Being Your Own Boss Sucks

There comes a point in the healing journey when we can no longer deny that we are the most responsible for what’s gone wrong in our lives. That’s not to say that external circumstances and other people’s actions have not affected us. But we are the only ones who can anchor those events into our bodies and our lives, and we are the only ones who can heal them. Understanding these facts, and even better, feeling them in our bodies is the crucial step to gaining enough energy, emotion, and momentum to make the decision to stop doing what we’ve always done. It’s much easier to get fed up with someone else’s behavior, or blame the situation, or blow your top. Making these kinds of decisions are about reorganizing your internal terrain, and require a significant amount of accountability.

Making these kinds of shifts and taking responsibility for ourselves is really about taking our own power back. You become your own boss–no one else is the boss of you, and there is no one else to blame. You start catching yourself at your old tricks, and if you’re a good boss, you just don’t let yourself get away with that behavior anymore. It’s become clear in your mind and in your body that it doesn’t serve you. Even if you still choose those survival strategies from time to time, the auto-pilot, reflexive quality of those choices has no choice but to change. What was automatic and unthinking before is now unavoidably felt and seen; what was numb is now awake.

And having been my own boss in this way for a while now, I can tell you that being your own boss sucks. The level of accountability is high, and though I do maintain compassion, patience, and appreciation for my expertly honed coping strategies, there is nowhere to hide from myself anymore. With no one to blame and with the decision already made to step up to the next level, we are in new territory here. Unfamiliar and sometimes uncomfortable, true change is felt in the body, mind, and spirit. This is the beginning of sustainable transformation, and the beginning of sustainable living.