Post 60: Let your guard down and be accountable!

Post 60: Let your guard down and be accountable!

I read a quote the other day about how good people can still hold other people accountable. It made me feel much better because I had just let 2 people in my life know how something they recently did made me feel. Neither understood at first and one still isn’t speaking to me. However, it has made me contemplate whether it’s worth putting it out there or not.

In yoga one of the niyamas is ahimsa, non-violence. And so it is with trying to hold people accountable for hurt feelings that we want to speak our truth without hurting them back.

Let’s face it, none of us want to know that we’ve hurt someone, not really. It’s hard for us to hear. So our egos can twist and exaggerate the message to protect ourselves from “disgrace” even if the message has the best intentions.

The bottom line is, none of us are saints. We all have egos that misunderstand, that filter the world through our own baggage and past hurts and traumas until none of us really know up from down.

But I believe in EVERYONE’S ability to grow. And I truly believe that sometimes, expressing myself in the best way possible, even if it’s totally mis-taken initially, will give the other person an opportunity to really look themselves in the mirror. And sometimes the person who needs to look in the mirror is me.

So raise your glass and let’s make a toast to accountability for ourselves and others. Look yourself in the mirror, look your ego straight in the eye and ask yourself if you can let your ego guard down long enough to admit to a mistake, to say “my bad”, and to apologize to anyone you may have affected.

If we can’t do it ourselves, then we certainly can’t expect others to do it. But the world will be a better place if we can.
Namaste.