DIY for Your Soul Podcast - Keep the Focus on Yourself

In Al-Anon, a 12 Step Program for people who have been affected by another’s drinking, members remind each other to Keep the Focus on Yourself. For many, those five little words scream of selfishness. How can I simply stand by and watch someone I care about suffer, or self destruct, or die? How could I be so selfish?

In this podcast, we discover that this idea is not selfish at all, and it is not cruel. It is actually just the opposite. By focusing on ourselves, instead of the people around us, we learn to create boundaries. We learn that our actions play a part in everything that goes on around us. We take away many of the ways people blame us because we no longer meddle in their lives. When we stop involving ourselves in other people’s business, even if it means we have to see them deal with the consequences of their choices and actions, we then allow them to be dignified human beings with the same power to change their lives that we recognize in ourselves.

Ultimately, keeping the focus on ourselves is an act of accepting others for who they are. And it allows us to concentrate on changing the only people we can, ourselves.