“Hell Is Other People” - Or Is It?

For many years, I have worked hard on every relationship in my life.  At first,  it was all about simply recognizing how messed up the other people in my life were, and confronting how much that impacted me.  Then, as a way of protecting myself, I discovered “boundaries”, which helped somewhat. But that wasn’t enough.   

In my quest, I  also discovered: communication, meditation, self care, self compassion, hypnosis. Along the way, I learned so much that helped me de-stress and feel better.  Yet, the people in my life continued to cause me problems.  As Jean- Paul Sartre said, “Hell is other people.”  And yes, other people are the source of the majority of our problems, aren’t they?

And they will remain the source of problems until we deeply understand something crucial:  on some level, often without realizing it, we are giving all of our power away to other people.  What I mean by that is we believe that they, not we,  are determining how we feel.  We say things like “he made me angry”.   “She made me feel guilty”.  

Then we respond to those feelings that are stirred up in us by reacting in some kind of habitual, less-than-functional way.  For example, “she made me feel guilty” so I gave in and gave her money yet again.  Or “he made me angry” so I argued with him yet again. 

The fact of the matter is that our feelings are our feelings. We, and we alone,  are responsible for the way we feel.  And they are responsible for how they feel.  

The truth is that no one can “make” you feel anything.  The way we feel is determined by our own histories and patterns of thought.  We are always looking through the lenses of our own sh&t.   And until we take ownership of that, we will be constantly looking to others to make us feel better.  Good luck with that! 

When we learn to take responsibility for our own feelings, that means we are free. We are free from trying to change other people to make us feel better, which is an impossible task anyway. 

And the only way to take responsibility for our own feelings is to learn to feel them, and to sit with them, no matter how uncomfortable they are.  That’s the thing that we are all so afraid of:  experiencing uncomfortable feelings.  But when we do that, it enables us to take our power back.  

“What’s mine is mine.  What’s yours is yours.”  I say this like a mantra now.  And that means I can love people just as they are. I don’t try to change them.  I stay in my power and I let them stay in theirs. Other people, then, can become a source not of problems, but of profound learning and joy.