Stop Shooting the Messenger

You might have heard somebody tell you recently: “Don’t shoot the messenger”. The sentence has become kind of a catch phrase, but what does it really mean? In short, it means that you shouldn’t react. That when something is “triggering” you, upsetting you, you shouldn’t act out or lose it. This is easier said then done (as we all know!) This article will take a look at how you can stop yourself from reacting, and how you can create more peace in your life (Stop shooting the messenger). It all has to do with your response-ability It all has to do with your response-ability. Generally, when you hear the word responsibility, you probably think it means a heavy burden, doing things right, the way society expects you to act, etc. This is not what I am referring to. When looking at the word response-ability itself, you can notice that it simply means that you are able to respond. Response-Ability, meaning your ability to respond. You are probably asking, “Respond to what?” That ‘s a very good question. The answer is: Responding to life. Let’s explore more deeply what it means to be able to respond. For example, does it mean you are able to respond, or answer, a question when asked? You might think so, if you take the word literally. However, that’s not what I mean. What I do mean is that you are able to be non-reactive when something or somebody comes towards you, when things seem to “just happen” to you. As long as you are trapped by feelings of unworthiness due to early sexual trauma, your life may feel like it is “just” happening to you. Your boyfriend “just” treats you bad. Your friends are “just” unreliable. Your family “just” doesn’t care. What ever it might be, it seems that others are the ones that are causing a lot of pain for you. This state of mind I call “victim mentality”. You feel like a victim, because you have been a victim early on, and that’s just how you know life. You probably have heard it said that you are the creator of your own life, your own circumstances. Yet it may seem like a foreign concept to you, otherwise why would you voluntarily attract so much shit to yourselves if it were true? Nobody would want that right? Nevertheless, I am daring to say you do. If this doesn’t apply to you, please forgive me for thinking it does. Certainly, I find that it sometimes still applies to me. Being in victim mentality is a sign that you are not yet able to be response-able to life. You are unable to respond to life other then as a victim. I know I am being a little blunt here, but “sugar coating” will not help you. I needed somebody to be blunt with me, because all I was doing was thinking “poor me” all the time. The problem is that this “poor me” thinking creates new drama, trauma and unhappiness. I think you know what I am talking about. Response–ability means that you are able to pause, reflect and get clear on what’s best for you and for everybody involved. Being response-able means that you are able to make a choice out of love, rather then out of fear or old programming. It means you are able to stop the drama. In other words, when you are reactive your heart is closing down. When your heart is closed down, you can’t feel love. A closed heart causes you to do unloving things. Then, guess what? Other people do unloving things back. If you react a lot, you are in a state of closed heart a lot. This is the pain that you are feeling right now. That is the cause for your lack of feeling love and intimacy. Chances are if it hurts you, it hurts somebody else, too. So in order for you to experience more love and intimacy, the main thing you need to do is to open your heart, and keep it open. I know this might sound not very “psychological”. It might seem too simple and spiritual to you. But it is the truth. I am giving you the key here. In order for you to experience true love and intimacy, and to have the relationship you say you want, you need to keep you heart open. Always. In order to start to open your heart, you need to realize that it is you who is closing it down. It is your own commitment to growing your ability to respond that will allow you to open our heart. You need to realize that you are really the one that’s closing it, and that you are the one that can learn to open it, and to respond to life. I know that keeping your heart open at all times is far easier said then done. Only saints and angels can do it all the time. If it was so easy, you wouldn’t need to read about it, nor would you need to continually practice, practice and practice it some more. Let me give you a scenario of reactive versus responsive. It’s one plucked right out of real life, so it’s not just theoretical. Say you are having a conflict with your lover, perhaps you have to work all week and only have time to see him on Saturday. You want him to commit. You want him to promise to spend Saturday with you. Meanwhile he might have had prior plans and can’t commit right away. Now you get angry, probably out of fear or a feeling of him not loving you. You think that if you were his first priority, he would cancel everything and just commit. Because of your history, you feel neglected, you feel like you are not important, that he doesn’t love you. Maybe he’s just in it for the sex, anyway. The two of you get into a fight, then he leaves because he doesn’t want to deal with you. Now you are very upset. Your first impulse is to blame him for how you are feeling, maybe call him an asshole (I know, I have done it many times). Then, to make you feel better, you do something to make you feel better. Maybe you go out and buy an expensive handbag. Maybe you light a cigarette, pour a drink or stuff yourself with food. When you do this, you are not in control of your emotions. Something else seems to be controlling you, or at least that’s how it feels. The above scenario is one where you are in a reactive state. You are unable to respond appropriately to the situation. Your wounds have been triggered, and you don’t now how to stop the pain, other then fighting against it. You are not able to respond. Even worse, your inability to respond appropriately creates drama and, in extreme cases, new trauma. It’s a vicious cycle. If you were able to respond, as opposed to react, you would notice that, because he is not immediately committing, something inside you gets “triggered. This causes you to get angry. But if you respond rather than react, you would contain yourself, rather than trying to hurt him. You let the feeling take its course and you get to the truth of the matter. Then, once your emotions have calmed down, you ask yourself what Love would say, do or be in that moment. It might sound something like this: “I understand that you can’t let your friends down. What I want is to spend time with you, because I love you. When you don’t commit, it feels to me like you don’t love me. I know that is not the case. I am insecure about love. When I get insecure about your love for me, I close down. Then, I don’t feel any love at all. I become angry with you for causing me pain, though I know you are not the cause of my pain. My old wounds are the cause of my pain. You are serving as mirror to point them out. By pointing them out unconsciously through your manifestations, I get the chance to become aware and to heal. Thank you for being willing to be in relationship with me, and to help me heal.” Your ability to respond, as illustrated above, would have created connection, rather then separation, between you and your man. Your love would feel attracted by your loving, and most likely do everything possible to be with you on Saturday, just to be in your sweet love. Am I right? By responding rather than reacting, you probably would have gotten just what you wanted. You would have had an experience of love between the two of you. You would not have gotten angry at him, and it would not have set up the chain of events that occurred once you became angry. But not getting angry when your man happens to trigger an old wound is not so easy. It’s the hardest thing to do in love. Yet that’s the work that is required to make love last. It’s not something that you can do with your will power. I am sure you have tried that many times. You have promised to yourself to be nice and understanding, and then suddenly, he does something that hurts you so much that you are at his throat again. Do you get what I mean when I say that, in order for you to experience true love and intimacy, it is necessary to learn to respond rather then react? Most of what you can learn from me will focus on becoming aware of, and integrating, the stuff that makes you react. This will help to enable you to respond, and to make choices out of love, conscious choices rather than reactive ones. This is where your true freedom lies. The following exercise will help you to get the concept of response-ability. It will take it out of the conceptual realm and put it into your own experience. By doing this, you will make it real and true for you. Exercise Throughout your day, pay attention to the moments you react. In the evening, write in your journal about your experience. In doing this, you’ll be able to see how reactive you are by the number of times you reacted throughout your day. If you found yourself screaming and yelling all day, you know you’ve got your work cut out for you. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Just by becoming aware of the reality that you are reacting, you are starting to heal. Awareness is the first step in healing. If you want to meet me live, come and join me on my free Tele-Class: “Healing Early Sexual Trauma: Three Simple Secrets to Shame-free and Open-Hearted Loving.“