The Findings - #12 We’ve trained to look outside of ourselves.

We actually believe that people and things are our source. We’ve come to believe that it’s someone else’s job to satisfy our needs and that always leads to disappointment because it’s built on a false premise that your source is external. For too long we’ve believed that the outer world creates the inner world so we need people to be a certain way and say certain things to make us feel certain ways.

I have actually believed that people make me feel different emotions, and if only they would say something else or if only they had done something else, then I would feel differently. That has failed pretty consistently throughout the majority of my adult life. It’s called control; it’s called manipulation; it’s called insanity. But this is what we do! We believe people are causing our inner world, our emotions, how we feel. We believe that they need to change before we do. I’ve finally realized – nope – I’m responsible. It’s going on inside me, it’s mine to own and work with. As the great Reverend Rainbow Johnson said  a long time ago, “I may have pressed my buttons, but you didn’t install them.”  I’ve never forgotten that saying. It’s a good one to remember.

 

From the book, "The Confusion Experiment."