What does responsibility feel like




















Over-responsibility can work for you, building trust and even currying favor. Specifically, on a rainy day, the researchers hired an actor to approach travelers in a busy train station and ask to use their cell phones.

Can I borrow your cell phone? Taking responsibility is a show of empathy. But at a certain point, over-responsibility stops working and starts getting in the way.

Looking through a completely different lens, over-responsibility is often a core symptom of OCD. For example, one of my clients felt overly responsible for potentially harming others as he drove—every bump in the road, in his mind, was a pedestrian or cyclist he had thoughtlessly run over. Where does non-diagnosable but toxic over-responsibility come from? Like many dysfunctional beliefs, it often starts in childhood. When our sense of responsibility for others is very intense, our relationship responsibility is unbalanced.

We feel over-responsible for others and equally under-responsible for ourselves. In AA language, unbalanced relationship responsibility is called codependence or enabling; in mental health language, it is reactivity, parentification, poor rigid or weak boundaries and concepts related to relationship balance are differentiation or individuation. Over- and under-responsibility are paired: across generations our parents, to each of us, to our children , across relationships between me and any other person in my life but strongest in my closest relationships , and within ourselves between the over- and under-responsible parts of yourself.

To the extent that we are over-responsible for others, we maintain our self-worth by trying to please, excel for, mediate for and, even, control or change others. We typically do this even when they want none of our efforts or they are not working to gain approval or avoid displeasure. Any hint of a move away from our over-responsible orientation toward others provokes anxiety and guilt.

We feel mean, selfish or worthless. Over-responsibility in men often takes the form of control. Since men have a lower tolerance for strong emotion, strong feelings of responsibility can lead to emotional paralysis; emotional, physical, or chemical withdrawal; or angry outbursts.

Under-responsibility in men leads to intense often negative focus on the other person especially the partner ; inattentiveness to their own emotional and relationship needs; excessive search for validation in non-relationship activities, especially work.

Over-responsibility in women leads to deferring to men; over-functioning for men in the emotional, relationship, and family spheres. We figure out what it means to take responsibility for our own choices, albeit usually the hard way. However, not so many people realize that the person responsible for their feelings is in fact themselves, no matter the circumstances.

Yes, you may have experienced aggressive behavior, harsh criticism, or neglect from another person at some point in your life. The thing is, all those situations were triggers, but the cause of every feeling was within you. The simple logic behind this assumption is: different people react differently to the same stimulus, whatever it is.

Your response to certain words, events, situations, and even phases of life is a culmination of your experience thus far; your beliefs, values, and expectations. The way you respond to an external stimulus determines the chain reaction of your subsequent feelings. If you choose to respond by taking responsibility for your own feelings, you are taking the first step in finding your way towards joy and inner peace.

Anything else will take your mind circling around the problem. It simply means that you embrace your emotions, whatever they may be, without pointing the finger at anyone else. How does it manifest in your behavior? Usually, it fits into one of the following categories:. When it comes to relationships, you express your feelings and share your thoughts with another person but the motivation is faulty. This is how you rob yourself of learning and cut down possibilities for both personal and relationship growth.

Endless scenarios of blaming other people for your feelings serve as justification for your reactive behavior towards them. Distancing, threatening, ignoring, distrusting, expecting too much, disparaging….

Notice how every response derived from blame focuses on another person instead of yourself and your own feelings. In truth, you always were. That is when you start learning that the source of true joy can come only from within. So how do you do it? How can we react to this crazy complex world, fully aware that the source of every emotion is within our care? Your spectrum of feelings is actually a guide to the life you want to live.

The key is to decide what are you going to do with that emotional information — repress feelings, act on them, or mindfully acknowledge them.



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