Sonya: I’m just popping this on here cause this has kinda been an ongoing issue that pops up for me quite often and I’m getting sick of it It’s gonna look a bit mental but it’s just word vomit I am trying to make sense of so any help would be appreciated
11/07/25 – Got upset because I FELT (feeling not fact) Kuba was blaming me for not being able to take jobs on the weekend (…)
(…) He changed his mind/ job requests came in – nothing I can do about it/ I did what I could so he could decide what he wanted to do on Friday… so why do I feel blame? –
Hi Sonya,
What you report is quite a complex situation for you. Hence it might be useful to peel it like an onion.
First you report there are the feelings of upset and then blame.
Have you noticed how these are almost always come one right after the other, almost indistinguishable from each other. But they are two different feeling. You felt upset because your plans/ expectations were disrupted and then you find someone to blame for the ‘damage’ done.
This is the usual automatic instinctive response (so don’t blame yourself), but with diligent and fascinated attentiveness to how you experience yourself each moment you can separate them out.
Then, still feeling bad, you endeavour to fix the problem but whatever you do does not help you feeling good. Hence, at this point it would be best to first get back to feeling good yourself while it’s still emerging before complicating it further with reactive action.
Sonja: Responsible for how he is feeling? I feel he is now annoyed so now I am no longer happy (because I feel we are connected?) I feel responsible, have a thing about being in trouble/ told off. Authority as well maybe?
You talked about this before, that because you like to “feel connected” you therefore “feel responsible for how he is feeling” and you try to make him happy. Yet by focussing on making the other happy you overlook/ ignore how you feel.
Also, you don’t know for a fact if he needs help – it is simply an automatic feeling response. Because you feel bad you infer that he is “annoyed” and respond accordingly. He could well have been “annoyed” but then that is first and foremost his own responsibility.
Sonya: I feel responsible, have a thing about being in trouble/ told off. Authority as well maybe?
I only listed the sequence of events so you can look out for the smaller triggers and in future avert the (so far) inevitable conclusion (“I feel responsible”). It’s a habitual response and you have already found one cause – you want to be responsible because it gives you a connection – it is also possibly that it is an old survival technique acquired when you needed it. But when you get a chance to sort out facts from feelings you might find that it’s no longer needed for your survival but more likely a habit which you can question and replace with something better – a naïve intimacy perhaps?
Sonja: This is similar to Ian’s post in some ways but I can’t quite get to seeing the belief for what it is. (link)
What Ian did and reported a few times, he recognized that nobody else is responsible for how he feels. Taking back this authority to choose which feeling he wants to be (as in I am my feelings and my feelings are me) he can then look at his beliefs if they serve him to enjoy and appreciate this moment. Viz.:
Ian: So I was just contemplating further what was holding this feeling… examining the belief in being a good employee, which has roots in being a good boy, which I had realised not only is rooted in fear of punishment but also in desire for reward, whether that is popularity or praise or both, and also somewhat in nurture… my loving nature wanting those I loved to feel good and not be upset or disappointed… I feel responsible for their happiness and wellbeing… I seek to be harmless but actually cause myself harm… (link)
If you exchange “being a good employee” for “being a good wife” then you can perhaps acknowledge/ recognize that you make both the rules for the “good wife” and then enforce those rules on both you and him and recognize that those rules are “rooted in fear of punishment but also in desire for reward, whether that is popularity or praise or both”.
See if that makes sense for you.
Cheers Vineeto