Who’s driving your bus?

Jan 9 by John Craft

She makes me SO mad!”   “It doesn’t matter what I say—he won’t change.”  “Nothing works out for me.  No matter how good things start, it always goes to crap.”  “I can’t help it.  This is just the way I am.”

There are many ways of thinking or speaking that allow you to blame others instead of taking responsibility for the choices that create your life.  While it is true that other people will do or say things that impact your life, you always have a choice in how you respond.  No one “makes” you do anything in response to what they say or do.    

When you knee-jerk react aggressively and escalate the situation, or when you stuff your truth, shrink and say nothing, you are giving away the power of making conscious choices.

In those instances, who is driving your bus?  If you believe someone can “make you angry” by what they say, you are giving tremendous power to that person—and to the words they use.  Words are either just temporary disturbances in the air, or strange scribbles on a page or screen.  You get to decide how much meaning and power to give them.

This perspective—that YOU get to decide what and to what degree others’ words or actions have meaning--is fundamental to empowering your life.   Reclaiming your ability to consciously choose how much energy to give to others’ words is a powerful way to create a healthy relationship with the emotion of anger.

This does not mean you should just ignore what others say or do.  Standing in your personal power means getting to know yourself—your inner world—in ways that help you to recognize when something you value, something you need or want, is threatened to be unavailable to you.  Recognizing when you begin to feel anger then becomes a clarion call to explore what is truly important to you.  Moving towards that which you highly value instead of against the words of others is an emotional aikido move that will be richly rewarding.