Giving Yourself Freedom

I was driving home in my little Honda Fit from the gym last night when something odd and terrifying happened. Since I was near my exit, I was traveling in the right lane. There was a large diesel truck in front of me which may have been going a mile an hour less than I was, so I was gaining on him, albeit slowly. Since I was near my exit, I didn’t change lanes; I reasoned that I would slow down behind him and then take my exit.

In other words, it was a normal commute home. Nothing special.

But suddenly all of that changed. The gray diesel truck began to swerve in the lane in front of me, kicking up dust and water from the shoulder of the freeway. The swerving became more violent, causing the top of the truck to lurch back and forth, pressing into the truck’s suspension. Finally, the gray truck — which was being driven by a 50-something white man — pulled completely into the wide right shoulder and slowed down, spraying meltwater from the recent storms all over.

I continued driving, observing all of this. The truck was far enough in the shoulder that I could just drive by in the right lane with plenty of space between us. As I passed the truck, the man rolled down his window, and started yelling something (I couldn’t hear him because I was traveling at 65 mph, and all my windows were up and the heat on since it’s January and cold outside.)

I wondered, for a moment, what he wanted to achieve by all of this.

Then he flipped me off in a pretty dramatic way, slammed on his brakes and regained the right lane when he was some distance behind me. I continued to drive, glancing in my rearview mirror to make sure I wasn’t going to be rear-ended and took my exit.

But then something strange happened.

I started to feel guilty.

What had I done?

Taking Responsibility for What is Not Yours

The guilt followed me home as a giant pit of something in my stomach. I recognize the feeling because I tend to do this a lot: somehow feeling responsible for what happens out in the world, for the decisions other people make, what other people say or do, and then (sometimes) for naturally occurring things like the weather. For most of my life, I have felt guilty for a lot of things that are well beyond my scope of control.

When I began training as a Soul-Based Coach last year, this was brought to my attention in a lesson on holding space. The trainer asked us to consider space between ourselves, the screen, and the client’s space on the other side of the Zoom. I was supposed to stay, literally in my space. I could hold space for whatever happened, but I was in no way supposed to reach across the divide and do anything but hold and witness.

And besides, it was impossible since technology has yet to evolve to enable tangible Zoom sessions.

I let go of the outcome of the session and in so doing, I realized that however a session went was determined by what happened on the other side of the Zoom screen. It was not mine to control. Not that I could control it anyway — but whether tears or laugher, whether a revelation or frustration — absolutely none of that could in any way belong to me.

I thought about that driving home after the incident on the freeway. I realized I had tried to take responsibility for what the man in the truck had done.

Maybe I’d approached him too quickly from behind.

Maybe he was intoxicated or on drugs and I should have given him more space.

Maybe I should have changed lanes and passed him on the left.

Maybe there is something wrong with me.

Maybe I am an asshole.

All of these statements place the responsibility of someone else’s words and actions on me. The thing is: the man decided to do what he did on his own. He was the driver of his own vehicle, with both hands on the steering wheel, his right foot on the gas. The brakes were easily accessible; and whether the truck was a manual or automatic transmission, he nonetheless was within easy reach of those controls, too.

Did he listen to the radio? If so, the choice of genre, whether music or talk or just plain silence, whether heat or no heat, AC or nothing at all: all of those myriad choices rested around that man at that moment on the freeway and not a single one of those choices had a single thing to do with me. And what control could I have, me in my little Honda Fit over ten feet away, wrapped in my own car-bubble where pop music, warm air and thoughts of home carried me along my way?

I had my own car to worry about, my own steering wheel, my destiny, but immediate and ultimate, compelling me on this journey.

No matter what: we always have the choice to say or to act. No one can “force” us to do anything. We are the keeper of our thoughts, feelings and actions.

Responsibility in Relationships

Sometimes I wonder about the wise energy in the universe, bringing us lessons precisely when we need them. For six years, I have lived with a partner with a daughter from a previous marriage. She only visits us sometimes, but those visits usually left me feeling the same guilt that I felt after last night on the freeway.

These feelings really came to a crescendo recently when she told the court-appointed mediator a litany of awful things about me that were not at all true. The shock of it created bowling-ball-sized knots of guilt in my stomach that spread throughout my entire body. I finally arrived at a moment when, in listening to all of this, I just couldn’t listen anymore.

For six years, I have let the guilt boat call “All aboard!” and I’ve stepped on, owning all of these things because “…no one thinks these kinds of things without a reason.” Or so I thought.

For six years I told myself: I must be awful, I must be gross, and I must not try hard enough to be a good person because obviously, I am not…. the list goes on and on and on. Until last night, when I realized I have come to a point in my life when I have to stop taking responsibility for other people, and for what is not mine.

I didn’t say those awful things. Nor did I in any way enact them.

Between my epiphany and my training, I have come to realize that the truth is that each of us is free to think, to feel, and to act in any way we want to. That is our responsibility. No one can make us do anything. That isn’t to say that hearing hurtful things doesn’t hurt. Or that being yelled at doesn’t bruise us a little bit. It does.

That also doesn’t mean that there are no consequences to our thoughts, words and actions. There most certainly are.

As an exercise, I’ve started to envision what is mine — my heart, soul, self-worth, wisdom, humor, and love — as a light that shines from the center of me. It’s this beautiful, golden warm light. Even though the light shines brightly, I have learned recently that this light has a boundary. It does not shine for other people. It shines for me.

Knowing the boundary of that light keeps me from taking responsibility for what cannot possibly be mine. I thought of that on the drive home, as my car’s headlights illuminated the dark road just far enough so that I could see. The rest of the world was bathed in dark, starry mystery.

The wonder of the silence of the night, and of the world — and the love I felt in that moment for myself and that time — that, though…that certainly belonged to me and only me.

That is the gift of freedom.

Rebecca A. Eckland, M.F.A., M.A., M.A. is a professional nonfiction writer based in Reno, Nevada. She is also a certified Soul-Based Coach and through her business, With Wings, LLC, she offers entrepreneurs, artists, and all those seeking clarity on their next steps in life and business support on cultivating their creativity and moving forward on their life journeys. Learn more about her, or book a coaching session.