Emotional Responsibility

How to know what is your responsibility, and what's not your responsibility in your relationships.

Emotional Responsibility in Relationships- Where does it start?

Relationships are difficult. I don't have to tell any one who has ever been in one that. Romantic relationships, friendships, family relationships. They're all hard. We all think we know what's the right thing to do and act and what the other person should do and act, and that our needs and wants matter more than everybody else's. It all boils down to making relationships and engaging with other people really hard.

But what makes it even harder, especially for someone who has a tendency to people please, or struggles with boundaries, is understanding the appropriate emotional responsibility that comes in relationships. So many people claim that it's on them to hold and carry the emotional weight of other people- often this is evident when someone says, "well it's my fault they're upset," or "I shouldn't have asked for what I needed," or "if I don't worry about them, bad things will happen." We often do this in relationships where there is an anxious attachment (more on this to come) or codependency that creates the sense of discorporate responsibility.

If we break it down, and if we allow ourselves to really hear what we're saying, we are essentially saying that my job is to make myself smaller because your needs (spoken or unspoken, real or not) are more important than mine. "Well, sure, I can't be selfish!"- you might be thinking. But again, think about this idea, are you fully responsible for another person's emotional experience? Is it your responsibility that their sense of contentment, happiness, joy, sadness, anxiety is all dependent on what you do or don't do? That you have the power to worry enough about someone else to make them okay? Let me break the news to you: you don't have that much power! No body does!

Emotions

Emotions are how we experience situations, people, places, things. They're the color inside the coloring sheet. They are uniquely ours. We share them with no one else, and no one can make us feel anything! Yes, people have influence over the context we find ourselves in that help sway our to feel certain things, but no one is forcing us to feel a certain type of way about a certain type of thing.

When I'm upset because somebody cut me off in traffic, it doesn't mean that person who cut me off in traffic made me upset. I became upset when that person cut me off in traffic. The responsibility of how I feel, and then what I do with those feelings, is entirely up to me. See the shift in responsibility there? When I put my emotional responsibility on somebody else, it means that I can do or react however I want because I'm not responsible- they made me feel this way.

Or turn it around- if I carry the emotional weight of someone else's emotional world, then I'm always filtering myself (actions, thoughts, words) based of how that might make someone else feel. I'm no longer allowed to be me or show up in my world how I want to, or what aligns within my values.

What about empathy?

Now empathy has nothing to do with taking on other people's emotions, and has everything to do with imaging how a person might feel. I can imagine the emotional burden of carrying for multiple children, working a full time job, having continued unresolved conflict in a marriage, while I can also recognize that's not my burden to carry. I can imagine how hard all of that would feel to carry, but it doesn't mean I have to let that emotional weight be put on my shoulders.

All About Rocks

There's an analogy I read in a book once- to be honest I can't remember which one- that discussed this issue of emotional responsibility by equating it to a bag of rocks. Each person has a backpack filled with rocks - their own traumas, anxieties, worldviews, everyday responsibility, burdens, etc. And when someone sees someone else's rock and picks it up, places it in their bag, the emotional burden of the first person's bag becomes extremely more difficult and leaves little to no room to sort through or carry their own rocks they began with. While it leaves the second person free of any responsibility to make actual changes in their live to not have the rock show up in a different form. Basically, this way of engaging with other people only leaves our bags more heavy, and continues to allow someone to live Scott free in the world creating more and more problems for themselves and other relationships.

However, if we were to recognize what is our responsibility and what is someone else's, we can acknowledge the size, shape, pain, and heaviness of someone's rock, sitting with them as we explore the rock, but not picking it up. "That's not my rock to carry." We empower a deeper sense of relational intimacy to happen, because each person is showing up in a responsible way that allows for everybody to have room. This is the making of powerful relationship that encourages growth and independence, rather than perpetual cycles that lead to codependency and toxic behaviors.

Responsibility Check

So the next time you find yourself always filtering out your behaviors, words, and actions, afraid of how someone else might react or how they might feel, maybe you're picking up rocks that aren't yours. Maybe you're taking on emotional responsibility that is only continuing patterns of mistrust and codependency, that are leading to unhealthy relationships. As long as we fill in the gaps for other people, cycles will only continue and relationships will remain unhealthy.

If this connects to patterns and behaviors that you've found yourself repeating in your relationships, and you want to find another way, I encourage you to use this link, and schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation call with me. Let's see if we can take some action steps in learning why you do this, where does it come from, and how to find freedom and healing in your relationships!