A lot has happened in my life over the past few months, the biggest change being that I moved from my apartment in Hemet, to live with some friends in another city, and as happy as I am to be living away from the city of Hemet the transition has had its share of challenges. It's to be expected, of course. Any change brings challenges and new opportunities for growth. Adjusting to living on my own with my son, to living in a house with three other people is going to have some bumps in the road.
The biggest challenge for me has been finding the time I need for me. I need a certain amount of time alone each day, and I got used to having easy access to that time living with just my son. Now I live with friends who are involved in graduate school, who study things I'm interested in. We enjoy watching movies together, going places together and talking together for hours on end. As much as the extroverted part of me enjoys all the intellectual stimulation, the introverted part of me has been starving for a little privacy.
This has impacted my personal spiritual practice as well. It's been incredibly hard for me to find time to meditate, to journal, to exercise, to reflect on the things going on in my life and connect with my deeper Self on a daily basis. This makes me short-tempered, impatient, grumpy and extremely on edge. I have weekly goals to ensure that I get what I need to continue building the life that I want and I haven't been meeting them at all.
In discussing this with my boyfriend we both agreed this was not a good thing and needed to change immediately. He encouraged me to think about meeting weekly goals as a job and my head went right to a sense of obligation, I wasn't happy with the connection. I tend to think about obligation as something that I feel I have to do, but don't want to do and it's usually something I have to do for other people, not for me.
We talked about goals again a few days later and he said the word obligation. He told me that I am obligated to meditate, to journal, to exercise, to find time for myself because it was important for my well-being. I shuddered at that word again, obligation, as though I could feel the yoke coming down over my neck and taking away all free will. Obligation was a heavy weight for me and not one I wanted to carry.
He told me about a website he had found where people could post their weekly goals and if they didn't meet those goals they would pay a penalty. The penalty could be financial in nature and I flinched at the thought. A real consequence imposed for not meeting my goals? Losing money would hurt, that could be a great motivator! But then I realized how backward my thinking was. I fear losing money more than I care about taking care of myself? How messed up is that? What kind of priority is that? I mean sure, ensuring your financial situation is stable is a form of self-care, but I would hope that I love and value myself enough to see the consequences of not caring for myself just as painful, if not more so, than losing a little money.
It was then that I realized my thinking was backwards in terms of obligation, too. Obligation does carry a heavy weight in meaning. Generally when we feel obligated to do something, we don't really feel that it's optional. I had seen the weight of obligation as something imposed and unwanted from outside of myself, but the truth is the only person who obligates me, is me.
So why is it that I can inflexibly commit myself to doing something I don't want to do for someone else, but I can excuse myself out of action that is good for me? Why do I reserve that heavy, immovable weight for people outside of myself, who aren't looking out for my best interest? Don't I deserve that weighted commitment to my own well-being from myself? Of course I do!
By looking at obligation the way I was, I have an easy way to get out of taking care of myself, which isn't the easiest thing for me to do. I get to relieve myself of responsibility for my self-care because I just have to do this for so-and-so and because it's for someone else, I can't get out of it. Easy excuse and a complete lie. The truth is before I can do anything for anyone else, I have to make sure everything I need is taken care of or I'm not effective.
When I neglect my needs so badly that I am snappy and short-tempered with my son, I'm not being an effective parent. When all I can do is complain to my boyfriend about things that don't even matter, I'm not being an effective partner. When the press of people is almost painful, I'm not being an effective friend and I'm not an effective caretaker for myself. And guess what, baby? No one else is going to fill those needs, only me.
So now I have begun to look at obligation differently. Instead of seeing the weight of obligation tie me to activities I don't want to do for other people, I see obligation as a fortress. It is an immovable force that keeps out all other influences until I have given myself what I need. Obligation will not be negotiated with. Instead of a yoke being imposed from the outside, I see obligation as an adult dose of responsibility and self-love. I am obligated to give myself the things I need because I love and value myself enough to do so. And beyond that, other people count on me to take care of myself so that I can be a patient and attentive mother, a loving partner, a good friend and a good spirit in the world.
Obligation is a blessing when we look from the right angle, although it can be difficult to do sometimes. The truth is, it's the greatest gift we give ourselves. When we truly invoke the energy of being obligated to ourselves we create a very powerful partnership. That inflexible commitment to giving ourselves what we need and doing what we need to do to create a powerful and happy life is a loving action and brings about powerful results. We deserve it, we deserve that much love every day.
