By Ty Bell
“Other people’s stuff has nothing to do with you.”
This is a popular attitude that’s glorified in spiritual and personal development circles. Be yourself. Don’t take anything personally. Don’t let other people’s negative energy hold you back. If someone gives you shit, that’s 100% their problem, you just keep doing you.
This meme has power because it conveys the truth about personal sovereignty. Living for the approval of others is bondage. When we’re working to free ourselves from those programs, these kind of affirmations help us reclaim our power. And there is one aspect of reality that this meme does accurately convey. So far, so good. But does this attitude work in all applications? To explore that question I always like to ask, what does it’s shadow expression look like?
The shadow is well-depicted in the caricature of the New Age Narcissist. Any calls for consideration or empathy are deflected as your stuff. “The fact that I’m triggering you is just revealing your unhealed traumas, or is just your projection. You just need to do deeper work on yourself to see that your issue with me is just your problem. Or, you won’t see it, and then I’ll just move along to another person that’s enlightened enough to allow me freedom from consequences and introspection.”
We can see by looking at both ends of the spectrum, that this attitude embodies a solid truth about personal empowerment and free will, but it lacks recognition of our interconnectedness. And, it deprives us of value introspection.
What if we considered an alternative proposition:
Everyone’s stuff I encounter has everything to do with me.
Let’s put that to the test.
Without personal sovereignty and the confusion of ‘responsibility’ with ‘fault,’ this idea puts the mind into a quick downward spiral. It gets distorted into “take on everyone’s judgements and problems and make everything my fault.” The distortion of this reality is probably what’s given rise to this big wave of “do what you want and don’t give a fuck” attitude. Most of us carry some kind of trauma around this.
How do we retain our personal sovereignty, and accept responsibility for everyone’s actions in our field? I’m talking not just about the stuff that’s clearly feedback, or reactions to our actions. I’m talking about all of it, including the stuff that would seem to fit clearly into the “not about me at all” category, by common sense terms.
I don’t know, precisely. I just know that when I take on an attitude of radical responsibility, I feel most tapped into my power. If I have a random negative interaction that really does seem to be, by objective standards, all about another person, instead of dismissing it as “just their trip,” I find it more empowering to look at what reaction it brought up in me, and consider, what purpose did that serve in my experience? When I ask with sincerity there is always an answer that comes. The event is revealed as part of a larger arc of unfoldment, and there’s a lesson, or affirmation to be gleaned. With radical responsibility I can accept that this experience as a reflection of something in myself being either mirrored, or challenged, for a purpose. I have the choice to be a victim to something that ‘had nothing to do with me,’ or to be an active participant and creator.
Sometimes the challenge is with a more significant person in my life. Perhaps they are being judgmental in some way that I recognize is holding me back. I could follow the self-empowerment meme – that’s just their judgement. I’m free when I disconnect myself from their judgement as having nothing to do with me, and just live my truth. If I view the judgement instead as having everything to do with me, I’m led into deeper terrain that’s otherwise bypassed.
First, the consideration that perhaps their judgement is mirroring, and in a way speaking on behalf my own inner judge that has a truth I need to see, about some way I am out of integrity with my path.. Sometimes other people are voices for our own conscience. Sometimes when people accuse you of being an asshole, you really are just being an asshole. When that’s not the case, and the judgement is one I can discern is false or harmful, instead of just dismissing it as ‘their projection’ or ‘their whacky belief system’ I can still look at what it brings up in me, and ask why I’m allowing it to hold me back. What’s being triggered, and for what purpose? That question, asked sincerely, always points to something that still needs healing. It’s not ‘my fault’ because it’s trauma I carry because of things that happened to me….but it’s my responsibility to own it. Because if I didn’t have some attachment to their approval, or some judgement in myself being mirrored, their judgement wouldn’t be a trigger. If in order to feel free, I need to affirm that someone else’s opinion doesn’t matter, then there’s still something I’m internally bound to. This is showing me what that is.
In family and close relationships, seeing everyones stuff as ‘just their stuff’ seems like a recipe for a lot of bypassing. What seems to me like a more helpful framework is to see your partner and your children’s actions as mirrors and direct reflections of what you are putting into the relationships and/or what your own higher intelligence calling in for growth.. Take responsibility for all of it, and when something you don’t like shows up, reflect on what it’s showing you about you, I have never experienced anything negative with a partner or my children that I couldn’t trace back to something in myself. This way of looking at things always seems to lead to a happier and more empowered place. I’ve never decided to take radical responsibility for something that could have been written off as “not my stuff” and regretted it.
Matt Kahn offers the affirmation “Everything is here to help me.” It’s a state of mind that gives purpose to everything that comes into our experience, and from that place finds a radical freedom and self-empowerment. And also, deep gratitude for every reflection that comes. These joyful states of being come not from bypassing and deflecting things as ‘other people’s stuff’ but by welcoming them as opportunities, and trusting their purpose.
The Truth contained in the “other people’s stuff has nothing to do with you” is the essence of the Fire element. It’s a necessary and sacred function . It’s focus is self-determination, expression, evolution. We need this fire, as life presents us with situations where we need to assert it, sometimes with fury. When we are in soul-compromising situations, deprived of our power and dignity, we need that fire element to come out to say no, fuck this, I need to liberate myself from the burden of any ties to this person or situation. Once we have taken the empowering actions that are necessary and called for, the rest of the picture can come into focus. Earth, the laws of karma and consequence. Water, the ways that traumas are stored, transmitted and attracted by our physical and emotional bodies. Air, the power of thoughts, beliefs and stories in defining the scope of our experiences, and how we interpret them.
The “Just Be You, Live from Your Own Heart” attitude is represented by the sign of Leo. That beautiful, heart-centered, courageous expression that roars without regard for approval or any doubt about our worth. The polarity, Aquarius, asks not that we abandon our courageous lion hearts – but that we integrate them in our understanding of Oneness and inter-being. The understanding that we are all connected, and all co-creating together, all the time. Everything you do affects me, everything I do affects you. I am you and you are me. This doesn’t put us in bondage (well, it could, if my dystopian nightmares play out, and the obsession with control continues, because in an age of AI and our newly realized Oneness, the paradigm of control is scary. Read my thoughts on that in other posts). It has the potential, I believe (and want to focus on) to raise us up to a higher octave of freedom. The lion heart polarity reminds us that this fire element is an essential part to keep hold of. It’s that sacred personal autonomy – the IAM heart-center consciousness, that we need to bring forth. With the awareness of what we’re integrating it with, and what the end goal is. The end goal of every archetypal expression isn’t to just be awesomely and fantastically itself. It’s to integrate and dance in active relationship with the other parts that make up the whole.
The Radical Center 