One of the hardest pills to swallow is that life does not owe us anything. Many of us often feel resentful, angry, and irritable because we 1) feel others have things we should have for ourselves or 2) feel we were ripped off at various points in our lives.

Many of us suffered less than desirable childhoods resulting in needs that were not met growing up. We often spend the rest of our lives unconsiously attempting to get these needs met through friends, romantic partners, and family members. We play out the same pattern over and over and find ourselves miserable and resentful. We feel we have a right to our resentment because we were stiffed as kids or jilted by a lover.

The problem with this approach is that it results in a constant repetition of the past and an inability to move into peace in the present. As hard as it to accept, the truth of the matter is that, while messed up kids sometimes have an excuse, messed up adults are responsible for changing their circumstances. We often mistakenly believe that the power we lacked as children leaves us powerless as adults. We mistakenly believe that what our parents should have given us (unconditional love) is what other adults should have to give us too. When we operate from the belief that we are “owed” something, we see the world and our relationships as transactional. We give to receive, and when others don’t give back, this triggers past unmet dependency needs resulting in resentment and anger.

We keep score, take tabs, and cannot help but feel irritated when we perceive others are not holding up their end of the deal. Rather than understanding that we have the choice and responsibility to leave relationships that do not fulfill us, we instead stay because our past has conditioned us to stay in situations where our needs are not being met (children cannot leave their parents). We martyr ourselves, telling ourselves that we do everything, give everything, and the person DOES NOTHING. Oftentimes, the person on the receiving end will say, “But I didn’t ask you to do that…” This only pisses us off more.

This martyring of ourselves gives us a way to stay in victim mode. Victim mode is a way of escaping the hard work of growing and facing ourselves and often difficult realities. It is so much easier to believe we are being ripped off than to step into the frightening work of really getting to know ourselves fully and being responsible for who we are in the world today. It requires us to face the truth about our childhoods and to accept that if we want to find peace as adults, we have to stop looking for others to meet our needs and do it ourselves. This means grieving what we did not receive as children.

Why do we do this difficult work? Because walking around and keeping score is a surefire way to stay depressed, anxious, and angry. It blocks us from giving and receiving genuine love. It keeps us endlessly trapped in our childhood, repeating the same pattern. We are stuck and cannot see how we are now doing to ourselves what was once done to us. We are miserable and cannot access the wide open expansiveness of love.

In life, sometimes we give more than we receive. Sometimes we receive more than we give. It is not a zero sum game. The hard truth is that if we are always asking, “What’s in it for me,” we are re-creating a world for ourselves where love can only ever be transactional, and thus, limited. We cannot go back and change our childhoods, but we do not have to keep repeating them. When we begin to understand that no one is coming to repair the past for us, we can step into the work of repairing it for ourselves because we hold our highest good in mind and want peace for ourselves. We understand we do not have to keep punishing ourselves and repeating our past. We understand we can now give ourselves what we need.

When you find yourself keeping score, try turning this around and asking yourself, “How can I meet my own needs?” and then, “How can I be of service to others?” Giving yourself what you need is love. Being of service without expecting anything in return is love. We get to experience love when we give without expectation, not just when we receive love from others. In letting go of the score, we break patterns that block us from the full experience of love. We heal ourselves and find greater joy and peace in our present.

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Dr. J