I worked out that over the years, many of my responses had become habits. Things I did over and over again without a thought. Like a formula that cannot be altered. X+Y=Z. I didn’t know I had the space to choose.
- Kids leave their underwear tangled in their pants + chuck them in the laundry = grumpy and grumbling mother.
- Husband goes out running for hours + comes home, and sits around + grumpy and grumbling wife.
- Family don’t clean up by loading the dishwasher + needing to get on with cooking = grumpy and grumbling cook.
In fact, too many of the formulas had the exact same answer for me. Grumpy and grumbling. It’s not a fabulous way to live life, but that’s how I was doing it.
if something could go wrong, it would
I was shown and told from a young age that if something could go wrong, it would. People would let me down, and I had to fight to make them behave in a way I approved of.
What I didn’t understand is that I was giving away my power to other people, their choices and their behaviour. I thought I had no control over how I felt and that reeling from one bad mood to the next was the only choice I had.
Then one day, it clicked. I was wrong. I’ve got the freedom and space to choose my response or reaction to anything that happens and can change the answer to the formula! What a stunning realisation. When that knowledge gets right into your heart, it brings freedom previously unimagined. No matter how another person behaves toward you, they don’t have power over the space in your mind between the stimulus and your response. That freedom to choose comes tied with great responsibility; once you know the truth, you can no longer excuse bad behaviour in yourself or blame others for your responses and decisions. Yes, it feels like a two-edged sword, but it is a sword that can cut you free from the bonds of being tied to how other people act.
“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom” ~Viktor Frankl~
If you choose to take part in this freedom, you can respond to things in any way you choose. Live happily and fulfilled. Don’t miss all the good bits because you feel bad and have given yourself permission to respond negatively. As you make positive decisions and have an attitude that allows you to react in a healthy, positive way, allowing others around you to be what they are, you will begin to feel happier and less burdened. You will be able to see things clearly in a way that will allow you to know when to just let things be or when you maybe should remove some people from your inner circle.