Author: Regina Cates

Today I raised my voice in conversation with a young man who would not stop talking long enough for me to speak. I was attempting to change an airline reservation and he repeated the same things over and over without once allowing me to finish a sentence. He kept interrupting, did not answer any of my questions, and then tried to overcharge me for the reservation change.

I listened attentively each time he spoke. I waited patiently for an opening. Yet without fail each time I began to speak he interrupted me. This went on for 15 minutes. Finally I said in a strong voice, “Sir, I certainly am glad our conversation is being recorded because when dealing with the public you need to learn to listen so you can help your customers. I also sincerely hope you still have a job after we are done.” I am certain he did not hear me say this either since he was still talking over me.

There are moments when we must assert ourselves. However, on those occasions when it becomes necessary to firmly set boundaries with those who are rude and uncooperative our goal is to still remain kind and courteous. So, I was very polite when I said, “Sir, I am hanging up now.”

For a long time I believed I was stuck with the choices I made. No matter how bad the mistreatment I just couldn’t leave the person I’d promised to stay with. Yet one day I realized that remaining loyal to someone who thought it was okay to hurt the one they said they loved was actually allowing myself to be abused. I did not create a better life by thinking I was stuck. In fact, the resentment and anger I felt was growing bigger with each passing day. That is when I chose to let go, to leave, to release us both from the constant arguments, blame, and disappointment.

You are not stuck with the decisions you make. You are stuck with the responsibility to be honest with yourself about the reality of your current situation. You also are stuck with an obligation to yourself to learn as much as you can from the choices you’ve made that you now wish were different.

You are not stuck to any situation where mistreatment or abuse is happening. No, it is not easy to make a change. But thinking you are stuck with the choices you make is a guarantee that things will indeed stay the same.

Frequently I receive emails and messages from people who tell me they are in love with someone who is abusing them or having an affair with someone else or who has left them for another. They are desperate, lonely, feeling lost and betrayed.  While my heart longs to reach out and wrap my arms around each and every one of these people I also want to sit them down in the corner and have a serious and honest chat.

Behavior, not words, is the true indicator of who someone really is.  Abuse is not love. Dishonesty is not love. Betrayal, control, lies are not love. We feel miserable when these things happen to us. Not so much because the other person does them but because WE BETRAYED ourselves by continuing to allow it to happen when we have known that something is not right.  We do not just wake up one day to another person’s negative behavior.  We have been aware of it, and have betrayed ourselves by either choosing to ignore it because they say they love us, or because we love them, or we think they will change, or by expecting them to take care of us emotionally, physically or financially, or for whatever excuse we accept in the moment.

Our healing starts when we honestly admit to ourselves that love does not abuse, or use, or disrespect, or cheat, or lie, or say one thing and do another.  Once we are honest with ourselves we begin finding the self-love, self-respect, and self-reliance necessary to change ourselves.  We find the courage to stop clinging to a fantasy of what we think should be and wrap our arms around the reality of what is. Truly accepting what is allows us to bravely act in our best interest.

Today while walking from the bus to the gym a young man of about 25 crashed his bicycle right in front of me. I heard him riding up from behind. I also heard him hit a tall table from one of the food trucks someone had put too close to the sidewalk.

He was laying on the sidewalk completely entangled in his bike when I got to him. I put my hand on his shoulder and asked if he was hurt. “No, I’m fine,” he replied while holding his knee. From the look on his face I knew he was going to be sore. “Are you sure nothing is broken,” I asked again.  “No, just my pride,” he said with a smile.

As I helped him up he leaned on me to keep his balance. Once he was completely untangled from his bike he said, “Thank you for stopping to help me. It was very kind of you.” “You are welcome,” I replied still resting my hand on his shoulder because I wanted him to feel he was not alone, that someone cared.

As he got back on his bike he thanked me again and slowly rode away.  I was grateful to be there to help. Maybe one day someone will find me sprawled out on a city sidewalk. If that ever happens, it sure will feel good to have someone stop and help. It will feel good to know I am not alone, that someone cares.

Today I woke up from a dream where I was telling myself, “Stop saying it is going to be so hard!” WOW! I immediately felt like a mental block had been shattered.

For several weeks I’ve felt overwhelmed thinking that exercising is becoming too hard, that I am getting too old, and just don’t have the energy. I’ve been telling myself that accomplishing the ever-growing list of to-do items and successfully juggling all of my responsibilities is going to be too hard.  I hated feeling so powerless. So I am grateful for such an empowering dream.

I went to the gym and kicked my own butt. I also made steady progress on the to-do list and managed to juggle my responsibilities just fine today.

It never ceases to amaze me how negative thinking can limit me. And, how changing those negative limiting thoughts can turn me right around to positive and powerful again.

We so rock when we continuously work to master a mind with a mind of its own.

RYS 045: Be the Little Engine That Can (podcast) http://romancingyoursoul.com/rys-045/

You Are Not Alone! When you Believe in Yourself you are Unstoppable. [Video]

I have a bone to pick with people who pass the buck to God for their lack of personal responsibility. This happened recently when a relative of the five year old boy who shot and killed his two year old sister with the gun his parent’s bought him for his birthday said, “It’s God’s will.”

Growing up in the Bible belt I heard this rationalization countless times; like when a young man in town with a history of alcohol abuse once again drove drunk and killed a car load of innocent people. To me passing the buck for the bad choices we make and the thoughtless actions we take is a cop out. It’s not a loving God’s will that so many lives are negatively impacted because a five year old child was given a deadly weapon or a young man selfishly did not prevent himself from endangering others.

The God of my belief gave me the power of choice. That means God wants me to be responsible for thinking before I act, for caring how my behavior will impact me and someone else, and for accepting personal responsibility for when the choices I make go wrong. One of those is anticipating how giving a child a deadly weapon is going to turn out well.

The idea that some negative situation – slavery, hunger, violence, abuse, lack of clean water, pollution, political and financial corruption, a swirling mass of plastic trash in the Pacific Ocean – is someone else’s problem is a great lie of ego.  Ego sees itself as separate so ego creates endless rationalizations why so many negative things within the world are‘the responsibility of someone else.

The truth is that legislative efforts to effect change pale in comparison to the collective power of responsible human beings taking countless numbers of individual actions. That means you are I are the answer. It is the mindful, positive daily actions we take that are changing the world for the better.