I don’t owe you anything. I owe you everything.

Jenna Martin
4 min readMar 6, 2023
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

We all have pivotal moments in our lives where we feel stunned into a new way of thinking and relating to the world. And if we’re lucky, we have more and more of these moments as we awaken. One such moment occurred for me the other day. A person I’d never met before, uttered the words “I don’t owe you anything.” Just five words. Right? No big deal. Except this seemingly ordinary comment snapped me into a deeper willingness to evaluate what “owing”someone actually means. And here’s what I know:

We’re all connected

Being a kind person who’s able to be respectful of other’s times, considerate of their feelings, and able to be accountable for how I affect others is a huge priority for me. I walk through each moment of my life following a few basic “golden rules” not because I owe others anything, but because I owe them everything. And you know why? Because I see no fundamental separation between myself and others. This doesn’t mean I don’t have healthy boundaries or that I don’t see myself as a separate physical being from others. It’s more that as I’m able to fully love myself, it’s second nature to extend this same love to all other beings. It also means that I’m continually tapping into the universal force of love which doesn’t discriminate between a separate “I”. So, when someone says to me “I don’t owe” you anything, I hear…

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Jenna Martin

Resilience coach. Mindfulness teacher. Dedicated to helping little and big humans thrive through adversity. Author of Milo & The Wisdom of the Sea.