Nobody can "make" you angry, or sad, or afraid.
Nobody can "make" you feel deficient, small, less-than-whole.
Now that you are an adult, please don't give away your power, your responsibility, your sense of agency and stability to another.
Don't make anyone into your authority. Listen, but don't devolve your power.
You are consciousness itself.
Nobody breathes for you. Nobody's heart beats for you. Others' words or actions may trigger feelings of pain, sorrow and shame (or happiness) in you, but they are only feelings that were already within you. They have not been "caused", but triggered. Feel them fully, let them flow through; they want to move.
You are innocent; feelings are not punishments, though they may be intense or uncomfortable and feel "unsafe" as first.
Watch the mind now; it wants someone or something to "blame" for these difficult feelings, somebody to make "bad" or even "evil". The mind will quickly spin a victim story, and you'll disconnect from your feelings, your breath, your precious body and its home, the present moment, seeking causes, retribution, revenge. The mind will attack others, or turn and attack your own core. Neither is necessary; but allow the urge too.
For now, please do not abandon your precious body. Do not disconnect and leapfrog over your own experience. You are not worthless. Stay grounded in the breath. Offer sanctuary to the triggered feelings, the sore place inside. Make room for the frightened one, the sad one, the disappointed one. Expand so you are an ocean, and let the waves of feeling come.
Now, you are truly responsible; able to respond to the feeling and the situation consciously and with presence, rather than reacting automatically, habitually, without awareness. From this place of presence, you can still speak your truth, say yes or no, ask for what you want, leave, stay, share your experience or not, all without guilt. But now, nobody is controlling you and you are not trying to control anybody. There is nobody to resent and nothing to be ashamed of. You are not a victim; you stand in your own power, on the Earth.
Your sense of self-worth is not dependent on what anyone else does or says or thinks or wants. You are neither worse nor better than anyone on the planet; you are the same Life, as alive as anyone, connected to what's real.
You are not a victim since you are deeply connected to yourself, welcoming your thoughts and feelings, honouring your path, bowing humbly to the place where you stand Now.
Owning the ground, lightly.
- Jeff Foster
