Responsibility- Step Three

Let’s chat a bit about responsibility because without a doubt real change requires it. Responsibility means we are accountable, we realize we are the agent, and the cause of our reality. If there is something you want to change, a situation that keeps repeating in your life, a relationship issue that keeps reemerging even though the players change, whatever it is, it must be noted that the common denominator in the situation is you. So to change a situation you must be aware of your part in whatever is showing up in your life.

"You must take personal responsibility. You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons, or the wind, but you can change yourself."
~ Jim Rohn

A wondrous and seemingly miraculous thing happens when we take responsibility for our lives. When we work from the inside out. When we identify and really absorb the projections of ourselves in our reality we can use them as prescriptions for what we need to do for change. What's a projection? Very simply projections are the stuff we don't want to own about ourselves that we put on other people, situations etc. It's pointing our finger at another and making a judgement or blaming. Yet that thing triggering you about another is actually a reflection of a truth about you that requires looking at. We can use our projections as tools to enable use to become responsible and accountable for all the "stuff" about ourselves we don't want to but must own. We take our creative power back when we are finally honest with ourselves. When we put the focus back where it should be, on ourselves. When we do this our problems, our issues, our habits seem to fade into the background without a lot of struggle.

So the final step in our process is to really get how every judgment we have about another person, every time we blame, every time we argue with reality, we suffer. Suffering is really just our attachment to the validity of our thoughts and stories. So if we are suffering we can be sure we are in our ego story. And practically our whole life is spent proving our ego stories true. So the final step in the process about really taking responsibility for your life (and change) is the turnaround, the dismantling of your story by owning your projections. In this process we turn those judgments, thoughts, beliefs, and resentments around so we give ourselves the medicine we are prescribing for others. It is about finding our own wisdom in our projections and being accountable. This is freedom and this is where change just happens.

Take what you think about others and see what happens when you apply it to you.

“An enemy is the friend you judge on paper in order to see clearly the hidden secrets within yourself. You’re perceived enemy is the projection of your thinking, When you work with the projector through inquiry your enemy becomes your friend”
-Byron Katie

“There is only one problem ever: your uninvestigated story in the moment”
-Byron Katie

The following is an example of how it’s done. Please note it is imperative that the first two steps in the process be done first explained here and here.

Find  a belief, meme, judgment, or projection you believe mind and turn it around.
For example:

“I am so angry at Joe because he never listens to me”

Now turn it around and replace "Joe" with "I". There are many options to turn it around and when you find the correct one you’ll know. So keep up the inquiry until you do. It’ll be the one that gives you and energetic zing of truth. I had a great teacher tell me once “You know the one that makes you feel like taking a shower after you hear it? That’s the right one.”

So some turnarounds are …

• “ I am so angry because I never listen to Joe” Is that true? Can you find times when you don’t listen?

• “I am so angry at myself because I never listen to me?” Is that true for you? Do you find yourself not listening to what you need?

The point is understanding how we are responsible for our experience of suffering, but we blame others instead of owning it. Unraveling this madness is bringing our creative spirit in alignment with what is, truth. From this perspective we can heal.

How about another one.

“Joe should listen to me”

Try the 180 degree turnaround

• “Joe should not listen to me“.

Well, guess what, the fact may be he is not listening to you right now? The suffering you feel about  that is believing the story you have made up that he should.  So who’s in charge of your pain? You are. Could you let go of that that thought and just deal with the fact he’s not listening to you right now?
Now a quick note here because the question usually emerges at some point. Let me be clear in no way am I saying you don’t have boundaries or take a stand. In fact, this teaching is quite the contrary. When you get real clear about your projections you get clear about what boundaries you need to set. Not out of anger, justification, or fear, but out of compassion for yourself and the other person.  Not out of your story, history, or habitual response but out of an energetic reflection of the truth and clarity of the present moment.

Another turnaround…

“Joe should listen to me.”

• “I should listen to Joe” Are you really listening to Joe? Perhaps, there in some wisdom for you in realizing you are not listening either.

• “I should listen to me”  Is there truth in that? Have you been ignoring yourself and projecting that on Joe?

This way of understanding our projections can be done on any belief, physical issue, pain, or relationships. Anything…When we take responsibility for our reality we can shift our perceptions, and shift what we are experiencing in a fraction of a second.When we realize that when we point our fingers at someone there are three fingers pointing back at ourselves. No exceptions. What a relief that is because we all know we have no power to change another. We can finally stop looking outward, wishing, hoping, maybe demanding that things change. To change our lives we just need to look in the mirror, perhaps for the first time.

"The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives."
~ William James