The Bigger PictureShalini SinhaOur lives only go well when we take full and complete responsibility for them - not only for our role in things that happened in the past, but also for the direction things will go in the future.
We can't make anything happen unless we take responsibility for it happening. And yet, feelings of powerlessness stop us in our lives.
There is a difference between being powerless and feeling powerless. We've all been powerless at some point our - experiences as small children interacting with adults, and any experiences of abuse regardless of our age. In these moments, we genuinely lacked access to structural power.
More often, however, people feel powerless when they actually have resources available to them. We can do something. We just don't feel we can. While this feeling needs to be acknowledged (it comes from past struggles not resolved and is genuinely not easy to overcome), it isn't true to say the person is indeed powerless. They have power. They just can't figure out how to use it.
There are other times when we feel powerless because we cannot control the behaviour of others. We cannot make them take responsibility. Nor can we make them see the impacts of their behaviour if they are unwilling to do so. This is frustrating, and indeed, discouraging. Moreover, it is painful because it means we sometimes lose relationships that matter to us.
Still, we are not completely powerless. The greatest tool I know to break down a brick wall is deep, unlimited love - a love that is not desperate to change a person but can connect with them, and also hold out a reality that things must change if we are to recover closeness. Still, for change to occur, every party involved must fully take their responsibility. If some choose not to, it hurts but our growth continues by continuing to let that love enhance us.
The ultimate display of powerlessness is the blaming and attacking others for our struggles. When we go down this road, no matter how justified we may feel, the impact is always to remove from ourselves our ability to be responsible.
We do not understand anger. We do not use it in a way that serves us. Anger is a feeling that arises from a specific situation that went wrong. In particular, it is a response to feeling powerless.
When we attack and/or blame, we are acting out and nurturing the powerlessness. I appreciate how we can feel trapped in a situation: we feel justified in the blame, often feeling it is the only means we have of getting acknowledgement for what we have been through. And yet, holding onto this perspective keeps us stuck in our lives. It distorts our perspective, interferes with our thinking and limits our options. In short, it stalls our growth.
Furthermore, blame affects our physical health. It locks us in a state of stress: we have made some other person responsible for what has happened in our lives, and in doing so, made ourselves dependent on their actions and directions. As such, our issues always remain unresolved. Because blaming others provides a reason to avoid facing what is painful for us, we are more likely to participate in self-destructive activities as a result (like over-eating, over-drinking, etc.).
People get stuck. We all get stuck from time to time - in anger, confusion and blame. The key is not to make it a permanent state but strive to move from it. We do this by being honest about what part of it we did contribute to creating - whether directly or indirectly - and so apologising, reconciling and deciding to do things differently.
We must take responsibility in every situation - even ones we didn't ask for, want or make happen. If there is genuinely no part we can reflect on in the set-up of the situation - and so, we were either a small child or caught in an incident of abuse - then it is not responsibility for creating the situation that is our focus, but responsibility for moving things forward afterwards that we must engage with. This is a mature and exceptional path that has the ability of creating real power.
Responsibility is our "ability to respond". Each response has an impact. What I am most interested in is responses that inspire growth. And so, I ask, "will your responses be ones that improve your life?"
Becoming a leader in one's own life includes taking actions that make things go well not just for yourself, but for everyone around you. This benefits you. This is the essence of community and connection, and the difference between a small life and a big one. Having a big life - in terms of our loves and our relationships - is what we're here for.
It is easier to get caught in a victim mentality than to face taking charge of our lives. It is much harder to push through our hurts, pull for closeness and aim for the reconciliation of our relationships.
It might seem the hardest thing in the world to take responsibility in a situation we feel we didn't create. Doing so, however, is what makes the difference between having a mediocre life and developing the wisdom that can create something extraordinary.
ssinha@irish-times.ie