We are not responsible for what other people think.
We are not responsible for what other people say.
We are not responsible for what other people do.
We are only responsible for what we think, say, or do.
How people respond to us is about them, not about us.
What people decide to do is about them, not about us.
How we respond and what we do is all about us, not them.
We are only responsible for our own actions.
We are only responsible for our own thoughts.
We are only responsible for how we show up in the world.
If we show up angry, mad, or sad, it is about us.
It is our choice.
If others show up angry, mad, or sad, it is about them.
It is their choice.
When we accept full responsibility for ourselves, we find freedom.
We are free from being a victim.
We are free from being manipulated.
We are free from blaming anyone else about our conditions in life.
There is always a choice.
There are always options.
We may not like the consequences of different choices.
That does not mean that they don’t exist.
If we choose to live our life to please others, then we have nothing to complain about if they do not reciprocate.
It was our choice to be that way to begin with.
It is not their responsibility to make us happy with their words or deeds.
Just as is not our responsibility to make them happy with our words or deeds.
Indeed, everyone in our life wants something different from us.
Our families want one thing, our friends another, and our bosses and co-workers something else as well.
We can not contort ourselves in enough different positions to please everyone in our lives.
We can only make one person happy.
And that is ourselves.
It is our responsibility, and our responsibility alone.
If our actions are not what someone else wants from us, it is their choice how to respond to that.
They can take it however they choose, and it is their choice.
No one can take that away from another person.
When we learn to live in that place, we find the freedom we so desperately desire.
The freedom to be ourselves.
The freedom from our concern over what others think of us.
The freedom to make our decisions based on what serves us and what what will bring us joy.
It may seem selfish to some.
Yet selfish does not have to be narcissistic or mean.
Selfish is not about taking anything away from someone else.
It is about giving to ourselves what we really need.
It is about being who and what we really are.
And as we live from this place of self-freedom and self-responsibility, we live as an example for others.
We live as a light in a world that would control us and put us down.
We live in place where are hearts are full because we value and care our hearts first.
And from a full heart we can give effortlessly.
~ Sam Liebowitz, The Conscious Consultant