photo by Supagroova

It’s been said What You Observe in Someone Else is Exactly What You Observe in Yourself.  Hmmm . . . can it be?  —

I’ve been observing some behaviors that make me want to wave a magic wand and “fix” things:

A good friend is majorly (not a word, I know) stressed to the point of becoming physically ill.  So easy for me to say to my friend, identify your stressors and find a way to eliminate them.  And, as an observer, it’s easy to see what those stressors are.  Some arise out of such love for another that there’s just too much “giving in” to that other’s desires, which creates a huge burden for my friend.  Some arise out of a misplaced sense of obligation (it seems to me).

Observing this, I wonder if I exhibit the same behavior (clinging to stressors out of a sense of duty). OK, I guess my friend is mirroring a behavior I’ve had in the past.  In the past, I felt an obligation to be “all things to all men.”  I felt that if anything, absolutely anything, was out of whack in the life of anyone I cared about, it was my duty to fix it, the personal cost to me not being a consideration — my time, my money, my energy level, all were more available to others than they were to me.  I lived a life where I simply couldn’t say no.

Now I wonder where that notion came from.  Perhaps in those days, self-love was taboo; maybe putting my own needs first was considered selfishness, which was also taboo.  Yes, back then I think that my guiding thought must have been “the first shall be last, and the last shall be first” (Scripture quote) and I didn’t want to be last at the final hour.

There came a day when I realized (or, more likely, some author suggested) that everything I experience is the result of the choices I’ve made.  WHAT?!?  I’m stressed out by CHOICE??  What am I, some kind of idiot, choosing stress and anxiety over peace of mind?  I began playing with this new idea.  Hmmm.  Is it really true that no one can make me angry, that I choose to be angry?  Could it possibly be true that my stress arises out of conflict, and that my continual denying myself in order to respond to another’s wants is creating some kind of subconscious resentment toward the other?  Oh geez, am I by choice creating a love-hate relationship with that other?  Is it true that I’m doing this to myself, it’s not Life doing it to me?

BINGO.

What about now?  Am I still sacrificing my own needs?  I don’t think so.  I think I’m wiser now, having learned from experience.  Somewhere along the line I uprooted all the guiding thoughts, studied them, and replanted only the ones I chose to keep.  Perhaps someone waved a magic wand over my life and fixed it, because I’m pretty darn stress-free.

Or maybe, says the small voice in my head, it was I who fixed my own life.

As for my friends: it’s not my job to fix anyone’s life.  It’s my job to honor and respect the choices they make, and to love them unconditionally.

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Related posts:

• Life’s Mountaintops
• How Come Some Dreams Don’t Come True?
• Indecision, Oh Indecision!
• Hello, Anybody There?
• From Bad, to Good, to — EUREKA!

Tags: choices, peace of mind, stress, stressors, struggle

Categories: Personal Growth