Do Yourself a Favor, Do Us All a Favor

I have been hearing, “Do me a favor,” a lot in recent times. It comes in a variety of contexts with a variety of requests. Most often, the person that is asking for the favor to be done, is asking for help. Rather than asking for help directly though, they phrase it with, “Do me a favor.”

I’ve been playing with this idea of “favors” for some time and I have come to realize that we all can do each other a favor, we all can help one another out by taking full responsibility for our shit. Yes, you read that right. It is time we all take responsibility for what we do and say, what we do not do, what we do not say, when we act, all of it. For it has everything to do with us and not the ‘other.’

Which is not what we are taught, we are taught that our current state has to do with something outside of us, something external. How often have you heard, “____ made me do it,” or “it is all _____ fault.” “Can you believe what  _____ did to me?”

It has nothing to do with them. It has nothing to do with any outside of you. It has nothing to do with any “other.” It has everything to do with you. Your choices. Your consciousness state. I has everything to do with where you are, what you have dealt with, what you have experienced. It has everything to do with this. Not anyone else. And the more we gain an understanding to this, with this, then the stronger we are.

I know this through a variety of experiences. And I know you have experienced something similar. Say you are with a group of friends, all sharing in the same experience, all doing, creating and participating in the same thing. Yet each of you walk away with your own unique perspective, view, feeling state about that experience. Even though you all were there together. That is because we experience life through our senses and they communicate directly to the nervous system and our nervous system governs our feelings which are subtler than emotion and thought. There are folks who study this and write about this and if you are interested in learning more, turn to them. I am here simply sharing my own experience, the meaning and own understandings I have come to by studying myself, my patterns and my trends.

This is arising now as I listened back to a few recordings. As you know, I record conversations with myself to gain great insight.  Today, while I was listening, I was taking out, I was removing the actual connections, emotional attachment to the people who were the ones doing and saying things and leaving the container in which it was all happening. You know what, that is how I had actual, tangible proof that how I interpret situations, experiences, moments in life has NOTHING to do with anyone outside of me.

We, meaning the collective, often talk about being triggered. I do not like to think about having a weapon in my mind, besides the one that is already there, for it is strong and destructive on its own. Rather than a weapon, I choose the visualization of being lit up, like lighting or an energetic charge that activates something within me, stimulates something within me that I know now, need to pay attention to. For it is a signal, a signal to tune in to become aware to notice. It is a signal that says, here is an opportunity to grow.

In the past this would happen and I would react by either becoming paralyzed, frozen, stunned, unable to act or wanting to run, hide or my go to numbing, to avoid it all, by not addressing it and stuffing it down and away.

Since I have established a ritual in which I record my thoughts by taking with myself, I have found many benefits. This paired with my ability to witness myself, to become aware of and notice my patterns, trends, tendencies, responses and reactions, I am really able to see myself and how I participate in creating my truth, my reality.

For so long I thought it was dependent on someone outside of me, that I was a victim, that I had no say in how things would be, would go. That I was to succumb to the external world and I would simply have to deal with what came my way. But even that was not enough for me, so I would do everything I could to control everything, every event, every detail, every moment. This, I reasoned to myself, would prevent anything from happening that I did not like or did not want to encounter.

Guess what? It doesn’t work that way. That is not how life plays out and it is exhausting to control everything. I see now how I spent so much time controlling and such little time enjoying. I read over and over in my journals, Why can’t I be happy? Why can’t I soften in and enjoy? Why can I not be in the moment?  I know now it was because of fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of the outcome. Fear of what was coming at me from around the corner. Fear of not being in control. So I did what many of us do, I tried to control.

I spent so much energy, I exerted so much energy trying to control. I say trying because one cannot control. It is not possible. There are way too many variables and possibilities to control everything. And I know now, when I seek to control, I am not in alignment and I do not trust the natural intelligence that brought me to this very moment.

Once when I was skiing, I was gaining momentum and while I knew I needed to turn and head down the mountain, I was scared. I was scared to make, to commit to making a turn. There I was, picking up speed as I traversed the mountain and saw a tree, the only tree in the whole open vast bowl that I was skiing in and chose, actually choose to crash into the tree rather than turning and heading down the mountains. Yep, I resisted the natural flow, the natural movement and gaining of momentum. I smile and chuckle now recalling a friend who was down below shouting up, “the trees always win.”

Trying to control. Attempting to control the external, arrives from a space where there is no trust, it is generated from a place where trust does not exist. For if we fully trusted, why would we seek control.  I can say this now, I can type this now, I am aware of this and I still attempt to control. There are threads of fear and control in almost all of my posts, for it is real and it has driven me for so long, it has been a go to attitude, perspective, way of being for as long as I can remember.

Now I am seeing that it is not working and really, if I am honest with myself, which is why I write in the first place, to I get past the surface level stuff and access the truth, it is exhausting. That is why I am so tired, I am tired because I am trying to control, I am seeking to control what will happen, when it will happen, how it will happen and all of this is happening because I trust only sometimes. I have not fully surrendered to trusting, to trusting that all will continue to unfold in the way it is meant to and how I respond in the very moment, will bring what is next.

See, we all have choices. We all have a choice. We have choices on how we view, perceive, interpret, understand. We have choices on how we make meaning of what is happening around us, within us. We have choices about how we act. We choose if we want to respond, if we want to react, if we close ourselves off and shut down, if we remain open and receive. We can choose to control others or we can choose to take responsibility for ourselves. That is the invitation I am offering here. To take radical responsibility for our choices. To realize and accept that we are in control of ourselves and we have choices.

That is what I can do, I can only control myself, my actions, my responses, what I do, what I say. We can do this with choices. We can access this freedom through choice. Everything else is on the outside and no matter how hard I have tried to fix, to set up the environment, to problem solve, to trouble shoot, to plan, to expect, to anticipate, it is all going to go the way it is meant to. I know this because I have spent so much energy fighting this, resisting this. It all plays out that ways it is meant to be. Why? Because each of us is on our own journey and while on this journey called life, we are presented with opportunities to grow. Life is school. These moments, these moments that light us up, they are here to show us the lessons we are here to learn, these are the invitations to grow. That is our work, to grow. When we seek to control, we are seeking to prevent these opportunities for growth from happening. We cannot do the work for someone else, that is not our role. I know, I have tried. Everyone has to figure their own stuff out, that is their journey and we each have ours. Our journeys are unique to and for us, and while they are similar, we are each meant to do our own work. Try as we might, we cannot prevent these opportunities from arising, because they are arising for a reason. Stop resisting. Stop controlling. All that is arising is a gift, all of it is a gift, even when we do not know why. Even when our mind cannot comprehend or make sense of why these things are happening to us. It’s that they are happening for us. All that is arising is an offering for me to see, to grow, to learn, to remember. And softening in to this, embracing this and really, truly knowing this will free up so much of my energy, energy that I have wasted on trying to control, to plan, to predict.

What does this look like you may ask? It is a question I am exploring too. For I know, I know firsthand, I know from experience that the greatest experiences in my life are the ones that are not planned, which is most of them. We cannot foresee the gifts that the future has in store for us, what is around the corner, what is next. We do not know. I know from experience that when I do know, when I have some context of what I might or may experience I often resist and I no longer want to do that either.

No. Rather I’d prefer to be here, now in this moment. Present. Not missing anything or letting anything pass me by.

Which brings me full circle to why I sat to write these words for us. Everything that is happening, has nothing to do with anyone other than you.

Try it. Give it a go. I invite you to think of a moment in your life when something highlighted you, when you got lit up, activated. When you noticed a different sensation in your body than the one you were feeling before the event happened. Record yourself retelling your experience of that moment, share your perspective on that moment. Then go back and listen. See if you can, while you are listening to listen from a witness stance, as an observer, notice what you are saying.  Then remove the contents, the emotional connections to, the stories you tell yourself about the participants in the experience, the folks who spoke, the folks who did or didn’t do and listen to your words from that perspective, with that lens. Notice.

Here is my go at it.

A few weeks ago, I was at a food pantry and was told that there was not more meat in the freezer. “Really?” I asked, as I walked to the freezer, opened the door and peered in. Shariq, who told me there was no more meat was standing by my side and said, “what, you do not trust me?” “No, no, I do trust you, I said, I wanted to take a look.” Yet really, everything about my actions said and showed that I did not trust.

A week later, I was standing at the refrigerator and said to Jim, there are no more eggs. “He walked behind me as I put the cardboard box into the recycling bin and opened the fridge. I laughed and thought, he didn’t trust me. I know what Shariq is talking about. I just experienced it firsthand.

Then this past week, I was cleaning up after dinner and found a Pyrex with a chip on its edge. Returning to the cabinet to get more containers to put the remainder of dinner in, my mom said, “it is not going to fit in there.” “I know,” I said with my voice elevated. I was lit up. My mind was saying, you don’t think I know that that food is going to fit in here, don’t you think I know that already? You don’t trust my decision making? Do you not think I am capable of reading the amount of food and determining which container would be best for it to fit in? “I am only trying to help,” she said deflated.

It was based on a level of trust. I can remove the actual people. I can disassociate with them on an emotional level, not getting tied in or entangled with what they were saying or how they were saying it. Rather than getting involved or attached, I can see them as key players, playing their roles in the way they are meant to, so that I can see thread arising- TRUST.

Another way to think about it is getting to the root. You can ask yourself, what is at the root of this? What is underneath this reaction? What is the cause of this response? Where is this coming from? Where is this stemming from? I find that I can ask the questions and it takes some time for the answer to appear, it does not come in that moment. As with anything that we do, it is a practice, it takes practice and commitment. As my niece says, “everyday, even on the days when it is raining and thundering.” We can always create time to practice, for this action to become a practice.

It is so easy to get sucked in to the drama, the emotional attachment and back stories that arise, that show up in these moments. It is so easy. So easy, so known, so familiar we do not even know it is happening. It is only since I have been deepening my awareness as an observer, as a witness do I see how it is all interconnected and how it all plays out. How I play a role in it. How I participate in it. We co-create life. Life is not happening to me. Life is me. My life is me, itself. No me, no life. It is that simple. And so is my role and participation in it when I observe. It gets complicated and complex once I get attached, invested, entangled. When I start to tell stories to myself, to justify, to explain, to make sense. He did ______, They said______, She is thinking_______... Especially when I feel I am being a victim, that the world is out to get me, that I am being attacked, that I am bad and that I deserve this.

No. No. No.

I have to stop it right there, because that is not true. That is not the truth.

The truth is that life can be no other way than the way that I am.

Life can be no other way than the way you are.

For life flows through us, life is us. Without us, there no life. No one else can experience our life. No one else can experience life from our perspective. Because no one is us, we are each our own individual unique expression of life and life is flowing through us in the way it is meant to for you, for me. It is not meant to be the same. Think about how dull that would be, all of this sameness? Everywhere you look, sameness. No unique expressions, no diverse expression, only the same.

The story we tell ourselves comes from our consciousness state, a combination of the feeling, emotion and thoughts that we are experiencing in that very moment. Ask yourself, do you want to live in fight, flight or freeze and spend your energy that way? Or do you want to live in a place of flow, surrender and trust?

Do yourself a favor. Do me a favor. Do us all a favor. Show up and take responsibly for yourself, your choices, your actions and your words. Stop placing blame on others and face yourself.

It is not easy work, but it is worth it. At times it is even funny.

Sit back and enjoy the ride. Or maybe I should say, get comfortable and enjoy the show, since you are the one creating it, directing it, designing and acting in it.

Doing the work myself and welcoming you to join me. Really though, who else is going to do it for us? No one, so let’s go!

Sara

After note: I took fully responsibility and shared my reflections with my mom about the container and my response, to which she shared, “Why are you wasting your time thinking about that?”