the morning. My Dad was less than thrilled by this habit.
In the early 90s (pre-cell phone and location tracking), you didn’t always know where your kids were or what they were doing. And I’m sure there were a few things worrying Dad when Jack didn’t show up at home at a ‘reasonable’ hour.
Cherie vividly remembers my Dad pointing an angry finger at her one day and very adamantly telling her “You! Get my son home on time!!” She bravely said something snarky back to him like “I don’t think that’s my job!” and then turned to Jack (after Dad had left) and said “Your dad’s really scary!!”
We all laugh now about that story of Dad pointing his scary finger at Cherie. (And luckily she still married Jack. Whew!)
The origin of the word “responsible” comes from the latin word “re-”, meaning “back”, and “spondere”, meaning “respond, answer to, promise in return, to pledge.”
With this definition, we could think of taking responsibility as “answering back.”
I actually don’t struggle with getting clients to accept responsibility for their actions; most of them do that pretty well. It’s taking responsibility for their emotions – and the thoughts driving them – that they find the most difficult.
They say, and believe, things like:
“He made me so mad”
“She really hurt my feelings”
“They’re so annoying!”
“He’s disrespecting me”
“It’s just overwhelming!”
When I try to get them to see that “He can’t make you mad” and “She can’t hurt your feelings” there is a lot of resistance on their end. We don’t like that. We want to give the responsibility for what we think and feel to that other person, place, or situation that is “making” us feel something, right?
We don’t want to “answer back” to our own brains.
Andrea Brandt explains it this way, “When you interact with others in a reactive mode—ruled entirely by whatever feelings you have in the moment and your limiting and [sometimes] irrational beliefs—you give up control to other people’s words and actions and to the fight-or-flight response chemicals released in your body. When you’re in a reactive mode, you make assumptions that may or may not be accurate. You’re acting as if you have no power over the situation …Whatever the outcome, someone else is to blame for pushing your buttons and making you feel …the way you do.”
She goes on to say that “the truth is just the opposite. You may not be able to control everything in your environment, and you certainly cannot control how other people feel or what they think, no matter how much you wish you could. But you do have power over how you view situations, what information you seek about them, and how you choose to respond with your behaviors and words. Whether your choice is intentional or not, you do choose.”
Answering back to our own thoughts and emotions gives us the power Ms. Brandt talks about.
Instead of “He made me so mad! I don’t know if I can forgive him!,” it could sound something like “My thoughts about him and what he is doing brought up a lot of anger for me.”
And instead of “She really hurt my feelings and I kinda hate her for it,” it could sound like “When she questioned me about what I did, I made it mean that I am not doing a good job. And that thought hurts.”
And those are useful insights we can dive into in order to answer back to our own brains, intentionally!
What dad wanted was to give the responsibility for his thoughts and feelings about Jack being home late to Cherie. And she was right, it wasn’t her job to help Dad manage it. It was his job to “answer back” to his own mind and heart.
I can’t wait to hear about how you’re taking responsibility for your own thoughts and emotions and ‘answering back’ to your brain. And if you need help with all of it, I’m just the person for the job. And I promise not to point at you with a scary finger.
