The majority of us are aware of the fact that being under stress over prolonged periods can be quite detrimental to our health. Many of us will know of someone who has suffered a heart attack or suffers with panic bought about by anxiety which are all symptoms of stress, as well as a multitude of other health issues. However, even though we're aware of how dangerous to our health stress can actually be, we still appear to embrace it as though we can't live without huge amounts of it in our lives. To 'Be Responsible' is what I consider to be the first step in reducing our stress levels. Not only that but I believe that being responsible is also the first step to overcoming all past issues.
Writing this in words gives the appearance that I make it sound so easy, however my belief is quite the opposite. What we are responsible for is how we felt at that time and how we chose to deal with the situation. To suddenly accept that you are responsible for how you dealt with all of the misfortunate events from your past and upto your present is an extremely bitter pill to swallow, and the reason why is because of the amount of emphasis that we give to the problem being down to someone or something else. I must clarify at this point that most unfortunate events could not happen in our lives had we not made the decision to be in the situation in the first place, regardless of what it is we're confronted with. However some unfortunate events like loss of a relative or loved one through death, though we have no control over the event we do have control over how we feel about it. The act of giving responsibility itself is like a form of self-hypnosis and I'll use relationships as an example: more often than not many of us enter a relationship because we need someone to make us feel better about ourselves, so we submit the responsibility to the next good thing to come along. Whether it's just someone to have around, a compliment for the way we dress or the things we do, a cuddle when we feel down or if it's someone to listen to the misfortunes we've experienced in our day, we build our relationships based on what we can get from them as opposed to what we can give.
The problem arises when we feel we are no longer getting what we want from our relationships and this is the point at which being responsible is clearly on the back seat. It's highly unlikely that when we feel let down by our relationships, we are looking at our own actions, more likely looking at our partners. Because we place so much emphasis on what we're getting, the moment we believe we're not getting, which more often than not is not getting enough rather than not getting at all, we begin to look for reasons to support our belief of not getting which often materialises as fault finding and nit-picking. Before we know it we're engaging in full blown rows with our partners or not speaking at all which can last for hours, even days, without even considering the amount of stress we're surrounding ourselves with and the fact that it could all be over in a flash had we been able to take responsibility for ourselves and the situation.
I refer to self-hypnosis because we kind of hypnotise ourselves to only see them as the problem and ultimately them as the solution. With this self-hypnosis comes the inability to see ourselves as the problem. The bottom line is if someone does something that we don't like then it's not a matter of them doing it wrong, more a matter of it not being to our liking. At this point we should think about our own actions with regard to what we must do to re-dress the balance and make ourselves feel better in that moment. What we often tend to do is attempt to make our partners recognise the fact that we're not happy and it's them that must do something to change that. In reality I don't think that many of us deep down want to believe that we are doing anything wrong and the act of self-hypnosis leads us to believe that everything we do is right, therefore there is no need to look at our own actions.
Many of us will have seen people getting hypnotised at functions or shows and the effects of the hypnosis is the subject being unable to carry out certain obvious tasks or they do things they believe to be normal, when the rest of us can clearly see that they are not. In reality the hypnotist is just a guide and the subjects actually hypnotise themselves. Taking this into account, the idea of hypnotising ourselves to not see our own actions seems more than just a possibility, and to suddenly have the ability to look at our own actions with a view of taking responsibility requires a lot of will power.
To take responsibility is not to take the blame for the failing relationship but to take responsibility for how we feel about it. If we take this on board then we realise the last thing we want to do is assist in creating an environment that increases stress levels and instead try to reduce them. This is something we have complete control over if we choose it, whereas giving someone else the responsibility means we have no control and if we have no control then we are at their mercy. Now we begin to see how unresolved issues of the past become a burden on our minds. We carry the burden in the hope that who or whatever we hold responsible will eventually free us from our load and make us feel better. To decide to take responsibility is the first step and taking responsibility gives our lives a whole new perspective. Since we've hypnotised ourselves to not take responsibility, then we must de-hypnotise ourselves by restoring the belief that we are responsible. When we begin to believe and see that we are responsible we naturally begin to put steps into place to ensure that we only get the best for ourselves secondly, though firstly we must try to give the best of ourselves because in truth, how many of us believe we should be getting the best if we're incapable of giving it?
On the other hand, if we find ourselves on the receiving end and are being blamed for problems arising, knowing that we are responsible is to know that we have a choice whether to feel angry or not. Getting angry is another way of saying "It's not my fault. I don't have to stand for this!", which is the beginning of the fall-out and the point that both people in the relationship begin airing their stresses, each expecting the other to relieve them from their stress. When the arguments begin, each person in the relationship has made the decision to be stressed rather than to relieve it.
When we take responsibility as being the first major step towards reducing stress levels, each time we have a thought of past events that we'd previously relinquished responsibility of, we begin attaching the thought that we are responsible for how we felt and in knowing this, the burden begins to get lighter and we begin to think of the past as less of an issue. I believe the most important thing we must learn from our past is how we felt emotionally about events followed by how we chose to deal with them. In remembering how we felt, we then recognise the situations that surround our present and set about trying to resolve issues that increase stress levels as quickly as possible, simply by being aware of how we felt about them in the past.
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