Responsibility vs Blame

What does Responsibility mean to you?

To me, it used to have connotations of obligation, accountability, ownership, and being loaded with a generous pinch of judgment and self-blame or liability. It conjures up images of my childhood,   “You need to be responsible”.   It was good to learn that it’s about choosing our actions and with them come their consequences.  To not blame others and therefore to have much more control over my live,  even if I didn’t want to own that responsibility all the time! It’s much easier to blame. Now I realise that blaming makes me a victim to circumstances rather than feeling in control of my own life.

“You take responsibility for your life and a ‘terrible’ thing happens… no one to blame!”

Responsibility is your ‘ability to respond”.  WOW!  That’s a pretty cool way of looking at it!  So by taking responsibility, you are acknowledging your ability to respond.  You are not a passive recipient in the world but an active entity!   I loved the freedom and power that came with seeing it in this new light: responsibility: your “response ability” or “ability to respond”.

So how does it apply to real life?

Embracing that we have control over what happens next.  We  take control of the situation and put the ball back in our court.  By taking responsibility for our health,  life,  actions, we take back our power and become free to respond and move forward in any way we choose.   By not taking responsibility or holding others responsible, we give our power away, we are effectively saying I have no control over that, which leaves us powerless to change and grow or influence others and circumstances.

It would appear that taking responsibility takes us to a point for maximum growth.

Here’s to stepping into our own power!