LAW #2

Life can only change when we own our part in creating it.

The moment we stop waiting for life to change, we recover the power to change it.

 

Notice this doesn’t say we are to blame. It says our power begins where our responsibility begins.

Our desire to dodge self-responsibility clouds our understanding and distorts our judgment. It’s our attempts to escape and deceive ourselves that keep us stuck.

The solution is always the same: look within.

If we aren’t willing to grow up and become a mature adult, we’ll be preyed upon by fears of how the harmful behaviors of others can hurt us.

If our goal is to reach and affect the core of another person, we must ourselves be acting and reacting from our true selves. Only then can one soul truly touch another, whether or not the other person is working on a spiritual path.

The only true safeguard comes from uncovering the untruth inside ourselves, and giving up our dependency on others doing right. This is how we free ourselves from the effects of other people’s wrong deeds. We must become free of our own illusions and wrong thinking.

If we’re free of our own inner errors, the ills of others won’t affect us.

 

“You do not have to be perfect in order to respect yourself. All you have to do is to have a realistic attitude about your imperfections and to adopt a constructive attitude about them.”

– Pathwork Guide Lecture #31

 

Accepting our part

The law of self-responsibility asks us to resolve our own problems, whatever they may be. It takes away the belief that somehow we have been defeated—by our childhood, by other people, or by life.

At the same time, it wipes away the childish notion that for us to be happy, we must be king of the hill. For the illusion that we’re passive victims is just as untrue as the notion that we are omnipotent rulers.

Paradoxically, when we accept our own limitations and see how our own shortcomings contribute to our unsatisfying life experiences, we’ll find the power we need to transform our lives into something more meaningful.

We’ll begin to see that others also have limitations. That it’s the interlocking combination of our faults that co-creates our conflicts.

Accepting self-responsibility is the way to eliminate self-pity and get past resignation. It moves us beyond endless endurance and motivates us to unpack our smoldering resentments against the injustices of life.

It also asks us to stop building cases against others. This is a Lower Self game we play that needs to end.

By contrast, if we refuse self-responsibility, we will stay stuck in being dependent on others. The byproduct of this is feeling helpless and powerless. This inevitably leads to resentments because it’s not possible for others to fulfill all our expectations.

We will live in fear that we’ll “never get it” and therefore needlessly defend ourselves. But our defenses will only serve to cut us off further from the source of life that lives inside us.

All the while, we go on willfully ignoring how we are the ones creating such a miserable state for ourselves. We do this because it suits us better to keep blaming others for our miserable lot in life, while we wait for a salvation that is never going to come.

How pain motivates us

When we come into this life, there is an agenda for something we’re to discover. In the end, the life events we draw to ourselves are the fate we ourselves have created. It must be so.

This means that if what we create are problems, we must search within ourselves to discover where the real trouble lies. We must find and dissolve the same inside ourselves.

What we will find is that one equation must always come out right: hardship equals self-created difficulties. In other words, if we feel we have a tough life, we have had a hand in determining how the cards have been dealt.

Our pain and struggle are what motivate us to change. Without them, we would remain immature and lacking in some important understanding about life and ourselves.

The beauty of the system is that embedded in our struggles is the precise medicine we need to heal our inner ills. If we will turn and face our pain and do what needs to be done to free ourselves from our chains, we will learn exactly the lesson that our soul needs in order to grow and mature.

This can best be done by walking a path of inner self-discipline, self-searching and self-knowing. To accomplish this, we all have a well of inner strength within us. It’s entirely up to us how we direct these resources.

A spiritual law says that whatever energy we invest in spiritual growth will always be replenished. But when we let ourselves spiral into negative circles of completely unproductive currents, we’re going to become depleted.

We waste the precious energy we have at our disposal and then wonder why we feel so exhausted.

It’s up to us

These spiritual laws run like clockwork. They are so perfectly crafted it’s not possible for anything unjust to come to any of us. But we do have free will. With it, we sometimes create hardships for ourselves.

The plans for how life goes are prepared according to prevailing circumstances, always within the guidelines of spiritual laws. They always give us the easiest path forward possible, all things considered. Then it’s up to us.

Sometimes we take responsibility and do what’s needed to avoid an unfortunate situation. Sometimes we don’t. Plans are modified, as needed, in accordance with the latest circumstances.

Even though all alternatives are considered ahead of time and prepared for, people will do what people will do. And God won’t force us to do what’s best.

Correcting our course

Whatever happens must be for the good. For that’s how spiritual laws have been constructed.

When we go in a direction that opposes God’s will and therefore spiritual laws, we will feel the pinch. This will motivate us to move back into alignment—to course-correct.

These are loving laws we’re talking about, designed to help us steer clear of wrong choices using our own free will. For every decision we make, and every attitude we choose or deed we do, is another chance to get right with God by setting ourselves straight with divine laws.

Spiritual law always offers us the easiest path forward, given our present circumstances. The longer we resist it, the harder the journey becomes.

We so often observe this in action when we get caught in some vicious Lower-Self habit. The more caught we become, the harder it is to break free. The more we keep running from facing up to our inner misunderstandings, the more we continue to resist changing.

Our hurdles grow accordingly.

This keeps going until our life challenges become so insurmountable they make us feel hopeless and defeated. Our own unhappiness will eventually lead us to want to make a change.

 

“People are always given the chance to solve their problems in the easiest circumstances possible. When not enough courage and willpower are mustered in easy circumstances, the life that follows must necessarily be a little more difficult.

And if again the courage, humility, and willpower are not mustered, the life afterward will be more difficult still. Ultimately, when the going gets really hard, you will be forced to face your troubles instead of fleeing them.

So by law your lives become increasingly difficult. You violate divine law when you escape from yourself instead of facing yourself.”

– Pathwork Guide Lecture #38

 

We spend enormous energy trying to change other people, our circumstances, or our past. Spiritual law points us inward instead. It asks only one question:

What is mine to own?

The moment we answer honestly, we stop waiting for life to change. We begin changing it.

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