Adults with traumatic childhoods sometimes might expect people, like their spouses and parents, to provide an income, home, or some type of service so they don’t have to work or do things for themselves. Coming from an abuse background, I also felt entitled, feeling that my parents and siblings owed me for neglecting me or treating me poorly during an abusive childhood.

My main character, Mandy, in Eve’s Amulet~Book 1 had a hard time accepting responsibility. When she finally did something productive that served others as well as herself, the feeling was practically foreign to her, but she loved it and started making powerful and good decisions.

When the book was published, everything changed. For once I was getting control of my life. Responsibility wasn’t a burden as it felt in the past, and a new feeling arose as I headed toward self-reliance.

I learned a few significant things along the journey:

• Always trust your gut instinct. Our gut instinct is always right. It’s only wrong when we misinterpret that inner voice or allow people to talk us out of what we intuitively know is right. Knowing is not what we hope or wish for, but what we actually know even if it can’t be justified or reasoned away.
• Say Yes or No to what does or doesn’t feel right. Don’t be afraid to make choices that serve you. You’ll be back in control and can chart a new direction for your life.
• Stop procrastinating. Procrastination is generally the fear of failure or avoiding problems or confrontation by keeping busy with other less important things or things that don’t directly serve you. Get the worst task out of the way, and everything else is easy in comparison. Be proactive by trusting your gut instinct and acting on it.
• Stop blaming. You may have suffered when others did you wrong during your childhood, or even now in the work place or home, but blame is like worry and guilt, serving no one, and they’re all a waste of time and energy. You’re an adult now. Stand up to bullies, ignore parental guilt, and don’t worry about things out of your control.
• Being proactive is healthier than making excuses. Do at least one thing a day related to achieving personal goals in career or in other productive areas that you would normally put off. You’ll achieve more if you take even one tiny step each day towards completing a goal.
• Embrace the opportunity to make good decisions that are in your best interest, as well as for the greater good. Wield your personal power in a positive light!

A mature person accepts responsibility for what they did that was good, as well as for what resulted based on incorrect action or wrong thinking. The true delineation that determines adulthood is when a person elects to hold themselves accountable for their own actions and is willing to make corrections when necessary.