the R word

by Dr. Dina Evan

What’s the world coming to? It seems no one is willing to take personal responsibility for any decisions about anything, especially in Washington. However, that’s not the only place. We see this in families when couples blame each other, when kids argue and blame each other  and in business when medicines, toys, cars or any other product fails or is faulty.
Somehow, we got the message that taking responsibility is a bad thing, it makes us feel like a failure.

Actually, just the opposite is true. Taking responsibility for our actions is a sign of integrity, strength and courage. It makes you self-aware and honorable in a healthy way, both of which may seem unfamiliar and new to you. Careful though, one pitfall to avoid is that of beating yourself up for making human mistakes — because that is self-abuse. The truth is that people who either never make mistakes, or never admit to them, are standing still in their own ego.

Making mistakes is part of life

Finding out what doesn’t work is required for creating what does. Leave the past in the past and don’t drag it into your now. It’s not helpful or relevant.
A major part of being responsible is also about setting heathy boundaries. In the beginning of your process, you may have a tendency to take too much responsibility for what others think, what they may be feeling or how they react. You are not responsible for anyone else’s feelings or responses. You are only responsible for your own.

When you take responsibility, everyone wins because your relationships are more honest and authentic. Unfortunately, you can’t avoid the reality that others may feel pain simply because you choose to be who you are.

An example may be that you are dead tired and your best friend needs you to sit up all night commiserating over her broken relationship. If you say you take responsibility and say you are exhausted and need to be with your family that night, she is going to feel pain and it is not your job to fix that.

What you can do is set a time that is better for both of you during which you can give her what she needs. If you treat yourself as if your needs are important, worthy of being respected, most people will respect that as well and if they can’t…it’s not about you and it’s not your problem.

We all come here with only one assignment and that is to be fully who we are. We can get side tracked or delayed, but, sooner or later, we have to get back to this one basic assignment. It is that of taking full responsibility for every action, every word we speak and everything that happens in our life. That is what being fully empowered means. Here’s a little something you can hang on your wall in case you need a reminder about what your responsibilities are or are not supposed to be.
                             
Responsibility
It is never your responsibility to: 

• Give what you don’t want to give, for that is a violation of your own boundaries
• Sacrifice your integrity to anyone for that grieves your spirit
• Drain your strength for others because that discounts your own needs
• Listen to unwise counsel for that ignores your inner wisdom
• Maintain an unfair relationship because that devalues your worth.
• Be anyone other than who you are because that robs the world of your unique gift
• Conform to unreasonable demands for that creates resentment
• Be 100% perfect because we are all still works in process
• Follow the crowd because there is no value in sameness
• Please unpleasant people because that is self-induced abuse
• Bear the burden of an other’s misbehavior because accepting consequences are a precious part of each person’s own path
• Feel guilty for your own inner desires for those are Divinely inspired
• Endure your own negative thoughts because that is a refusal to heal
• Meekly let life pass you by for that is a waste of your choice to be born.