Whoever Upsets You Controls You
“Whoever upsets you, controls you”…Think about it, isn’t it true? When something has not happened the way we wanted it to or someone has not responded as expected, when someone’s behavior or what they said bothered us, we usually express what we feel with expressions such as “you made me angry,” “you hurt me,” ” you pissed me off…”
If we stop to think about it further, our messages translate to “You are to blame for how I feel,” “You are responsible for me being this way” or “You cause me harm,” meaning it’s the other’s fault that we are upset.
If someone makes us angry it is because we have given them permission to do so. In fact, when someone angers us, what resonates within us internally is “what you think about me, is more important than what I think about me.” Think about it.
In such cases, the responsibility for how we feel, is held by others. Instead of taking charge of our emotions and feelings, leading ourselves from the inside and taking responsibility for what we feel, we give the power or consent to others.
And it is true, that taking all the weight that anger or annoyances carry is difficult … especially if we are used to shifting our focus outward. It’s easier to blame our partner and claim that it is they who tried to make us angry, not us… but we will never be able to connect with our inner-self that way.
Sometimes this happens because we are driven by our ego. Once you have moved away from the ego and have left it alone, we begin to take more responsibility for both our thoughts and behaviors, such as our emotions.
We can help ourselves by imagining that when someone insults us or does something we do not like it is as if they are offering us a gift. If you do not accept it, the gift stays with that person, whereas if we accept it, the gift is now ours to keep. Ultimately, the decision will be ours.
So, insults, provocations or even the actions of others, are like those gifts which we choose whether or not to accept. Thus, we cannot blame anyone for our decision, we can only take responsibility for our attitude, our choice.
Expectations can also be a trigger for our discomfort when things don’t go as we imagined. We cannot control circumstances or people, but we can control our response. So we cannot change what someone tells us or what they do and what bothers us, but of course we can change our attitude towards life.
Responsibility scares us, but it allows us to be the masters of our lives. Recognizing our emotions and feelings and taking care of them, gives us the freedom to know ourselves and choose our attitude towards life.
“Recognizing that ‘I am the one who chooses’ and ‘I’m the one who determines the value an experience has for me’ is something that enriches but also causes fear.”
-Carl Rogers-
