Accepting responsibility is Freedom

As humans, we are basically wire to seek “feel good”.

Nearly no one loves punishment, unless it is the only way they feel recognized by others. This is abusive to our self and could be when passed on to others.

The purpose of these thoughts is to consider the possibility of understanding if you free yourself of your obsessions to be right than driving a force to win, you will free yourself to be much more tranquil. The secret is to really understand you don’t have to win most situations for a good outcome.  Many times we want to win merely for some satisfaction.

I practice freeing myself of my own thoughts of telling my daughters what do.  They are mature and naturally will make similar mistakes as I did at their age. By freeing myself of the need to have them live their lives as I think they should I free myself of the constant codependent behavior to control them. The immediate reward is I don’t drive myself crazy with disappointment.  The collateral reward is they don’t feel controlled. Thus, they are more open with their communicative thoughts. Not to mention how much they like me for not shaking my finger at them. The result is, I feel good because they trust and confide in me.  I feel good because I don’t have to stress about their survival.  There should be no mistake, I love them, but I don’t have to put boundaries around them with my own opinions. If they need me, they will ask.  We have a lot more fun with our relationship when I don’t try to control their lives.  I have a lot more joy because I don’t have to win or be right.

The goal is for me to free myself of the controlling thoughts. Thus, total freedom.

I often entered into an agreement or expectation without thorough investigation.  I trusted the person would read my mind and fill in the gaps where I did not.  Then when the entire event collapsed, I was reluctant to take responsibility for my failure to thoroughly explain my expectations.  I began to create frustration and more expectations of them. What I should have done is outlined my expectations on paper and be sure both parties understood the expectations.

The same applies with every other human being. Including freeing ourselves of our selves.  THIS AIN’T EASY, but we can accomplish this with practice and study of loving ourselves.

So lets not forget, this blog is about freeing yourself of yourself in order to achieve inner feel good without external influences. Read this line a couple times until you understand it.

Often, the external fixes for feel good are damaging. Drinking, drugs, eating, spending are only a few but commonly relatable.

There are many ways to get to the Feel Good plateau. Coupling the human drive with external components can result in addiction.   We may obsess in many areas for the quick fix. Think about the negative consequence of some of these addictions for feel good. They are addictions to get the dopamine flowing abundantly. Maybe food, drugs, fashion, speed or some other material target. We may obsess with our body or sports. There is a reward of feel good when we come in touch with nature as it exists or the creative side of our mind. It is coupling serotonin with dopamine rather than the raw rush of dopamine.  This is a peaceful method to relax our mind. For me Its better than meditation.

Be at peace, most all doesn’t make a difference.

Anger, control and revenge are ways of feel good. We get so caught up in the negative emotion we don’t realize what we are shooting for is the feel good.  When we win or are right or think we are right, we feel good.   The fight to be right is often the drive to feel good.  We can lose sight of logic because we obsess to be right.   In this case, the consequence comes before the reward. The goal should be to profoundly not make “I’m right” the target.  We may just learn to know when the value of winning has less value than the peaceful reward of acceptance.

Using the cliché “because I said so” is a perfect example of relinquishing logic for the power to be right and thus feel good.

 In a feeble attempt to feel good we often lose control of accountability, understanding and acceptance.  If we were more accountable, understanding and accepting, we may achieve the very goal we were designed to achieve.

For example, when someone wrongs us we often insist on righting it by throwing it up to them. None of this will change the wrong of the past. What we should do is understand it is us that trusted or had faith in them.  We are the one who made the bigger mistake.  Our learning is to not repeat the same action. Don’t touch the hot poker twice. We must be clearer in the future.  If you feel they have caused irreparable damage, and have not learned from it, then separate yourself from them.  In any case learn forgiveness for that poor sole and stay away. Forgiveness frees us more than them. You will feel better.  This is not an easy task.  Refocus on nature and the creative art in you. You are searching for peace within your mind. Your creative self can be of many vehicles in your mind.  When we use drugs, we achieve the peace we seek.  The problem is we never learn how to manage all of our power.  Some say I’ll have one drink before I go to the party.  This pushes an overload of dopamine into our system.  We feel courageous.  When it begins to wear off at the party, we head for more booze or drugs.  This usually results in regretful outcomes.

Stamping out the anger, control and revenge can be most freeing.  We do all this to ourselves.

With maybe a few tweaks, apply the next ill feeling scenario to your life.

If you are a guy, it may have gone like this. “Wait until your father gets home!” it was a daunting phrase often doled out by a mom as her final weapon to get to feel good because I frustrated her. Dun ta Dun Dun!!! %^&*.  Then I’d retort with “OH NO!, NOT THAT!!! PLEASE MOM ANYTHING BUT THAT!!” She’d close with “Go to your room until dad comes home”.

If you are a gal,  it may have been more direct. “Go to your room, you’re grounded forever! We will talk about this when your father comes home”.

Now in lockup we’re faced with our own mental devices to reconcile what we’ve done. Remember, our goal is to achieve feel good.  We list a thousand excuses why it was not our fault or responsibility. Our thoughts get so twisted we transform into a psychotic state.  Now we’re sure the opposing force was wrong and we were right. In an effort to feel good we design how we were right and they were wrong.

All this in the name of, yep, you got it, wanting to feel good. We lose total site of reality. We put ourselves through this daunting marathon as not to accept responsibility.  When all we have to do is ask our self, “What role have I plaid in this? Where was I wrong and where could I have been different”

Back to the scenario of our bedroom lock up.  So what followed was even worse. My body began flooding the neurons with norepinephrine. That’s the fight or flight fear drug in our body. That’s the drug also contributing to frustration and anger. What would I face when the parent tried me for what I did wrong?

And then it happens. Four hours later after I’ve scratched the entire thought banging process onto my walls, the knock on the door.  Now my brain is racing with fear of anticipation. I begin reviewing all the reasons and excuses I’ve created. Worse than the punishment, was the anticipation.

I open the door and what do I hear?, we will talk after dinner. OH NO!!!, more silence. We are at the dinner table, no one is talking. All you could hear was the silver clicking against the dishes and some slurping of the food being swallowed.  To me they were all louder than gongs of the St Mary’s church bells on Sunday morning. All through dinner the ringing was pounding on my brain. My feet were swaying left and right while I suffered this mental anguish.

Then dinner ends and I’m almost to the point of collapsing. We all get up to sail our merry way and the words sing out, “take a seat in the living room son.  We’d like to chat with you”.

The short of it is I sat, we spoke, all the time knowing it was my fault but not accepting responsibility eternally. I made 15 excuses why it wasn’t on me.  That dragged on for an hour until the evidence clearly showed it was me. I brought myself to an understanding with myself that I was the trigger and none of this would have happened had I managed the causing situation differently. The question would be if I would learn from this for my future.

Finally, my sacred-self took responsibility and squashed my ego. Nothing I could do could change that past.  All I could do was learn from this and prevent it from happening in the future.  I felt so much better after my dad and I departed that episode.  I never thought admitting my wrong could feel so good. I said, “I’m sorry”, and I meant it. I was really sorry.  I accepted it. I had set myself free of myself.

Aside from my mellow dramatic example, if you want to call it mellow, was a lesson to my future.  When I engage with another sole not in my control, I must engage with my own self and be sure not to take how my mouth interprets my thoughts for granted.  If I’m clear to me, I was not clear to you. I assumed; we all know that broken acronym about the word assume.  We usually have the option to engage or disengage in a situation. If we engage, we must be clear and understand we have a responsibility.  Where it could make a legal difference, it should be clearly written. The phrase “that is not what I meant” after the damage is done is not the answer when there is damage.

Remember, we play a role in the game of communication. The result of asking yourself, “what role did I play in this and how could I done it differently” could be the release of all the anxiety and false blame.

Where did all this philosophical conditioning come from? We will talk about it in the next blog.  But for now, take a look in the mirror, take a deep breath, and give your feel good searching sole a break. You may find out it’s the easiest way to reach Feel Good.

And PS. Getting to all this level is not easy. I just turned 70 and I fought to be right before I was logical to myself.