Emotional Discernment - Watch how you speak
Emotional Discernment - Watch how you speak
“When we make statements like: “I am angry.”; “I’m very hurt”; etc.; we are stating that the feeling is who we are. The feeling is not who we are. Emotions are a vital component of our being but they do not define us. It is important to start seeing emotions as a part of us so that we can start taking responsibility for them instead of being the victim of our own feelings. We also need to stop blaming our feelings on another person: “You make me angry.”; “You hurt me.”; etc. When we make these kind of statement we are saying that the other person is totally responsible for our feelings - we are blaming from a victim perspective.” “Perhaps you told me you were going to call me, and I feel I have a self righteous reason to be hurt by your behavior. What I need to look at then, is rather this is a pattern of behavior for you. Is this something you have done before. If you have a pattern of behavior that causes you to be irresponsible in following through on promises that you have made - then I need to look at my responsibility in choosing to believe you when you make a promise. The definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results - would then apply to my expectations, which are my responsibility.”
This is the sixth in a series of articles focused on how to apply the Serenity Prayer in our lives by having the wisdom and discernment to recognize the things we do have the power to change.
Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls by Robert Burney is copyright 1995. Material on Joy2MeU web site (except where otherwise noted) is copyright 1996 thru 2015 by Robert Burney PO Box 98 Fallbrook CA 92088.
Emotional Discernment - Watch how you speak was originally published online on the Inner Child/Codependency Recovery page that I used to edit for Suite101.com Directory on November 24, 2002. There is a list of - and links to - other articles recently published on that Directory on my Suite101 Articles page.
Originally published at https://joy2meu.com/power_words.htm