Go easy on yourself (AKA Responsibility)

I've been trying to figure out how to go easy on myself. My counselor told me I'm hard on myself, which is true. I have high expectations of myself and this probably spreads to my expectations for others. It's really tiring. I've been trying to figure out how to go easy on myself.

I think it comes down to me not taking so much responsibility. I generally take responsibility for everything, even things that probably aren't my responsibility. I pay my bills on my time, I went to school (lots of school) like I was supposed to (according to my family, society, etc.), I teach my children manners, I recycle...on and on. To me, these are all signs of responsibility.

Responsibility is exhausting. Specific to this blog, I keep thinking of the responsibilities I have in relation to my daughter's death. A therapist once told me that you can't change something you don't take responsibility for. If I take responsibility for it, I can convince myself that I could have changed something, done something just a little differently. As I said, this is exhausting.

With respect to other things/situations, it's the same. If you take responsibility and think you can change someone or something, you exhaust yourself trying to make things better.

So for now, I've decided to back off on taking responsibility. For everything, anyway. I'm going to work on letting go of things I can't control. My plan is to take this to the semi-extreme, at least for the weekend. So far, just thinking about this has made me feel a little better. This should be the practice of focusing on myself, listening to my needs. I did this in the extreme after my daughter's death. It gets easier to be hard on yourself once you're out of crisis mode.

For a weekend, I can pretend I'm in crisis mode and let go of responsibility.