Morning Glory

I realized today that Detachment is giving up my right to another person's life. I can choose to have the person in my life or I can choose not to have the person in my life, but I do not have the right to change or try to change another person. It is their life. Trying to change them is an excuse to use them to make my life better. Rescuing someone else from their consequences is another excuse to make my life better. I don't go around rescuing strangers from the consequences of their poor choices, because their consequences don't affect my life. I work with mentally ******** adult men. One of the lessons I had to learn was to give them the dignity to make mistakes and to fail. Also to give them the dignity to take risks. I have also learned a lot about human rights. We would lose our job if we ever poured out a bottle of their alcohol. House rules are established and no alcohol is allowed in the house, but if they choose to bring alcohol in, we can't take it away from them. We can only give them a 30 day notice to move if they violate the rules. They have all human rights. If I don't like what they do, I have the right to quit my job and change careers. The only way we have of helping our clients is to allow them to pay natural consequences for their choices. If they don't learn from their consequences we can only continue to watch them repeat their behavior and offer training and guidance. If I can't live with that, my choice is to quit my job.
What it boils down to is that when I try to change someone else, I am making them responsible for my choice. I'm choosing to keep you in my life so now you change so my choice is one that makes me happy. When we choose to keep someone in our life, then we are choosing to take it just as it is. We have to pay the consequences of our choice. If we don't like it, we have the choice to leave.
Just a thought,
Morning Glory

smoke gets in my eyes

Hey Glory!

This is great stuff! What a perfect parallel to call our attention to. Thanks!

Love,
Smoke