Self-responsibility

What it is

Self-responsibility is the willingness to recognize that our inner attitudes shape the life we experience. It is not about blaming ourselves. It’s about discovering that we really can create a better life.

Why it matters

Freedom and self-responsibility go together. As we stop seeing ourselves as victims of life, we reclaim our capacity to consciously create the life we truly desire.

From Bones

~1~

Our negative attitudes are, after all, used as a defense against feeling our feelings. We also use them to void taking self-responsibility. Or to reject life’s imperfect circumstances. (Chapter 17)

~2~

Because our God-image is so basic, it taints all our other attitudes about life.

It pushes us into hopelessness and despair, believing we live in an unfair and unjust universe. Also, it launches us into self-indulgent behavior where we reject self-responsibility because we expect God to pamper us. (Chapter 14)

~3~

Underpinning our unreasonable desire for freedom without taking responsibility is a general misconception about life. And it will be supremely important for us to see this one.

It is this: We believe that harm can come to us through the arbitrariness of life. That we can be harmed by fate or by the god we hold an image—or wrong conclusion—about. Or through the ignorance and cruelty of others.

This fear is an illusion—it’s an abyss. And the only reason it exists is because of the way we avoid self-responsibility. For if we don’t want to be responsible for our life, someone else must be. (Chapter 19)

~4~

Any time we observe a disease in our soul, which then shows up in the body, there has been an evasion of paying a necessary price. We insist on having our way, and we want it to be easy.

But in the long run, we pay a higher price for avoiding our part.

Part of this price is the enormous waste of energy and effort we put into forcing life to meet our demands. We would shudder if we could see just how much inner emotional energy we waste on this. If we let go of this illusion, we could be using that energy quite differently.

We’ve become so afraid, though, of taking self-responsibility. By now, our fear of it has become a large part of our abyss. We fear that if we assume self-responsibility, we will fall right in and be swallowed up whole. So we keep straining in the opposite direction, using up precious personal resources. (Chapter 19)

~5~

We each need to search our own souls for how and where this is true for us. Where do we desire utter freedom without self-responsibility.

It might be flagrant, or it might be sneaky and indirect.

But without a single exception, this exists somewhere in all of us. (Chapter 19)

~6~

We are only helpless because we make ourselves so when we shift responsibility away from ourselves. When we look at things this way, we begin to see the heavy price we pay for insisting on Utopia.

We pay every day with our fear. (Chapter 19)

~7~

We might like to think we are a victim, but that doesn’t make it true. And remaining in this state of mind is a sign that we refuse to accept self-responsibility. (Chapter 19)

Continue with: Free Will • Out-picture • Truth