Lesson 2

I Am Responsible for Myself.

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Lesson 2

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Do you consider yourself responsible? When you do something, do you see yourself as the actor or chooser in the moment? When you think something, do you acknowledge yourself as the source of those thoughts? When you notice your emotions, do you experience yourself as the holder of the feelings? 

Lesson 2 is about you, your awareness of your self, and once aware, your willingness to accept responsibility for your thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Although most of us would want to see ourselves as responsible adults, the resolve to hold oneself accountable for our experience and our behaviour seems an early casualty of troubled relationships. We tend to want to put the blame elsewhere when things are not the way we want them to be for ourselves, when our experience of our relationship is not what we expect or want. When people call in for counselling, they say more often that the problem is with " so and so", not "I am having a problem in my relationship because I am not offering my partner complete honesty."

In this lesson you will get to know yourself: thoughts, feelings and behaviour. Although it seems oversimplified and obvious that to create a satisfying relationship, one needs to know oneself, the countless couples that have presented themselves to me for counselling demonstrate very little self awareness. When self awareness is absent, people tend to blame their partner for their unhappiness with the relationship. 

Let's begin with a look at thinking.