He made me feel …
I caught myself about to say those words. And I know better.
I’m practicing using my choice as a skill muscles and here I was about to give my choices away to someone else.
Of course he would claim he didn’t make me feel anything.
And he would be right.
I pulled out my sweet southern comfort voice and told me, “oh no sweetie, you are choosing to feel this way because of all those other times when you’ve heard these same words and had these same feelings. You are choosing it. You feel it. Anyone else could have said the same thing and you’d feel it. Own that feeling sweetie. It’s yours and ain’t a damn thing wrong with it.”
That southern comfort voice of mine sure is wise and right. A lot.
I tuned into me and my feeling and had it. All of it. Including the tears.
Then I realized how much this pushing off of responsiblity onto him has been part of our major miscommunications.
If I believe he has “done, said, implied, suggested something to which I find myself feeling something I don’t want to feel” I do an automatic response manipulative word play with tears dance to make him stop making me feel this way.
And of course he’s not going to take responsibility for making me feel anything unless of course he likes and falls into the automatic dance of button pushing manipulation.
It’s subtle and sneaky. It’s convoluted and contrived. It’s accusatory, with hints of usurped power and guilt.
It morphs into a battle of who is going to take responsibility for creating the feeling in the room. From which there is never a clear or conscious winner.
It’s my responsibility to own what I’m feeling. It’s my responsibility to choose to own the feeling and stop pushing accusations on him.
When I acknowledged what I was feeling and validated it for myself as my own, our misunderstanding became a shared understanding of what we each needed from ourselves and why we were with each other in the first place.
How do you remind yourself to choose? When do you find that choosing is the last thing you’re thinking?
4 Responses to “He made me feel …”
David on July 16, 2011
Hi Lashae,
“Choice” is one of the most treasued gifts we own. Using it enriches your Life. I try to look at the ‘end game’ when considering my choices, keeps me focussed & eases the pressure on the choices that I need to make. Thank you for the post.
be good to yourself
David
LaShae on July 17, 2011
David – thank you for stopping by. Definitely choice is a gift and we would do well to consider the ‘end game’ when making our choices.
Tyler J.Logan on July 18, 2011
Very good post laShae! With me in choice, I am very carefull with some of my choices if it depends on something concerning my future! However, our choices lead us to a path weither it good or destructive, but choice makes me think like there are roads in the streets on the path to make decisions our lives! As you said with the voice, we choose to feel that way, it’s our choice to feel a certain way, which I strongly agree and it took me a long time to get that one! Thanks for posting lashae!
LaShae on July 19, 2011
Tyler, great point, it definitely takes some time before we’re able to “get” that we have to own whatever feeling we’re having.