Accept Your 100% Responsibility For Love – by Bill Ferguson
No matter what happens in your relationship, you have something to do with it.
We've been taught that relationships are 50/50 but they're not. Relationships are 100/100. Each person is 100% responsible for the presence or absence of love.
For example, notice what happens when someone accepts and appreciates you. You feel loved and automatically accept and appreciate that person in return. Now notice what happens when someone is judgmental and critical towards you. You get upset and become judgmental and critical in return.
However you get treated, you will respond accordingly. This makes the other person 100 % responsible for the presence or absence of love in your relationship.
At the same time, the other side of the coin is also true. How you treat the other person determines how that person will respond to you. That makes you 100 % responsible for the presence or absence of love.
Each person is 100% responsible, but we seldom look at ourselves. We only notice how the other person treats us. We can see the other person's responsibility, but we can't see our own.
When you blame someone, you may be telling the truth, but in the same breath, you are giving your power away. When you point at the other person's 100%, you are saying that you are not responsible. When you are not responsible, there is nothing you can do. You make yourself a victim and you stay stuck.
To get your power back, stop blaming and find your role in the problem. Once you see your role, you can do something about it.
To see how this works, let's look at the nature of conflict in relationships.
Relationships start out great, but it's just a matter of time until someone gets hurt. That person then puts up his or her walls of protection and either resists, attacks or withdraws. Then the other person gets upset and does the same thing in return. Then the first person gets more upset and reacts more forcefully toward the other.
Without knowing, you create a cycle of conflict, a cycle of resisting, attacking and withdrawing from each other. This cycle then goes on and on without either person ever noticing his or her role in the conflict.
To create and maintain this cycle, there must be two people participating. It is physically impossible to have a cycle of conflict with only one person. Each person is 100% responsible.
Once you discover your role in the conflict, you can do something about it. You can stop the non-accepting. You can end the cycle of conflict and restore the love.
Take a moment and look at your relationship. Find your 100 % responsibility for the loss of love. Notice how non-accepting and critical you have been. Notice how you have hurt the other person and how that person has gotten upset and given it back to you.
The other person is also fully responsible, but so what. Blaming the other person doesn't change your situation.
To have your life be as great as it can be, give up the blaming and find your role in the problem. Then take whatever action you need to handle your situation.
Be Free Of Guilt & Resentment You can be free of guilt and resentment.
Guilt and resentment are states of mind that destroy love and create suffering. They seem to be caused by what happened but they're not. They are caused by how you relate to what happened.
Fortunately, since you created them, you can also release them. Use this section to learn how.
Guilt - When you have guilt, you reinforce the feelings of being not okay. You lose your confidence and self-respect. You feel undeserving and you hold yourself back.
The key to releasing guilt is to recognize that we all go through life doing the very best we can with the extremely limited skills and awareness that we have at the time.
Unfortunately, the awareness that we have is seldom enough. As a result we make mistakes. Sometimes we make big ones.
Making mistakes is part of the human process. This is how we learn. Every time you make a mistake you learn a little more about life. You then become wiser and more aware.
Five years from now you will be much wiser than you are today, but the wisdom you will have five years from now doesn't do you any good today. This is true because today, you don't have it.
Likewise the wisdom that you have today didn't do you any good back when you made your mistake. This is true because back then, you didn't know what you know today. You only knew what you knew.
To see this in your life, go back in time to the moment you made your mistake. Notice that at the time, you had a very particular state of mind and a very particular way of seeing life. Notice that you acted totally consistent with where you were at the moment.
If you knew then what you know today, you could have acted very differently, but you didn't. Even if you thought you knew better, you didn't know the consequences like you do today.
So here is the big question: Are you willing to forgive yourself for not knowing? Are you willing to forgive yourself for not being wiser and more aware? You might as well. If you look, you did the very best you could with where you were at the time.
Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for not being wiser and more aware. Forgive yourself for acting consistent with your limited awareness and forgive yourself for the damage that you caused as a result of your not knowing.
Allow yourself to be human.
Resentment - When you have a resentment, a major part of you closes down. You become bitter and less able to express your love. You lose your aliveness and your joy for life. You put up walls of protection and you make your life more difficult.
Letting go of a resentment is not for the benefit of the other person. It's for you.
When you resent someone, you are saying very forcefully, that the other person is the problem, the cause and the fault. Not you. You forcefully blame the other person so you don't have to look at yourself.
If you looked at yourself, you would have to experience all the hurt from what happened. You would have to feel all the hurt of being not good enough, not worth loving or some other form of "not okay". To avoid this hurt, you resent.
The first step in releasing a resentment is to find this hurt. Look under the resentment and find what you really avoiding. Find the feelings of being not good enough or not worth loving that you don't want to feel. Then be willing to feel this hurt. Cry if you can.
Once you are willing to feel this hurt, the need for the resentment disappears.
The next step is to notice that the person you resent has a very particular state of mind and a very particular way of seeing life. Notice that this person has a very limited awareness and acts totally consistent with his or her limited skills and ability.
Now notice that if this person was wiser and more aware, then he or she would be able to act very differently, but the person isn't wiser and more aware. This person only has the limited awareness that he or she has.
This person is doing the very best he or she can with his or her very limited ability. Notice how much this person suffers as a result of his or her limited equipment.
Now ask yourself, Are you willing to forgive this person for not being wiser and more aware? Are you willing to forgive this person for acting consistent with his or her limited ability? Are you willing for forgive this person for the damage that was caused?
Remember that forgiveness is for you, not the other person. Forgiveness is a choice. Let go of your resentment and get on with your life.