Author: Dawn

On Taking Responsibility

On Taking Responsibility

Posted on by Dawn

We all know what it means to be responsible. It’s something we try to teach our children so that they clean up after themselves, take care of their possessions and ultimately learn to be good adults someday. But there are other aspects of responsibility that require a little more finesse and awareness.

Take for instance, you’ve found yourself complaining to your spouse about a mess someone left behind (which is a pet peeve of mine. Don’t leave messes for other people to clean up!) and you cast blame on him or perhaps one of your children. As parents, sometimes we just ‘assume’ certain individuals have done things because of past experience with them. But if you were to have blamed the wrong person and had gotten in their face about it, do you take responsibility for your mistake and go apologize? When I’ve been wrongly accused, I remember in certain situations how it stung even as the truth came out and no one sought to make amends. What if you let a co-worker take the blame and an admonishment for something that you did? Would you confess to the co-worker or your manager?

These types of minor injustices can be embarrassing to take responsibility for. You might even think, in the case of having wronged a child, it would make you look weak to apologize to them. But if we don’t do our part to make amends and be responsible adults in these little things, we allow others to begin to harbour resentment against us. In the case of not apologizing to your child, you give them a strong example to follow. One that won’t serve them well in the future. You might want to put the onus on the injured party and say, well that person just needs to forgive me, that’s on them. And to some degree that is true. But if you know you did wrong , or you stood by and let somebody else do wrong because of your inaction, well, that’s really on you, isn’t it?

Trust me, humble pie doesn’t taste as bad as you think it will. And that feeling of relief and reconnection is worth the little bit of embarrassment or humility it might take to set things right.

It’s too easy in our current culture to blame everyone but ourselves. Just like we’ve learned to be responsible for our bills, our possessions and our children, let’s learn to be responsible with our words and actions as well. You’ll be a better person for it!

The Cost of Being Kind

The Cost of Being Kind

Posted on by Dawn

They say that it costs nothing to be kind. It certainly doesn’t cost any money. But it does require mindfulness, being in the present. I noticed recently that I had not been as openly kind as I would like to be, and that was mainly because of wandering through my day totally preoccupied with other thoughts. I’ve tried to practice kindness for many years so it’s something I do almost automatically. However, when you are cruising through your day totally on autopilot and aren’t paying much attention to what’s going on around you, you might not notice when you’ve been inattentive to others or unintentionally dismissive. How often have we done that at home and possibly made our family members feel unseen? Or perhaps made a co-worker feel uncomfortable?

We’ve all done it. Practicing mindfulness requires, well, practice! But it’s worth it for better relationships and to help quiet some of the brain chatter that can disrupt our day.

Kindness doesn’t cost anything but your presence in the moment.

Drama Divas and the Power of Letting Go

Drama Divas and the Power of Letting Go

Posted on by Dawn

I think at least once in our lives, we encounter a person who proves to be toxic to us. Let’s call them drama divas because, well, drama seems to follow them everywhere. We don’t always see their toxicity, at least not right away. But eventually, we find ourselves feeling icky inside when they are around, and breathing huge sighs of relief when they leave. Who are these people and how to recognize them? Here’s a handy dandy checklist!

  1. In the relationship, they tell you it’s your fault when things go wrong or you are consistently set up to take the blame for when things go wrong. This is a red flag! Nothing is ever their fault and they refuse to take any responsibility in the relationship for things they may be at fault for. Also, they never apologize, even when faced with the facts of their own transgressions.
  2. The other person is chronically self-absorbed. If they always talk about themselves and never ask about you and how you are doing, or only call when they need to vent or want something from you, they’re toxic. Google the word ‘narcissist’.
  3. If you find yourself feeling emotionally exhausted after spending time with them, they might be energy vampires. They just seem to pull the good energy from you and leave you drained.
  4. They constantly portray themselves as a victim. It doesn’t matter what bad times you might be going through, they can always one-up you (they’ve gone through so much worse than you and will tell you all about it, prefaced by the words “at least you didn’t have….”) and then they feel justified in withholding their sympathy. Cultivating your sympathy is how they grab attention for themselves. Or they play the helpless card so that you end up doing things for them that they could do for themselves if they really wanted to. Either way, they entirely lack empathy for you and your troubles. In their eyes, only they deserve sympathy because of how rough they portray their lives to be.
  5. They have no respect for boundaries you try to put out there, or any respect for your saying ‘no’. You tell them that you have to get off the phone and they just keep talking. You say you can’t do something for them and they guilt trip you. Push back a little harder against them when they don’t respect your boundaries and watch them overreact to your ‘audacity’!
  6. They want to control you . They use manipulation, guilt, anger and jealousy to do so. Their anger intimidates you. Their jealousy causes you to feel uncomfortable about your accomplishment or possession because of how it makes them feel. They will eventually make you feel like you have to walk on eggshells around them in order to not upset them accidentally.
  7. They give back-handed compliments. There’s always a little negativity attached to them. “You’d be so pretty if you just lost 10 lbs.”
  8. Gaslighting. When they lie to you to purposely skew your view of reality, like denying they did a thing or telling you you’re crazy because things didn’t happen the way you saw them, that’s gaslighting. If you aware of this happening in your relationship with someone, you really need to decide if you need this person in your life because they don’t care about the great harm they are doing to your mental health!

Drama surrounds these people because they are either attention seeking or quite purposely stirring up trouble for the sake of manipulating others to their own selfish ends. If you recognize these behaviours in people you know and love, what can you do? Since others will not change until they see their own need for change, don’t hold your breath that things will get better anytime soon. Some people never have that epiphany. But if their behaviour makes you uncomfortable or is bringing harm and negativity to your life in some way, you have every right to let go of the relationship and walk away, or at the very least, put them out on the fringes of your life where they can do the least damage. You are not anyone’s doormat nor are you responsible for the happiness of others, especially when it comes at the price of your own happiness or sanity.

So if there is a toxic person wreaking havoc in your life, do yourself a favour and consider lovingly letting them go. It might be a hard thing to do, but ultimately, you can never make these toxic people truly happy. Your mental health and happiness is just as important as anyone else’s and no one has the right to demand that you give that up for them in any way, shape or form.

Just Relax

Just Relax

Posted on by Dawn

I was getting down on myself as I haven’t been productive, or at least as productive lately as I generally like to be. But there have been some added stresses to my life lately, and seriously, the creativity can’t flow when you are stressed out and in a grumbly mood. Me, in a grumbly mood? Yes, apparently I’m not always sunshine and smiles although I do try to be.

Instead of getting down on yourself about all the things you ‘should’ be doing (and please note that if you are using the word ‘should’, you are standing in judgment of yourself. Not nice!) take a moment, breathe and stop it! You’re only human. We all have crap to deal with now and again and sometimes it’s more than the old noggin can handle efficiently. So slow down, relax, unwind and detangle the jumbles of thoughts spinning in your head. Easier said than done, I get that. But sometimes you really need the downtime to do little or nothing, to let your brain and body rest.

So I did that for a couple of weeks. Went to my day job but took it easy at home most days I was off instead of doing a kazillion household chores and working on my websites. I wondered to myself how I got so much done over the winter when I was doing several art videos and building websites as well as working my day job! That much work now is unthinkable! But I noticed in my quiet time today that new concepts were hatching in my mind and ideas for new projects were springing up. I realized that I had allowed myself to be agitated and had been ruminating over things I had little control over. As I sat petting my cat last night, I noticed for the first time in a few weeks that I felt lighthearted inside, and how much I missed that!

So, if you’re a do-gooder, diplomatic, creative weirdo like me and you’re not feeling the flow, maybe it’s time to slow down and smell the roses (or coffee, seeing as this is my story!), relax and just chill for a bit. Most of what we stress over isn’t going to result in anyone’s demise, so put it on the back burner and carve out some mental health time and take care of your mind and spirit the same way you take care of your body. It’ll feel good!