Who’s Responsibility Is It?
Taylor: Thanks for helping me with my chemistry homework, dad!
Dad, today I was at school and someone said something mean to me. It really hurt my feelings, and I’m still cross with them. What do you think I should do?
Brinn: Let’s use an example, do you understand the Dumi or Japanese Language?
Taylor: No, I don’t, daddy.
Brinn: So, imagine that your friend had spoken to you in Japanese. Would you have understood what she said?
Taylor: No, daddy.
Brinn: So, would you have gotten upset or hurt if you hadn’t understood what she was saying to you?
Taylor: No, because I wouldn’t have understood her.
Brinn: Exactly. You see, WE make up the meaning of words. We create a thought in our brain of what we think we are hearing, (pours a liquid in a glass) and then our thought tells our body to make a chemical that gives us a feeling of anger, sadness, happiness, love, fear, or anxiety etc. (adds the liquid from the glass to another glass that then changes its colour)
Taylor: Are you saying that my thinking, and not the other person make the feelings inside my body, daddy?
Brinn: You got it! You are creating the feeling inside of you and what it means to you. This feeling is a chemical reaction that happens inside your body that only you can experience. It’s impossible for someone else to make you feel anything because the feeling is a creation from your own thoughts. It only exists inside your body, not on the outside.
Taylor: Oh wow, so the words my friend said to me only became hurtful when I started thinking that they were hurtful. But, actually, I made myself feel hurt by creating these thoughts that were telling my body to make me feel angry?
Brinn: You got it! So now we have to look at what it is that you want for yourself in your life, my beautiful daughter.
Brinn: Do you want to live your life being happy or being sad?
Taylor: Happy, of course, daddy!
Brinn: Well then, it is your responsibility to look after your inner happiness, or in other words, what chemicals you are creating inside of you! No one else’s, because only you can create the thought that signals the body to create a chemical that can create a feeling of happiness. Therefore, it is your responsibility always to decide what type of thought you want to create. Just like when you are deciding that it’s English or a foreign language you are hearing. You are the one choosing the meaning.
Brinn: Let me give you another example: One of my favourite teachers, Sadhguru, often talks about the concept of poison.
So, if I give poison to a person, who gets sick?
Taylor: The person does, and they could die.
Brinn: Exactly, and if I take the poison?
Taylor: Then you can get sick or die, daddy!
Brinn: Exactly, and yet often we think bad thoughts about someone else and expect the bad thoughts to hurt them as if we had given THEM poison, but in reality we are just hurting ourselves! The thoughts hurt us, because they create chemicals in our body that are like poison to US and it’s only our responsibility to maintain an inner chemistry that keeps us happy because no-one else can make us happy.
Taylor: So what do I do when a situation like this happens, daddy?
Brinn: Firstly, understanding that we are the ones who give meanings to words and this helps us to remove ourselves from what is happening and from the words that are said in the moment, and that we are all just quacking ducks, which we explained in one of our first videos on our channel.
Secondly, there are many simple things we can do, like walking away or using breathing techniques which I’ll show you in our next video called self-regulation.
Brinn & Taylor: Learn how to navigate difficult situations and breathing techniques in our next video. So, so did you get it who’s responsibility is it to help kids with such situations?
Taylor: Remember to like, follow and subscribe to our channels.
