Take Responsibility for Your Life

At one time or another we have all tried to avoid responsibility and have blamed others for what has gone wrong in our lives. If you are having trouble with a friend, it is their fault. If there is a problem at work, it is the boss's fault. If you are late for an appointment, it's bad traffic and not the fact that you didn't allow yourself enough travel time.

However, if we were being honest with ourselves, we would realize that a lot of the things we blame on circumstances or other people are really our own choices.

What are the consequences of not taking responsibility for your actions? When you avoid responsibility and blame others you give away your personal power to circumstances and the people around you. You may actually feel empty or helpless because life just happens to you. In other words, if you are not responsible for anything in your life, how can you be responsible for your happiness?

Admit You Made a Mistake

Get your self-respect back. Realize that you don't need to make excuses for your behavior. Take responsibility for your life by admitting that you made a mistake. Admit that you did something stupid or that you were wrong. Take responsibility for your weight, for example. Admit that food isn't the problem, your eating behavior is. Take responsibility for the way other people make you feel. No one can make you feel "less than" unless you let them. Take responsibility for healing your own pain and making yourself happy. Just because X happened (in the past), isn't an excuse for Y behavior (today). Somewhere along the way, you made a choice. Own up to it. Take responsibility for all your life choices and take responsibility for making positive changes in your life.

Allow Yourself to Face Your Truth

Unfortunately, a lot of us are afraid to face the truth about ourselves because we are afraid of "losing face" with ourselves. We are afraid to admit that we aren't perfect- that we are only human. But we have to be realistic. We are flawed, imperfect human beings - we can be selfish, careless, or hurtful. The reality is, we have to stop expecting to be perfect.

Moreover, you can't just focus on your positive attributes while ignoring your flaws. This is a denial of your very self. You are telling yourself that you will only love and accept what is good about yourself while whatever is flawed or imperfect is shoved down into a dark hole. But life doesn't work that way due to the dynamic known as consequence. Our character flaws have a way of seeping out and affecting different areas of our lives. Just because you choose not to acknowledge these flaws does not mean they do not exist. Nonetheless, you can still do a lot of damage. To put it another way, our flaws may make us human but if your behavior is hurting yourself and others, it is time to take responsibility for your life.

Rebuild Your Self-Esteem

Taking responsibility for your mistakes allows you to learn and grow from them. While the person who always wants to put the blame for their mistakes onto others remains stuck. When you stop blaming circumstances and other people for whatever is wrong in your life, you build your self-esteem and your self-respect. You take back your personal power and live your life from the inside out instead of letting outside circumstances and other people direct your life.

In the same vein, it's far easier to blame than it is to forgive and move on. Don't get caught in this trap. Let go of insults, hurt, and pain. As long as you are blaming someone else for your pain, you are leaving your happiness up to someone else. You are acting like a helpless victim of life.

But don't go to the other extreme by taking responsibility for everything- especially when it isn't your fault. Let it begin and end with you. You are not responsible for other people's behavior. Every individual has a choice. Don't take that away from them.

Practice "Response-ability"

"Response-ability" is the ability to act positively on your life. It is the ability to choose not only your response to a given situation but choosing to deal with the consequences of your actions - whether they are good or bad. It is based on the knowledge that your quality of life is the result of every choice you make and choosing to be responsible for this life that you create. When you take responsibility, you are choosing to live by choice, not chance. You are taking full responsibility for your happiness.

~Edel Jarboe

About the Author

Edel Jarboe is the founder of Self Help for Her.com, an online self-help magazine helping you create a better life. She also publishes a free weekly newsletter, which features advice on goal setting, stress management, coping with difficult people, and overcoming obstacles: Subscribe here and receive a FREE stress report.

  True Intentions

The knowledge of my own position and my own relations to the world, is truth. Thus, every one may have his own truth, and yet it is the same truth.

·   Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I learned, I suppose at a very early age, that if I were hungry and were to cry, I would be fed. My intention was to not be hungry, so whenever I felt hunger, I became responsible for crying to get food, and it worked. I'm still alive, not having starved as a baby, and I eventually learned to feed myself. I also learned, the hard way, that putting my finger into a light socket would result in being shocked. My intention was to never again receive an electric shock, so I became responsible for keeping my fingers out of sockets and such. This also worked, although I have been shocked several times, and have been pretty lucky (after so many years in the electrical field). But I learned, and became more and more responsible for that knowledge. Yeah, I lived through that, too.

Is being responsible for an intention is like getting caught with a finger in the socket? Zzzzzzzap! Not exactly, but consequences are dynamic, and are based on... what? Let's go over this again: Each cause has an effect, and the two are inseparable. The Universe will not permit an effect without a cause, and vice versa. Likewise, every cause has an intention, a creation in thought form. The intention is also inseparable from both cause and effect. It is apparent that there are, somehow, definite connections between physical reality and the realm of thought. Dynamic consequences are, therefore, based upon their respective intentions.

Every intention that has not yet produced a cause has potential that has yet to be realized. Once an intention has been acted upon or carried out it may produce a cause, but the effect may not be readily apparent. Karma - the "comes-around" that balances out the "goes-around" - has a way of rectifying matters in this process. Individuals always have the opportunity to look beyond simple causes and their effects, and see the intentions that began the process in the first place. That is the perspective of the soul, rather than the personality.

A Course In Miracles teaches that there are only two true intentions, Love and Fear. As I grow older, I realize this to be more and more of a fact of life. As a child, I was fearful be being hurt, hungry, or abandoned. Often, these fears are carried over into adult life, and many actions of adults are based upon fears such as these.

Crimes of property or passion are almost always based upon some fear of loss or lack. The best and most beneficent interactions between individuals in society are based upon love, such as acts of compassion, forgiveness and general social courtesies.

Taking the perspective of the soul helps me see beyond the appearances, the causes, of the actions of others, as well as their effects (whether upon me in particular or society in general), and helps me to glimpse the intention of the act. In his profound but simple book about Toltec wisdom, Don Miguel Ruiz states that the second of Four Agreements is, "Don't take anything personally." He states that nothing others do is because of you, that it is a projection of their own reality, their own dream.

Having the perspective of the soul, seeing the intention of the actor, allows me to become immune to the opinion of others, and helps me avoid being victimized or suffering needlessly because of their act. In other words, it still may hurt, but only as much as I let it hurt.

What is important in this process is the intention of my own actions, or reactions. Taking responsibility for my actions means that I need to be aware of my own intentions, and to be aware of those who could be affected by those actions. Being conscious of whether I am acting from a basis of Love or Fear, and basing my reactions upon my understanding of the intentions of others, empowers me to have a greater understanding of the dynamics of human interactions, and their consequences.

Being aware of the soul's perspective opens the way to a positive and responsible life.

Peace and Light, Michael

email: Michael@N-Spire.com - or, send your to me right now!

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