Kamal Tolia & Lotus Healing Seva Group

Part 4 Blame versus Responsibility

In all cases of domination, the one who is controlled starts to feel a victim. The one who controls may do it with or without realizing it. If he realizes it, he may use his power to control the victim even more.

Since the one who controls is happy with the status quo, he will not want to change it in any way. It is in the interest of the one who feels victimized to do something to change the situation. First of all, you must stop blaming the other for what is happening to you. Second, you must take responsibility for two things: that knowingly or unknowingly you have allowed the situation to become what it is and that you have the power to change it.

It is very easy to blame the people, circumstances and events for how you feel and for what has happened to you. But that is in the past. It is history. What have you done about it? Have you played along to their tune and in doing so done the same injustice to yourself as they have done to you? This is a very bad state of affairs as both the other and you are inflicting the pain on one person which is YOU!! You have become your own enemy! No wonder it is easy for others to continue treating you like dirt.

Louise Hay writes in her book The Power is Within you, ‘Blame is about giving away your power. Responsibility gives us power to make changes in our lives’

What is this power we are talking about? In simple terms it is the power to say NO when we want to say NO and the power to say YES when we want to say YES!!

This is not easy to do when we have been in the fear cycle for a long time. But it is also the only action which will release us from this cycle. Like all changed behaviours, it cannot be accomplished in a day. It has to start with a small step towards asserting yourself. Although this may sound impossible at this stage, have patience, and soon an opportunity will rise when you will be able to take a stand for yourself.

Be brave, have the faith to know that this change in attitude from you will make a difference. The daughter in law who voices her disagreement, the grown adult who quietly asserts to his parents that he is no longer a child and can think and decide on his own, the married man who starts to take independent decisions for his family, and the old parents who stand up for themselves when they quietly express their feelings about the ill treatment have one thing in common ————-  they are a huge attempt by the victims to show they are not prepared to take things lying down.

Part 3 Understanding Giving Away Power

We mentioned two weeks ago about how comfortable we feel in the status quo …… to continue allowing others to pull our strings. In spite of the poor self image it has resulted in, we even justify it. It is too much of a bother to do it otherwise. So we continue in life, unhappy being the doormat, the butt of jokes, overworked, overburdened, taken for granted, unnoticed etc. etc. ……. But unwilling or unable to do anything about it.

Because of our low self worth, we do not value who or what we are. We try to fill that emptiness inside us from the outside world. This spills into our relationships where instead of being equal partners, we become partners dependent on the other. We become afraid to do or say anything without the approval of the partner / in case the other person ‘does not like it’

Every time we make a person, a situation or event more important than us, we have given away our power. Every time we give in, regardless of our needs, feelings and opinions, and under fear of disapproval, we have given away our power again.

This giving away of power is usually a slow process, like a leak in the roof. It is small to begin with, maybe even barely noticeable at first, but usually becomes a big hole over time.

What is the answer to this problem? First, you need to be aware that your power is slowly leaking away. Second, you need to know you can plug that leak. You don’t need to learn how to fix it. You have the power and the knowledge inside you.

Not having exercised this power for years, and having no confidence in ourselves, we even doubt that such a power exists. But the truth of the matter is that because this power has been ignored by us, it does not make itself felt easily. But it lies dormant, submerged in our consciousness, ready to spring back into action once acknowledged.

Once we understand this basic truth, we will be ready to take responsibility for our own happiness. Until then we tend to blame people and circumstances for what we feel, when in truth, nobody and nothing can take away our power unless we allow them to do so.

In the school of life, one of the most important lessons we must learn is to take back our power. Then we will experience the wonder of wonders: Instead of sailing rudderless and being tossed and turned at the mercy of the ocean of existence, we will sail smoothly and purposefully. We may even be able to help others along the way! Instead of becoming products of our circumstances, we will create our circumstances, our Reality!!

Part 2 Examples of Giving Away Your Power

Sujata was struggling with depression and low self esteem. She could not concentrate on the simplest tasks like cleaning the house and shopping. She had no discipline – getting up late, not doing anything the whole day, no self control. Her mother managed her house, supervised the house help, did the shopping, even cooked for her. Initially, her mother’s intention was to help, but over a period of time, the situation made her feel superior to Sujata who she thought couldn’t do anything. She began to dominate her, telling her what to do, criticizing her, sometimes even treating her with contempt. Without realizing, Sujata had given away her power to her mother.

In a joint family, allowing others to pull your strings is a common occurrence. Although smart and talented, Praful, the youngest of three brothers, was never taken seriously in his childhood. He was considered the baby of the family. What he wore, said or did was always decided for him by his parents or brothers. This domination continued in his teens and adulthood. Now, married and a father of two, Praful finds it very difficult to oppose his ‘elders’ in all matters pertaining to their joint business, house or in decisions concerning his wife and children. No wonder there is tension between him and his wife. Praful’s brothers and parents have total control over his life.

Another example in a joint family results from constant compromising. It is often the daughter in law who is called to compromise in many situations. She may have to compromise her job, her career, her hobbies, her needs to serve the interests of the rest of the household. This compromising may go on indefinitely, until a time comes when the daughter in law has lost all ambition, and comes to believe she is not of much good anyway. She has lost her real self. She looks the same as before, but isn’t. She is only a shadow of her original vibrant self. She has lost all sense of self worth and becomes a mere puppet whose strings are available for anyone who cares to pull them.

Then there is the example of old parents living with their children. Since the parents may be retired and not bringing any income, the children think their parents feelings and needs are not important. Parents are told what they can and can’t do and cook, and other such rules. They are dominated in ways they never dreamed of by their children eg. Be the unpaid house help and cook, clean, wash, laundry and do other chores. Because they do not contribute to the family income, but do contribute to the expenses, the children feel it is ‘all right’ for them to treat their parents in this demeaning way. Such parents are very low in self esteem. They suffer silently, cursing their fate, unable to take back their power from their children.

Part 1 Giving Away Your Power

Pushpa, a 32 year old mother of two, was coming home from Nairobi Airport in a taxi. Suddenly the taxi started weaving in and out between lanes in a mad dash and she was scared. She thought that something had gone wrong with the car. So absorbed was she in her deep fear, it took her a while to realize it was the driver that was playing this dangerous game for the sheer love of it.

Who was driving dangerously? The driver of course. Why? Because she had let him do so. He had not wrenched control from her. Inadvertently she had handed over her power to him. She could have taken back her power by commanding him to stop this reckless driving, but she did not. She ‘let it go’.

What Pushpa did is what many of us do. We do not make conscious choices. We live in auto mode. This means we tend to let things be, even at the cost of losing control of our lives. We abdicate our power to others.

What is personal power? Does everbody have it? The good news is that we are born with personal power. The bad news is that as we grow up we give it away without even realizing it. Social conditioning plays a big role in this failing. Men and women are equally prone to this drawback, women in relationships and men in their career and work.

Why do we give our power away? It is to do with winning approval. Very early in life, even as babies, we learn to differentiate between approval winning behaviours and those that bring disapproval. Smiling and cooing fall in the former category while crying and yelling fall in the latter.

This necessity of trying to win approval continues in our childhood, adulthood and even old age. It becomes deeply embedded in our psyche and after sometime, we do not even recognize it as anything alien or wrong. We are comfortable when we allow others to pull our strings, and uncomfortable when we challenge this status quo. So we continue to let others rules us: how we should dress, what we should say, even what we should think! We give away our power to our parents, siblings, teachers, friends, spouses, even to religion ……

All this to win approval. The opposite of that means disapproval and we can’t handle that for we fear disapproval deeply. The longer we are in this fear cycle, the harder it becomes to break out of it.

We start to believe that winning approval is the ‘correct’ way to live. It is a foolproof plan for ‘peace’. This need for external validation becomes a serious crutch leading to a downward spiral of poor self worth. The consequences? We feel victimised in our relationships. We may even become sitting ducks for abuse of all kinds, emotional, mental and physical.