FollowMisconceptions and the dynamics of responsibility and freedom
Many people see responsibility as a burden, usually associated with fault or blame. This misconception is often planted in our childhood, when for example, your mother might ask “Who’s responsible for this mess?”, meaning who’s going to get punished for it, so you straight away want to deny responsibility.
Responsibility is not fault or blame; it’s the ability to respond. What I want to show you now is that it is the greatest key to freedom.
First of all, in the development of consciousness, we grow into a triangle of freedom, responsibility and power. These three things go together.
Freedom without power is entitlement. You are aware of all your rights, what you should have, but don’t have the power to claim those rights. You just feel entitled. This gets you nowhere. In manifesting our reality, only genuine expectation works. Entitlement just won’t do it. (Read my previous article to understand how expectation works.)
Freedom without responsibility is tyranny. You are free to take whatever you want, without considering the consequences.
Moving beyond manipulation and blame
Responsibility means being able to respond in a way that takes you towards what you want. It means you can make all the choices that direct your life. But being able to respond means being in the right place. As an example, suppose you are driving along a motorway and you see someone drowning in a river near the motorway. It’s several miles to the next exit. You can’t respond. On the other hand, if you were driving along the small road near the river, you could stop and help them. On the emotional level, being in the right place means being emotionally in the adult, not the child. A child cannot take control of its own life. It can only get what it wants by manipulating its parents. Doing this in your adult life keeps you powerless, as you don’t take the steps you need to change your life.
To the child, blaming someone else is a way of getting away with something; avoiding consequences, but as an adult, this keeps you powerless. If someone else is responsible for your problems, it means you need them to fix those problems. Who are you going to ask to fix your life? A parent who has disowned you? An ex-spouse who hates you? An ex-boss who won’t even give you a reference? If they are responsible for your life, you are sunk. If you take responsibility for your life, you can fix it. This is the first step to freedom and power. It is not a burden.
Responsibility is not something you have to do; it’s something you choose to take. Once you are emotionally an adult, you respond to life with intent, knowing what your behaviour is meant to achieve, rather than reacting from childhood patterns. As you heal the child/victim responses, you start to act with mindfulness of the result you wish to achieve. This is never following automatic, ready-made responses.
Judging judgement
I am going to take judgement as an example, as it is one of the most relevant issues in healing and growth. The automatic response you will usually hear is that judgement is bad or wrong. But that is also a judgement. You should be able to see how ridiculous it is to try to counter judgement with more judgement. The conscious response is to look at what judgement does and decide if that’s the effect you want.
First of all, judgements can be hurtful. That’s why we don’t judge when healing, as we are not trying to hurt someone we want to heal.
Secondly, judgement closes down the flow. For example, you might be having a discussion, where lots of differing ideas can help you expand, but when you get tired of it, you make an absolute; then there is no more discussion. That’s why you do it; you are tired of expanding at that stage.
So when we are involved in healing, transformation and growth, it makes sense not to judge. When not involved in such things, it really doesn’t matter. You can be as judgemental as you like; that doesn’t make you bad. Rather you can choose to put aside all judgement when you want to heal and grow. Being conscious of your choices and their effects is the key.
So you can see, responsibility, when freed from the misconceptions of fault or blame, is the greatest key to freedom and power. Responding out of choice is what enables you to craft your life and navigate your way through it.