Taking Responsibility for Your Feelings

There is never a time when you are not responsible for how you feel. You might be faced with a circumstance or a person who you believe is causing your feelings, but you are always the one who is deciding how to feel. It is not what happens to you, it is what you believe about what happens to you that causes the feeling. Name a person or circumstance you believe is causing the negative feeling:

Describe how they are making you feel:

Describe why you think they have the power to create your feelings in this way:

Describe your feeling without the influence of this person or circumstance (what you would be feeling if they hadn’t “made” you feel this way):

What is the thought you are thinking that is causing this feeling?

Emotional Childhood vs. Emotional Adulthood

© 2012 Brooke Castillo, Inc. All rights reserved Many times when we are struggling with our life, it is because we have begun to function from a place of emotional childhood. EMOTIONAL CHILDHOOD wrecks havoc on our adult lives. EMOTIONAL ADULTHOOD is about understanding our emotions and taking full responsibility for them. We no longer blame other people or circumstances for our feelings. We aren’t “made” to feel a certain way; we feel what we feel based on how we choose to respond to events and people. Notice when you are functioning as an emotional child vs. an emotional adult. Here are some typical emotional childhood behaviors:  Eating lots of sweets.  Throwing tantrums.  Wanting immediate gratification.  Rebelling against the very things you want (overeating to rebel when you want to lose weight).  “I wanna, I wanna, I wanna.”  “Take care of me” … giving someone else the job of taking care of you when that is your job.  “Make me happy” … giving someone else the job of making you feel good.  Not taking responsibility for our actions.  Staying disconnected from yourself … “checking out.”  Saying, “It’s not fair.”  Exaggerating non-events into drama (lying).  Saying, “It’s their fault” (blaming others and events).

Give three specific examples of how you sometimes act like an emotional child. 1. 2. 3.