The Gift of Accountability

The holiday season can be a lovely time with family and friends. The holiday season can also be a hectic time full of worries and concerns. For me, gift giving is one of my favorite past-times, I love find just the perfect gift for my oved ones based on their personality, needs, or even desires that they have shared with me. I love seeing my niece island nephews open their gifts with excitement, or hearing my sisters say wow, this was exactly what I needed. I don’t necessarily give the perfect gift, but I hope that people see the intention behind it.

As a highly sensitive person, gift-giving comes somewhat naturally to me. I am most cognizant in changes in my environment, inclusive of heightened emotional states, such as joy or intrigue that help me connect with ideas for gifts that bring joy to others. If you are also a highly sensitive person, you might also relate to this. Being sensitive to the environment comes with it benefits.

However, just as we may be able to evoke a deep sense of appreciation and joy from others, if we are not careful, we may also trigger other less pleasant feelings. Now, this is not to blame highly sensitive folks for the emotional states of others. Research has shown that highly sensitive folks tend to often be blamed for bringing out certain feelings from others, simply because they called out something that they may have observed and the other, could not or did not want to see. I know for me, at times there has been an expectation that even if I did not contribute to the difficult feelings, I would still be responsible for fixing it. Highly sensitive folks can be seen as the ones who can help heal because they can see the problem, however, we all have the capacity to address these issues, even if we do not identify as a highly sensitive person. We can give people the gift of accountability for their own emotional state and the management of it.

So, we can give the gift of accountability, but what happens when we need to hold ourselves accountable? I have found that by releasing the perspective that I need to manage other people’s emotional states (or even the belief that I could), helped me set realistic expectations about myself. Like the anxiety one might feel about finding that perfect gift for someone, I was pressuring myself to be held accountable for too much. Part of this could be attributed to my upbringing, where I was continually deemed responsible for the well-being of others, which socialized me to believe that this was the best way to be connected with others.

The truth of the matter is, we are all connected, whether we give to one another or not. No one should be held completely responsible for the wellbeing of another adult. Now, there are things that we can do to improve the well-being of ourselves and support others on their journey, however, we cannot fix all problems. They, like ourselves, must find that on own. When I realized that I wasn’t ever truly responsible for the management of other people’s emotions, I was able to see those moments where I could have actually done something different: those moments where I made a comment that attributed to a friend feeling insecure about their decision. While I am not the sole reason that the person experienced that level of insecurity, I have developed a sharper sense of those micro moments where I may have contributed to that and can choose differently in the future. That is a way that I give the gift of accountability to myself, while also sharing the gift of accountability with loved ones.

I hope this season and new year brings you many gifts-and I hope that we really are all able to realize the true gifts that we can receive from each other by giving ourselves and eachd other the gift of accountability.