Tough Love Thursday - Nobody “Makes You” Feel Anything
The words we use to describe ourselves and how we feel are incredibly powerful. This is why I invite you to be reflective of the words you habitually use.
When we say someone or something “made me feel” a certain way we’re putting ourselves in the victim role. When we say something outside of us makes us feel something we’re putting the solution outside of our control as well.
Let me be clear, external events and people’s actions can absolutely trigger our emotional response. The trigger is external, the cause is internal. It’s our thinking about the situation, our history, our choice - even if it seems like it’s a split second choice - that leads to the emotion we’re feeling.
It’s a subtle shift in language, changing from “you made me” to “when you did this, I felt X” yet repeated enough it changes our worldview, our sense of self and our agency over time. When we take responsibility for the feelings we have, we’re empowering ourselves. When we put this on someone or something else, we’re making life unnecessarily harder on ourselves.
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