What’s your defn. of responsibility

How much is this planet in the state that we’re in because our social conditioning does not encourage the skill of making our own choices and accepting the consequences of those choices?  Do we try to control others, rather than support? How much do we as individuals take responsibility? Or do we play the very common blaming game?

Here is my favourite definition of Personal Responsibility –

Nothing and no-one is put on this earth to make my life work out.

 While things might sometimes overwhelm me, I take full responsibility for giving myself the best life I can,

regardless of the past, or what may happen in the future.

Furthermore, I have the ability to make choices about how I respond to situations even if I can’t change the situations themselves.

I refuse to see myself as a victim, even though I may at times be victimised.

I am totally responsible for my life.

I am not responsible for other people’s lives.

The diagram below on the left is a general reflection of past social conditioning. The right diagram is where we are moving toward. See the ‘benefit’ in living on the left! And the benefit of living on the right. It’s our choice.

In this day and age, we are evolving towards a self controlled, rather than an other controlled, society.  Our young are going to need this sense of responsibility if we are to become solution focussed rather than competitive and blaming.

“If you take responsibility for yourself you will develop a hunger to accomplish your dreams.”
—Les Brown

QUOTE: The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own.  No apologies or excuses.  No one to lean on, rely on, or blame.  The gift is yours – it is an amazing journey – and you alone are responsible for the quality of it.  This is the day your life really begins.  ~Bob Moawad

I hope you find this interesting and thought provoking – I believe that responsibility is one of humanity’s learning in this Golden Age.

Peace, love and blessings, Lexia

Face your fears

Experiences repeat themselves until they are learned.  –John Gray

 

Some people seem to experience recurring problems in relationships. It doesn’t matter how many times they change partners, jobs, or friends, the same issues arise again and again.  For other people money is a problem.  They may have the tendency to overspend and run up debts, then they reorganise their finances vowing this will never happen again and before long they are back where they started, or in a worse position.

Recurring patterns are your signposts, and your opportunities, although they never feel like it at the time.  If you have any type of recurring problem you have an opportunity to face your fears, by doing so you free yourself from having to experience the same situations over and over again.

It’s tempting at these times to look at what’s causing the problem externally, in other words to blame someone, or something else.  This could be the Government, your employer, the economy, or another person.  If you’re not blaming someone else you might be blaming yourself.

It doesn’t matter whether you are right or wrong, the fact is that acting in this way won’t change the situation nor will it help you create a life you love.

When you acknowledge that you have control over your life and you stop blaming other people for the situation you’re in, then you are ready to face your fears.  When you do this you will find that you have one of three opportunities, sometimes you have all three rolled into one.

 

Opportunity one:  Every problem presents you with an opportunity to demonstrate who you want to be: this demonstration allows you to change a limiting belief.

 

 

Opportunity Two:  You are able to realise what emotional benefit you are gaining — the pay-off – from having your problems.

Some examples of pay-offs:

You get attention  —  eg always having a problem to talk about.

You take revenge  —  eg a teenager working below abilities or not working, could be taking revenge against a controlling parent.

Opportunity Three:  You can face some unresolved emotions that need to be dealt with.

Source;  “Love The Life You Live” – Anne Hartly

You need to allow yourself to feel, most of us were conditioned not to show anger or fear.

John Gray describes how some emotions support you in remaining ‘stuck’, while other emotions allow you to heal.

Emotions that keep you                      Emotions that allow you

bonded to your pain                            to heal

Blame, hate, resentment                           anger

Anxiety, self pity                                         fear

Guilt, doubt                                                 sadness

Depression, hopelessness,                         sorrow

“Every event in life can be causing only one of two things. Either it is good for you, or it is bringing up what you need to look at in order to create good for you.” – Deepak Chopra

Have a look at this movie “No glass ceiling” – http://www.flickspire.com/m/iaaw/NoGlassCeiling

 

Set yourself free!

Responsibility!    Stop the blame game.

Many people throw the blame for their problems onto someone else – usually their partner. When we blame others we opt out of responsibility. We abdicate the possibility for change. We lose our power to make a difference….all in the name of ‘being right’.  A great loss to the relationship!

Ask yourself:

What can I do to change the situation?

What did I do to contribute to this situation?

Did I not trust?

Did I fail to be clear about what I wanted?

Did I choose the wrong time?

Did I fail to stand up for what I believe is true for me?

Did I fail to ask for what I wanted?

Did I not ask enough? Appreciate enough?

Did I not do what I said I would do?

Did I procrastinate?

There is an often quoted saying, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free”. Facing up to truth is a choice. It is at the very core of human nature to blame others. Blame is a form of self-preservation, an escape mechanism for us. We don’t want things to be our responsibility, so we rationalise our actions and go to any extreme to blame others. However, the relationship suffers big time! In protecting ourselves, we damage the relationship.

When we appoint blame, we lose the opportunity to solve a problem. We are more responsible for our decisions than we think. ‘What goes around comes around’. When blaming, we may think we’ve got away  ‘with it’. Think again! Do you really think that we have? What are the real consequences of blaming? Does it work? I expect that the answer is “No”. Here then, is an opportunity to make a real difference. Choose not to blame…….it doesn’t work!

Nothing in our relationship will change unless we begin to do something different. If you want to get something you’ve never had, you’ve got to do something you’ve never done.

Gandhi put it this way, “We must become the change we seek in the world (relationship) and that takes a decision”.  It’s all in the ability to choose.

How often do we choose to be caring, honest, accepting and responsible?

These attributes don’t seem to be ‘natural’ in our society!

Maybe we get caught up in the following?

Not interested enough in others?    Too busy getting self together?

–  detracting from CARING / AWARENESS

Manipulating?  Defensive? Not wanting to deal with consequences?

–  detracting from HONESTY

Power games?  I’m not good enough? Fixed on “getting it right”?  Socialised black and white thinking?

–  detracting from ACCEPTING

Taking the easy route? Following others? Fear of making the “wrong” decision? Blaming others?

–  detracting from RESPONSIBILITY

If you catch yourself blaming, choose to stop, and feel good about being responsible!

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!

As we sow, we reap!

 “People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, they make them.”   –  George Bernard Shaw

Well, it’s pretty apparent, isn’t it? And every person who discovered this believed (for a while) that he was the first one to work it out. We become what we think about.

Conversely, the person who has no goal, who doesn’t know where she’s/he’s going, and whose thoughts must therefore be thoughts of confusion, anxiety and worry – his life becomes one of frustration, fear, anxiety and worry. And if he thinks about nothing… he becomes nothing.

How does it work? Why do we become what we think about? Well, I’ll tell you how it works, as far as we know. To do this, I want to tell you about a situation that parallels the human mind.

Suppose a farmer has some land, and it’s good, fertile land. The land gives the farmer a choice; he may plant in that land whatever he chooses. The land doesn’t care. It’s up to the farmer to make the decision.

We’re comparing the human mind with the land because the mind, like the land, doesn’t care what you plant in it. It will return what you plant, but it doesn’t care what you plant.

Now, let’s say that the farmer has two seeds in his hand- one is a seed of corn, the other is nightshade, a deadly poison. He digs two little holes in the earth and he plants both seeds-one corn, the other nightshade. He covers up the holes, waters and takes care of the land…and what will happen? Invariably, the land will return what was planted.

Remember the land doesn’t care. It will return poison in just as wonderful abundance as it will corn.

The human mind is far more fertile, far more incredible and mysterious than the land, but it works the same way. It doesn’t care what we plant…success…or failure. A concrete, worthwhile goal…or confusion, misunderstanding, fear, anxiety and so on. But what we plant must return to us.

You see, the human mind is the last great unexplored continent on earth. It contains riches beyond our wildest dreams. It will return anything we want to plant.

Ref.  The Strangest Secret by Earl Nightingale

Taking Responsibility

What does Responsibility mean to you?

If you blame!  And who doesn’t?  Read on.

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 the point for maximum growth. It is so rich with potential and so powerful!                                                 Here’s to stepping into our own power!