S2 EP316 – What Emotional Responsibility Really Means

Hi everyone! Welcome back to the Inner Bonding Podcast. I’m Dr. Margaret Paul and today’s episode is about emotional responsibility and what that really means. At the end I’ll be sharing how you can learn more about how to take emotional responsibility.

This is a phrase that gets used a lot – especially in personal growth and spiritual circles – but it’s often misunderstood. Some people hear “emotional responsibility” and think of a burden. Others think it means never having needs or never being upset or never being triggered or being affected by others. Some of my clients believe that it means being able to handle everything alone. Other think it means blaming themselves for everything, or minimizing their feelings, or taking responsibility for other people’s feelings. Many people resist emotional responsibility because they believe it’s too hard and they can’t do it.

None of that is emotional responsibility.

In fact, many of these interpretations lead to self-abandonment, not to the emotional responsibility of loving your beautiful soul, your inner child, which is a powerful source of inner guidance.

Let’s start by clearing away some of the confusion and talk about what emotional responsibility is not.

Emotional responsibility does NOT mean ignoring or suppressing your feelings or pretending you’re fine when you’re not. It doesn’t mean disconnecting from your body so that you don’t feel your feelings. It doesn’t mean numbing your feelings with various addictions or blaming others for your feelings. It doesn’t mean never feeling hurt or reactive. It doesn’t mean being able to handle everything yourself and never needing others’ help and support. 

Emotional responsibility does not mean that everything is your fault, or that there is something wrong with your feelings, or that you need to fix yourself.

That kind of thinking comes from the wounded self – the part of us that may have learned early on to take too much responsibility for others in order to try to feel safe, loved, or accepted, or learned to avoid or judge your feelings, or learned to blame others or circumstances for your feelings.

Were you taught that if you’re upset, something is wrong with you? Or
 if someone is upset, it’s your fault? Or if you feel hurt, you’re being too sensitive? I was taught all these false beliefs as I was growing up. I was supposed to be invisible regarding my feelings, and my mothers’ feelings were my fault, which she let me know about with her judgmental, blaming anger. I wasn’t at all valued for being a highly sensitive person.

These messages distort emotional responsibility and turn it into shame, which I felt until I started to practice Inner Bonding. True emotional responsibility has nothing to do with feeling shame.
 
 Many people avoid emotional responsibility because they confuse it with ending up alone. They fear that if they take responsibility for their feelings and learn to take loving care of themselves, they will discover that the people they thought loved them, really don’t, and won’t support them or will even judge them for learning to love themselves.

This actually was my experience when I learned Inner Bonding and started to take loving care of myself rather than take responsibility for others’ feelings while abandoning myself. While it was very painful to discover that the people closest to me wanted me to continue to caretake them and continue to self-abandon, in reclaiming myself, I become much happier and much healthier and my work greatly improved.

While other people can absolutely hurt us, emotional responsibility means recognizing that our inner experience is ours to tend to – not something to hand over to someone else. It’s our responsibility to become a loving mom and dad to our own inner child, and a big part of what this means is taking responsibility for our feelings.

When we don’t take emotional responsibility, we may get angry and blaming or compliant as forms of control. We may feel needy and dependent and powerless. We may become stuck in resentment and bitterness.

Avoiding emotional responsibility doesn’t protect us from pain – it keeps us trapped.

So what does it actually mean to take emotional responsibility?  It means staying present in your body so that you are aware of your feelings and wanting to learn what they are telling you. All of our feelings have vital information for us, such as letting us know if we are loving ourselves or abandoning ourselves, and whether we are operating from false beliefs, and whether others are open and caring or closed, lying, or dangerous.

It means compassionately opening to learning about what your feelings are telling you. It means dialoguing with your feelings – your inner child and your ego wounded self, to learn about what you are telling yourself or how you are treating yourself that might be causing your wounded feeling such as anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, anger, alone, empty, jealous, envious, resentful, or bitter.

It means opening to the existential painful feelings of life – the feelings caused by others and situations – such as loneliness, heartbreak, grief, sorrow, and helplessness over others and outcomes, and compassionately holding these feelings so that your inner child isn’t alone with these very painful feelings. It means connecting with a higher source of love and comfort to help you with these feelings and reaching out to others for comfort and support when these feelings are too hard to manage alone. Emotional responsibility is not about doing everything alone – it’s about staying connected to yourself while receiving support.

All this means that day by day you learn and practice Inner Bonding to develop your compassionate loving adult so that you can learn from and lovingly manage all or your feelings – the wounded ones you cause, and the feelings caused by others and by life.

Before we move into the next point, this is exactly why I created my Love Yourself course, which is a powerful way to learn Inner Bonding. If you’re looking to become an emotionally responsible loving adult, this is something I walk you through step by step in this 30-Day course. You can learn more about it in the description below.

Sometime there is confusion between responsibility and self-blame.

Self-blame is harsh and says “This is my fault because I’m not good enough. I’m broken. I can’t do anything right. There’s something really wrong with me.”

Responsibility is compassionate and says, “I can learn from all of my feelings and experiences, so that I do what I came to this planet to do, which is to evolve in my ability to love and express my gifts on the planet.”

Self-blame comes from fear while responsibility comes from love.

When something painful happens, such as someone being mean or rejecting you, it’s important to help your inner child not take others’ behavior personally. Their behavior is about them, not you. If you don’t take it personally, then your feelings won’t be hurt, but your heart will feel hurt, because it always hurts our heart when others are unloving. So emotional responsibility sounds like “Yes, that hurt our heart, and I’m here for you (your inner child who is the feeling part of you) and I will stay with you until your heart hurt moves through us. I’m here. You are not alone with this hurt.”

Painful events, such as the loss of a loved one, loss of financial security, or loss of face, cause the existential feelings of loneliness, grief, heartbreak, sorrow, and helplessness over others and events. Emotional responsibility means being very present and compassionate with these feelings, so they don’t get stuck in your body and cause illness, rather than trying to avoid them with various addictions.

You can hold others accountable and take emotional responsibility at the same time. These are not opposites.

Emotional responsibility is most important in creating loving relationships. Emotional responsibility in relationships means staying open to learning with your own feelings and with your partner, and using challenging situations between you to learn rather than resort to self-abandoning controlling behavior, such as

• Being needy and expecting your partner to fix your feelings
• Blaming them for your pain
• Withdrawing or punishing when you’re upset
• Exploding instead of being open to learning
• Avoiding difficult conversations
• Giving yourself up to try to keep the peace

Opening to learning with your partner means that you know that both you and your partner have good reasons for your feelings and behavior, which are your fears and false beliefs, and you use your conflicts to learn more about the false beliefs of your ego wounded selves. Being open to learning with each other is what creates intimacy rather than the distance caused by overt and covert controlling behavior.

Being open to learning creates safety for both you and for the other person. When both people take emotional responsibility, relationships become places of growth rather than battlegrounds.

From an Inner Bonding perspective, emotional responsibility means something very specific: It means you do not abandon your inner child.

Your feelings are the voice of your inner child. When you ignore, judge, suppress, or externalize them, you abandon that part of you. Your inner child doesn’t need to be fixed. He or she needs to be treated as you would treat a young child who you dearly love. When you show up for your feelings instead of avoiding or outsourcing them, your inner child begins to trust you. And trust creates healing and emotional freedom, because when you take emotional responsibility, you feel empowered instead of helpless. You stop waiting for others to change. You stop being controlled by the reactions of your ego wounded self. You feel safer and more grounded inside yourself. You gain clarity, you are more authentic and compassionate, you feel more peaceful, and you become more capable of real intimacy. And you no longer give your power away to circumstances or people.

If today’s episode resonated with you and you’re ready to learn to be emotionally responsible, I invite you to check out my 30-Day online Love Yourself course. It’s designed for anyone who wants to learn to develop their personally responsible loving adult and gives you deep clarity about being emotionally responsible. You’ll find the link in the description.

Thank you for joining me today., and I’ll see you in the next episode. 

I’m sending you my love and blessings on your inner journey.