Throughout our lives we go through stages. You can’t be expected to know anything
about responsibility when you’re a toddler or young child. We have to learn what that means. Each little job, each small task helps us understand what responsibility is and the consequences. Your mother asks, “Will you pick up your toys?” They’re your toys – you’re beginning to be responsible for them so why wouldn’t you? And, then, you also experience the consequences when you don’t pick them up.
Slowly, we grow and as we encounter each task we learn more about responsibility, hopefully. This is in an ideal world.
Sometimes, we resist taking responsibility, even as a child, and this is where we begin spinning our wheels and going nowhere. We’re stuck. Marianne Williamson in her book, The Age of Miracles, says:
“A concept it has taken me years to embrace fully is that I am 100 percent responsible for my own life. 100 percent responsible doesn’t mean 34 percent responsible, and it doesn’t mean 96 percent responsible. Unless you’re willing to accept that you’re 100 percent responsible for your own experience, then you can’t call forth your best life.”
No matter what problem you are experiencing or what someone else has done to you. You need to take full responsibility for your part of it or it will keep repeating itself in some form over again until the lesson is learned. It’s time to stop blaming and judging and truly view the situation and release it through love and forgiveness. This doesn’t mean to become the victim and blame yourself. It means you need to find a way to change your thoughts and reactions and respond positively. I know some of the situations you’re facing out there are tough and no one said it was to be easy. But unless we really see how the situation is reflecting a part of us that needs healing and find a way to do that – through prayer or counselor – we’ll keep spinning our wheels. You have to find the way that fits best for you and a way that works so you know you have dealt with the problem and have been 100 percent responsible.
As Marianne Williamson goes on to say,
“You can live the rest of your life reacting to and replaying what went before, but that won’t serve you or deliver you to the shining place. And everyone you meet will subconsciously know how you’ve responded to your past. They will know whether you’re stuck there or better for having been there.”
From the kitchen table – Pat
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I just Stumbled your article. This is a concept that I had trouble accepting for awhile. I was blessed that I had friends who helped me learn this.
Patricia – thank you for your comments. You’re right. It is a concept we have a hard time accepting in an ego-driven world but when we listen and are open to the lessons to be learned we’re transformed. Believe me. I just had some major lessons put to me to learn today which I wrote about on my latest post, .