I AM SORRY, I WAS WRONG, I DON'T KNOW, I NEED HELP

The title is a quote from a Louise Penny novel and she entitles it as "the four sayings that lead to wisdom." She includes this in her book Kingdom of the Blind as something that her main character Inspector Gamache learned when he was young. Louise Penny is a Canadian mystery writer who has won a number of awards for her writing and she frequently includes quotes such as the above in her novels.

The simplicity of the quote from Ms. Penny struck me and the importance of what I feel it communicates...taking responsibility for oneself. In my work with my patients it seems clear that taking responsibility for oneself is necessary for a happy and fulfilled life. I have found that to do this we need to be self-aware and allow for self-accceptance and self-appreciation. These qualities seem to help us to be responsible for ourselves. As one 23 year old woman once told me "of course I will take responsibility for that as it is about me and I am the only one who is me." I was thinking "easier said than done" but then as I thought about it I realized that once it is said, it is easier to do as one has the awareness that it up to them and this can lead to responsible action. 

So, how do we take responsibility for ourselves? I believe that it is by listening to others, not reacting to them, and not taking anything personally. This makes it easier to listen to ourselves as we are not distracted by reacting to others and feeling that they are responsible for what we do. Listening without our personal reactions allows us to feel closer to others [and they are more likely to feel understood by us] and also realize that we do not need to react to others but only need to be aware of what we are doing and take responsibility for our actions.

Taking responsibiity for our actions by saying: I am sorry, I was wrong, I don't know, I need help. You might be amazed at what happens if you say these things instead of worrying about what might happen, predicting negative things happening, blaming others for problems in your life and for your feeling miserable.

What do you think?

IS EMPATHY JUST LISTENING TO OTHERS WITHOUT OUR OWN REACTIONS?

I've become more and more convinced that listening to others is the best way to be connected to other people...no matter how much your belief's differ from theirs. However, for listening to actually connect us to others requires that we listen without having any reactions ourselves. If you react, you are not listening and this disconnects you from the other person. Maybe this is   one answer to the problems that are dividing people. Possibly. However, we would need to get people together so that we could listen to each other. But what does together mean? Could we liseten without reacting to what we hear on the phone, or on the internet, or on TV? Would this help us to not judge others or have to buy into the us against them way of thinking?

It is sad that lies from leaders make it harder to listen to each other as we have been brainwashed to react with anger and even hatred to others who have different views. It is clear that one way for tyrants [bullies] to have power over others is to promote an "us against them" belief system so that the tyrants can have blind loyalty from their followers. Why do I say blind loyalty. Well, when anyone has been taught to be afraid of something then all the tyrant needs to do is to trigger these fears by lying and promoting the lie that people with different views will cause terrible things to happen. Then when any of us recalls a fear from the past and still feel afraid, our brains will react instantly [in a nanosecond and that is one billionth of a second] in order to protect us by causing us to see people with different views as the enemy and as dangerous. This is not true but your brain thinks that it is true. We can let our brain's know that it does not need to protect us as there is nothing to fear. However, this requires that we choose to recall these past stresses and not feel stressed, thus demonstrating to our brain that there is really no need to be stressed.

Maybe if we can learn to listen without reacting we will discover that we do not need to be afraid of other people and we will stop allowing ourselves to be manipulated into being afraid. If we can do this, our lives would be a lot better.