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A little over half the year is past.  It’s a good time for review.  

Where are you?  Have you fallen back on old habits and abandoned the goals you set for yourself just 6 months ago?  Or are you still on track?  Either way, all is not lost.

Here’s the thing, December is going to come irrespective of where you find yourself.  The question is, how will you find yourself?  Will you be exactly where you were last year at this time?  Or will you have accomplished some or all of your goals?  Have you resigned yourself to resignation or are you fired up and ready to supersede your expectations?

If you’ve given up at the first sign of failure, or the first sign that the result didn’t live up to expectations, then answer me this, what are you getting out of staying stuck?  Because clearly you’re getting something out of it to give in already.  Be truthful with yourself.

But if you’re disappointed with results and perhaps even discouraged that you’re not further ahead than you thought you’d be, then take heart.  Here’s what you need to know.  So long as you keep moving forward, so long as you keep taking action in the direction of your goals, perhaps with a bit of adjustment, a bit of tweaking a bit of re-engineering, then you cannot but attain your goal.

What it boils down to is trust.  Yes again, the “T” word.  I find that unlike the word “HOPE” which feels to me very passive, TRUST (perhaps because it rhymes with THRUST) feels active, feels powerful.  So, just because you’re falling a bit short of your goals, or the results you’re getting aren’t looking the way you’d like them to, I’m here to remind you that you’ve got time to make adjustments, regroup and push forward.  

But above all, you’ve got to continue to TRUST that continuing to move forward, irrespective of immediate reward, just on blind, stupid TRUST, you will absolutely get to where you want to go, you’ll realize the results you want.

You’ve got time.  TRUST + ACTION = VISION.

GO!

TRUST

Why is trusting ourselves so hard to do?  Is it because our skills, our knowledge our integrity, our values, our patience and our worth are constantly being subverted with questions like “Who do you think you are?”

The inherent danger in this is that there will come a time when we can’t hold one more gram of pain, when we can’t face another scintilla of abuse (from ourselves or another), when we won’t tolerate another instance of neglect and disrespect, when trust in ourselves is our only saving grace.

And if “Who do you think you are?” is a question you frequently ask yourself, you will trust the wrong person, the wrong thing, someone or something external to you and that’s not where trust lives.  

Trust lives in your heart.  It is the confidant of your heart’s desire.  Trust is the only thing that truly knows, who you think you are.

ILLNESS

If you think you’re getting away with not dealing with an issue because you’re choosing to deny it, not deal with it or ignore it, think again.  Sooner or later it will catch up with you in very unexpected ways.

Strong emotional energy is attached to denial (feeling guilty is a residue of denial).  This energy is negative and corrosive and it needs to go somewhere.  As an organic system your body absorbs this energy  and over time manifests in all manner of illness from ulcers to cancer. Psychologically it will manifest as depression, OCD, anxiety, PTSD and on and on.  

Even something as seemingly unrelated as being overweight is likely attributed to denial or feelings of guilt.  

What I think most people are in excruciating need of is forgiveness.  Let it go.  Those feelings we may have that tell us we deserve to be punished, tell them, tell yourself that you’ve been punished enough.  Enough is enough.  Forgive yourself.

“When I stopped praising myself for self-torture and began listening to

my body, I found that there was wisdom in my cells to exceed anything

my bewildered doctors could offer.”

--Martha Beck, The Body Whisperer

GUILT

This is an excellent description of guilt.

“If you push against reality, you will suffer.”  ~Byron Katie

Take responsibility for what you’re actually feeling guilty about, the reality.  Ignore the ego that's telling you that you need the guilt because you need to be punished.  And then  FORGIVE YOURSELF.

Paraphrased from Oprah's Lifeclass with Iyanla Vanzant.

VOID

Whenever we refuse to see reality for what it is and pretend it’s something else, we create a void that fear calls home.  

Whenever we tell ourselves that we’ll change when we’re “ready,” we create a void for fear to expand into.

Whenever we rather avoid a situation than face it with courage, we create a void, an opportunity, for fear to flourish.

In no time at all, our lives will revolve around and will be controlled by, nothing but fear.

PICKY

We all have agendas.  For most of us though, our agendas or our motivation for our actions are benign, we want to be liked, we want to get our needs met, and we want a certain amount of predictability from those around us.  

However, we go wrong when we think that others don’t have agendas that are strategic and malignant.  The main driving force for these folks is to create chaos.

Most of us go wrong when preoccupied with being liked, we forget to be picky.  

COMPADRES

This may come as a revelation but it truly is not your significant other’s job to understand what you’re going through.  Just as it isn’t your job to understand what your significant other is going through.

More relationships suffer because couples don’t understand this basic premise.  People think that just because you couple up you don’t need anyone else.  Romantic notions of marriage and relationships just further cement this idea, but you’re begging for trouble if your immediate circle consists of just you and your partner - especially during difficult times.

It’s your compadres that understand your troubles, it’s them on whose shoulders you need to lean.  You need several people who you can trust, with whom you can rant and vent, each bringing their own brilliant, personal perspective.  One that is sympathetic, the other who is an awesome listener and then there’s the one who will not tell you want you want to hear, but will always tell you what you need to hear.

Your partner is too close for appropriate perspective and ultimately will be interested in whatever will keep peace in the house.

No, you need your compadres because it takes a village to keep a woman together primarily because it’s a village that she carries on her back.  

COURAGE

Affirmations and all the good intentions in the world are wholly worthless if they aren’t paired with action.

While an inspirational quote can help cheer us up, or serve as a reminder when we lose our way, they are no substitute for the action that needs to happen in order to realize that change in our lives.

“Keep your chin up.”  Might be just the thing you need to hear, but if you’re not addressing and changing the thing that forces your chin down, then what’s the point?

Don’t hide behind affirmations. They’re not enough. They’re not what builds courage.

PROCRASTINATION

"Everyone procrastinates sometimes, but 20 percent of people chronically avoid difficult tasks and deliberately look for distractions—which, unfortunately, are increasingly available. Procrastination in large part reflects our perennial struggle with self-control as well as our inability to accurately predict how we'll feel tomorrow, or the next day.

Procrastinators may say they perform better under pressure, but more often than not that's their way of justifying putting things off.

The bright side? It's possible to overcome procrastination—with effort."

http://www.psychologytoday.com/basics/procrastination

CAVALRY

The truly tragic thing, I think, is that people are willing to let their dreams die rather than take personal responsibility, rather than be accountable for their lives.  A lot of people are still waiting for the cavalry to save them, they’re convinced that help exists outside themselves.  But it truly doesn’t.  There is no cavalry.

Even if you’re in an abusive relationship and can’t see your way out, and know you’ll need help to leave, the decision to leave can only come from you.  That first step, cannot be taken for you by anyone else.

Here's the good news: YOU ARE MUCH STRONGER THAN YOU THINK YOU ARE.  You are your own cavalry.

UPSIDE

If you have been complaining of the same problem(s) for over a year (I’m being generous here - a year is a long time), then congratulations you are the proud owner of a victim mentality -- or a martyr mentality, or an indignant mentality, or a defensive mentality, take your pick.

Why do so many people choose to be victims?  Because there’s a huge upside:

1. NOT MY JOB - I don’t have to look for solutions to my problems
2. THEY - are ruining my life; I am always perpetrated upon, the problem exists out there
3. DO UNTO OTHERS - my angry/defensive lashing out is justified because THEY are always picking on me
4. I COULD DO BETTER THAN YOU - but I won’t, my indignant attitude is enough, so I walk around perfectly balanced with a chip on both shoulders
5. OUT OF MY CONTROL - I’m overwhelmed
6. JUST ME - that's the way I am/always have been

Whatever the excuse may be, you get the picture, it boils down to relinquishing control of your life.

Let’s be clear, I’m not talking about true victimhood here, I’m talking about adults that complain about their lives yet do nothing to change it.  They suck others dry of sympathy, compassion and good will while not doing a damn thing to help themselves.

COMPASSION

Don’t ignore your instinct when it’s telling you that a friend, a family member, a loved one, someone you care about or even a complete stranger, is in trouble.  We all need to stop thinking that abuse is not our business just because it isn’t happening in our house.  

And we have to stop pretending that what happens to someone else doesn’t affect us.  It does.  We’re all connected, and it is our capacity for compassion that connects us.  

We all, at some time or another, need the help of another person.  The best way to receive compassion, is to give it, especially when your instinct is telling you that someone is in trouble.

CONTROL

Control is an interesting thing. While for the most part we want it for ourselves to help us feel safe, we are actually more likely to give it away or allow someone to take it from us.

In an abusive relationship it’s all about control -- them dominating and controlling you.

“Domestic violence and abuse are used for one purpose and one purpose only: to gain and maintain total control over you. An abuser doesn’t “play fair.” Abusers use fear, guilt, shame, and intimidation to wear you down and keep you under his or her thumb. Your abuser may also threaten you, hurt you, or hurt those around you.  

Domestic violence and abuse does not discriminate. It happens among heterosexual couples and in same-sex partnerships. It occurs within all age ranges, ethnic backgrounds, and economic levels. And while women are more commonly victimized, men are also abused—especially verbally and emotionally, although sometimes even physically as well. The bottom line is that abusive behavior is never acceptable, whether it’s coming from a man, a woman, a teenager, or an older adult. You deserve to feel valued, respected, and safe.” http://www.helpguide.org/mental/domestic_violence_abuse_types_signs_causes_effects.htm

The most important thing to remember is that there are ways to take control back, just a little bit, just the tiniest little bit will allow you to:

MAKE A PLAN: http://www.healthyplace.com/abuse/break-free/escape-plan-to-get-away-from-domestic-violence/

STAY SAFE.  

LEAVE.

EXTERNAL

So many of us think that we can fill that emptiness inside by things external to us.  It’s simply not true.  By pinning all of our desires for safety, comfort, love and fulfillment on things outside ourselves: people, places, things, we give away our power, we abdicate our responsibility to take care of ourselves.

In fact, the more tightly we hold on to things outside ourselves, the further away we push any hope for feeling safe, comfort, love and fulfillment.  It is only through being in charge of our own life, and making decisions for ourselves that we learn to recognize the capacity for these things in ourselves and others.

Being in an unsatisfying or abusive relationship is a sure sign that you are looking for things external to you to feel love and fulfillment and can therefore not recognize the lack of that capacity in others.

In a violent or abuse relationship you are convinced that you are incapable of providing safety, comfort, love and fulfillment for yourself and yet you so capably provide it to your abuser every day.  

You couldn’t be more wrong.  

It is excruciatingly important for you to see that you are more than thoroughly capable of taking care of yourself, inside and out.  Save yourself decades of heartache.

MAKE A PLAN.  STAY SAFE.  LEAVE.

SPECIAL

You’re putting up with abuse or just general maltreatment because:

• you’re special
• this relationship is special
• you’re the only one who understands him
• he’s the only one who understands you
• you’ve got no one else
• he’s only got you
• you’ve never felt so in love before
• this love is different
• this love is so intense
• he so clearly needs you
• he can’t live without you
• what will he do without you
• he seems so vulnerable, you can’t possibly leave him
• he doesn’t really mean it
• he doesn’t have coping skills
• he gets angry easily
• nobody understands him
• he’s special
• and on and on
• etc., etc.

PURE BULLSHIT.  I can tell you exactly how this is going to end up and so can a multitude of other people -- it’ll end up with you wasting time, wasting energy, wasting money and wasting your life.  The sooner you open your eyes, step out of denial and take personal responsibility the sooner you can find a relationship that is worthy of you. A relationship that is special in the healthiest, best and most appropriate way possible.

Yes, you can take offense at this and yes, it’s strong language but it’s meant to be. I’m not here to make you feel comfortable, I’m here to point out how incredibly dysfunctional your relationship is and how seriously you are messing up your life by refusing to take responsibility.  Now you know.  If you are offended by this language then you need to ask yourself what are you getting out of staying in this abusive relationship if you’re feeling so defensive?  I can tell you.  You’re offended because deep down inside your instincts are telling you I’m right and you’re scared -- you should be scared - you should be scared of staying in the relationship you’re in.

MAKE A PLAN.  STAY SAFE.  LEAVE.

CONFUSION

The thing about being in an abusive relationship is that it’s confusing.  Aside from the abuser’s erratic behavior - stomping on your head one minute and declaring undying love the next - it’s the confusion going on inside of you that’s particularly puzzling.

You know you’re a good person so why is he behaving this way?

Why is your love for this person not enough to change him?

He can’t really mean the awful things he says?  Can he?

This is how he shows he loves me.  Isn’t it?

How insecure must I be to stick around?

I must really be unlovable to have him treat me this way.

He clearly sees how unworthy I am of someone like him.

And the exhaustingly endless rationalizations:

It’s just the alcohol.  It’s just the drugs.  It’s just his messed up childhood. Etc., etc., etc.

Let me offer a bit of clarity:  Love does not hurt.  Not even a little bit.

Take responsibility for what your instincts are telling you.  If you’re in pain in any way shape or form, be it physical, emotional or psychological, it isn’t love.  It isn’t worth sticking around for.

PATHOLOGICAL

So why would someone choose to not be personally responsible? Why would someone expend so much energy denying what’s right in front of them and ignoring their instinct that’s going off like a three-alarm fire?

The truth is actually appallingly simple -- avoiding inconvenience, preserving the status quo.   The examples go from masochistic dysfunction, when it involves only an adult who makes the decision to stay because the relationship with their abuser provides them with some sort of status or financial security.  To heinous and pathological, as with Sandusky’s wife.

How hard did she have to work at looking the other way, ignoring her gut, so that she wouldn’t have to be inconvenienced with the upheaval to her life, if she did the right thing and turned her husband in?  A lot.  She would have to work really hard at denial -- so hard in fact for it to become a pathology, for it to become a disease.  An illness that alters a human’s natural reaction to reality.  This does not absolve her from taking responsibility however, because I believe that in some tiny part of her she was aware of what was going on, if she didn’t know the details, she knew it wasn’t good and she knew there were vulnerable children involved -- and she did NOTHING.

How many stories are out there where kids have enough courage to tell their mother (or father) that there is abuse and yet the parent doesn’t believe the child?  Many, too many.  Why does the parent not believe the child?  Inconvenience, the truth is simply too inconvenient.  It would mean that the adult in the situation would have to take personal responsibility, the adult would have to alter their status quo.

Never underestimate the lengths a person will go to avoid taking personal responsibility.  That’s why it’s so critical to be aware of this.  Nothing good comes from denial.  Never has.  Never will.

INCONVENIENCE

How many times have people made a conscious decision to live in denial just so that they wouldn’t be inconvenienced by the truth?  I think that’s the case more often than not when you’re not taking personal responsibility.

Yes, I believe that one makes a conscious decision to live in denial, it isn’t a contradiction in terms.  The problem I see with the suggestion that denial is subconscious is that one would have to deny, deny and deny again every second of every day the factual evidence that shows you how the violence happening in your home is affecting your children, for example.

In other words, you have to brush aside what’s right in front of you and pretend it isn’t there and that takes conscious effort.  Denial therefore is one of the biggest barriers to taking personal responsibility.

And yes, for the most part, especially at the beginning when you’re just starting to take back your power and practice personal responsibility, it is an inconvenience.

“AND” & “THE”

For the rest of July I will focus on personal responsibility and how it relates to violent and abusive relationships.

An alcoholic is an alcoholic whether he’s got a drink in his hand or not.  In between drinks he has difficulty managing responsibilities at home and at work, exhibits physical withdrawal symptoms, and displays emotional and behavioral changes, such as acting erratically: either he’ll be angry all the time, or vacillate between being defensive and charming.   

So too the violent abuser who is still an abuser whether he’s striking you or not, whether he’s physically abusing you or is rather emotionally tormenting you.  

My point is that an abuser is an abuser whether he’s caught in the act or whether he’s buying you roses as an apology for the black eye.  

If you are on the receiving end of the abuse please know:

1) You did not cause it - irrespective of what the abuser is telling you

2) You do not deserve it - irrespective of how the abuser is making you feel

3) It isn’t the alcohol and it isn’t because your abuser had a rough childhood - regardless of what your abuser tells you when he apologizes

4) You must leave - irrespective of whether your abuser is telling you you’ve got no place to go and no one will care  -- people care and there are places to go - this is your responsibility because you cannot allow your abuser to steal another second of your life.  If you have children, you have absolute responsibility over them, and the urgency in leaving goes double.  

Here’s the overwhelming thing you need to know about your abuser.  He (or she) is a LIAR.  Lying is just one of the tools they use to manipulate you with -- that’s all.  Please, please, please remember this if you remember anything -- everything coming out of their mouth is a lie even the words ‘and’ and ‘the’.  

Make a plan.  Be safe.  LEAVE.

VIOLENCE

Nowhere is taking personal responsibility more critical than in a relationship where there is violence and abuse.

Under no other circumstance is neglecting personal responsibility more egregious than staying in a relationship where there is violence and abuse and there are children involved.

If you are a parent and find yourself in a violent and abusive situation, you MUST get you and your kids out now.  Devise a plan, do it safely, but get out NOW.  You must find the strength somewhere because while you can abdicate personal responsibility for yourself, you absolutely must not abandon your responsibility of them.  They look to you. You are all they have.  

The only way the violence and abuse will stop is if you leave.  You know this to be true in your heart.  

BLAME

Taking personal responsibility means that you keep blame in perspective.  You certainly don't blame external things for what has gone wrong in your life, but you also lay off the self-blame.

It's much more productive to learn from an experience, especially the ones that didn't turn out the way you wanted them to.  Blaming yourself oftentimes leaves you stuck at a pity party, and when self-blame is taken to extremes leaves you positively paralyzed.

BAD

Chances are if you’re not taking personal responsibility you’re probably behaving badly and getting away with it because you’ve surrounded yourself with people you can bully.  

VULNERABILITY

Vulnerability isn’t weakness.  Many people confuse the two.  Vulnerability is a basic element of personal responsibility, and personal responsibility has nothing to do with being weak, quite the opposite.

We are at our weakest when we allow other people to make decisions for us, when we wallow in denial and when we disengage from our lives.  This is weakness.

To be vulnerable on the other hand, means we are plugged into our lives.  It means that while we make decisions feeling uncertain, fearful and apprehensive, we move forward anyway.  

If we were weak we’d be looking around for people, places and circumstances to blame.  We’d be busy working ourselves up to high-drama gnashing our teeth and beating our chest.

Vulnerability in service of personal responsibility takes into account the risk but acknowledges that however our choices work out, we’ll be ready for the education, one way or another.

OPPOSITE

Personal responsibility is the opposite of control.  It isn’t about needing to be responsible for all outcomes, for all circumstances. If you’re the type that needs to be in control chances are you’re so busy minding everybody else’s business that you’re probably not taking care of the stuff that actually is your responsibility.   

If you’re constantly bewildered at the state of your life, then you’re in control mode -- you’re practicing the opposite of personal responsibility.

THE WHEAT...

…from the Chaff

The fact is that people will tell you how they plan on treating you in under 10 seconds from the time you first meet them.  Think back…I’ll wait.

From the job candidate who showed up a half-hour late, to the date that didn’t show up at all but called back two days later asking for a re-schedule without an explanation, to the woman at work who one minute wants to be friends and the next, totally ignores you, these people are telling you how they will treat you.

Most of us will give people chance after chance to redeem themselves.  We’ll enable their bad behavior with co-dependency and then, when we can’t get the other person to change, we look around for someone to blame. 

Truly, it is your responsibility to separate the wheat from the chaff, to separate the quality from the filler, to distinguish  what’s worth keeping and what needs to be tossed out, what will help and nurture you and what needs to be left on the threshing floor.

MESS

Taking personal responsibility also means doing what you need to do to own up, suck it up and clean up that stinkin’ mess you just splattered all over your life.

“Mistakes happen. Big, dumb, stupid, lazy mistakes. Fat frickin’ messes that you will regret for a very long time. And no affirmation or predeterministic thinking will change the fact that you’ve done gone and fucked up. And when you can get that real about it, you don’t need to waste energy protecting your ego or pouring on the sweetener. You can use that energy to clean up the mess and love yourself while you’re doing it.”

~ Danielle LaPorte

LaPorte, Danielle (2012-04-17). The Fire Starter Sessions: A Soulful + Practical Guide to Creating Success on Your Own Terms (Kindle Locations 1707-1710). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

HEALING

Healing is also our responsibility.  That we be proactive in our healing. Like surrounding ourselves with soft places to fall and people who will support us no questions asked.   

However, it is also our responsibility to include in our inner circle, people who have proven that they have no agenda other than to wish the best for us, to kick our behind when we need it.  It is not helpful to surround ourselves with people that simply agree with us – it isn’t healthy and it isn’t what we need – we need someone around us who will be brave enough to tell us the truth – always in a loving way of course, but the truth nonetheless.

Here’s a sample of a figurative kick in the pants, as it asks that you keep things in perspective.  And I offer this because I have no agenda other than to wish the very best for you.

”Losses aren’t cataclysmic if they teach the heart and soul their natural cycle of breaking and healing. A real tragedy? That’s the loss of the heart and soul themselves. If you’ve abandoned yourself in the effort to keep anyone or anything else, unlearn that pattern. Live your truth, losses be damned. Just like that, your heart and soul will return home.”              —Martha Beck

Quoted from: LaPorte, Danielle (2012-04-17). The Fire Starter Sessions: A Soulful + Practical Guide to Creating Success on Your Own Terms (Kindle Locations 1696-1699). Random House, Inc.. Kindle Edition.

ASSOCIATION

It is amazing to me how much people give away by mere association – who you hang out with, marry, live with, etc., says a huge amount about who YOU really are.

In fact, I find the perpetually angry, wound tighter than a spring kind of person much less interesting than the people in their inner circle. 

It’s fascinating to me how people are drawn to those that will reiterate and confirm their sense of unworthiness, their sense of not being good enough.  What’s even more fascinating to me is how these people take it a step further and enable and facilitate the individual and their damaging treatment of them.

Here’s the thing, being around perpetually angry people is not healthy.  Being around someone who is disengaged is not healthy, being around someone who tears you down is not healthy.  Most people understand the really obvious ways that relationships are unhealthy but fail to recognize the insidious ways that being around a perpetually angry person is damaging to their sense of worth.

Think about who you’ve let into your inner circle then take a deep breath (take personal responsibility) and disassociate yourself from those that do not bring out, support and represent your healthiest, best self.

SHIFT

Isn’t it interesting that our definition of hell depends on our point of view?  Really, we can turn anything into hell if we really put our minds to it.    
Say for example you have a really long commute into work and you’ve come to hate it.  You’re fighting it every step of the way thinking only of the amount of time that you’re wasting sitting in traffic.  Sure you could change jobs, but what if you like the job, just not the commute? 

By making just a small shift in your perception – you’ve not gone out and bought an expensive piece of equipment to make the switch, you’ve not succumbed to a spell or fallen into a trance – you simply made a miniscule switch in the way you associate your commute with a bad thing.   You’ve instead thought of ways you can make that commute productive:

-       Listening to books on tape

-       Dictating into a tape recorder: memos, schoolwork, ideas for your book

-       Conference calls

-       Letting your mind wander and coming up with creative solutions to problems

Sometimes all it takes is making sure you’ve got snacks and your favorite coffee.  And even if you end up doing nothing but daydreaming (in a safe, paying attention to the road kind of way), the point isn’t what you do, the point is that you direct your thinking in a productive direction rather than a counterproductive one.

What astounds me is how much people resist this notion.  I can feel the eye-rolling as I write this, but it’s true – you can either perpetuate the negative or you can turn it around and make it productive, make it work for you.  The choice is yours, the control is yours, the responsibility is yours.

I find that when you come up against resistance to making this adjustment in your point of view, the critical question to ask is, what are you getting out of the negativity?  Is it because the negativity is easier?  Is it because wallowing  in the negativity means you don’t have to change?

Or is the negativity about one thing really masking a much more serious and scary thing underneath?  You could find out by trying the switch and seeing whether the negativity dissipates.  If it doesn’t then maybe the negativity and anger isn’t about the commute at all but maybe it’s about the job.  Maybe it’s about resenting the fact that you work so far away when you’d rather have a job closer so you can spend more time with the kids?

Let’s be clear about one thing though:  In no way shape or form am I suggesting that you should rationalize abusive behavior into a positive point of view.  Abuse is abuse, plain and simple.  I’m talking about things that are within the sphere of your control.  In other words, you have no control over someone being abusive toward you, however, you do have control over whether you stay and whether you view leaving as a feasible and productive thing to do.  Which it always is.

A Rock...

…and a Hard Place…our decisions created both. 

For example, you hate your job. But leaving it, right now, is not an option.  These are the facts.  The stories you weave around these facts are just what you use to torment yourself with.  Those stories have everything to do with perpetuating a false sense of helplessness than what the actual facts are.

Let’s face it, the fact that you’re even at the job you hate came about from a decision you made.  The fact that you can’t quit right now is also the result of a decision you’ve made; whatever the reason – you’re just a few years from retirement (in other words, you’ve created the situation in that you have decided that reaching retirement at this particular job is more important than not working for another second at a job that you hate), you’ve accumulated too much debt, you’re living from paycheck to paycheck – it all comes back to decisions you’ve made. 

Let’s be clear, this isn’t about laying blame, we all make the best decisions we know how at the time.  But let’s also be clear that we’re the ones who made the decisions in the first place.

The good news is that taking personal responsibility enables us to make decisions that changes the landscape of our lives so that they more closely resemble the life we really want to live.

DEPRIVATION

We can’t indulge ourselves every whim and then complain that our life isn’t the way we want it to be. 

For example, we’ll eat that slice of chocolate cake, because not to eat it would make us feel deprived, but we’ll also turn around and complain that we can’t lose weight.

Here’s the thing.  Trying to satisfy every whim, lest we feel deprived, is applying a bandaid solution to a much bigger problem.  The feelings of deprivation have their roots very deep in our childhood and not getting the love and attention we desperately needed.   But that’s a whole other blog post.

The point, in terms of personal responsibility, is this, we’re adults now!  So when you eat that chocolate cake, have that affair, buy that luxury item you can’t afford, you are making a decision to satisfy that whim.  By doing so, and here’s the punch line, you are in fact, making the decision to deprive yourself of a healthy weight, an honest and true relationship and financial security.

When we fail to take personal responsibility we are acting from a small hurt place – it’s time to explore and heal that.  Until healing happens, we will continue to have a difficult time understanding how we are responsible for how our life is working right now.

ONE, TWO, THREE...

Have you exercised your 'choice' muscles today?  Have you stopped and checked in with your internal GPS before making a decision so far today?  Even the smallest one, you know, the one between the doughnut and the fresh fruit for breakfast.  


That's how it goes, one, two, three...each step requires a conscious decision when you're taking personal responsibility.  It may feel exhausting at first but think about it this way.  It requires so much less energy than all the anger and handwringing and frustration that it takes to regret a bad decision, the 'what the hell' decisions are the worst -- they actually take HUGE amounts of energy that may feel normal to you, but in reality are anything but.

WHO

What your life looks like, feels like and proceeds like is up to you and based on every decision you’ve made up to this point.  Right down to how you’re choosing to perceive things that have happened that are beyond your control.   

It confounds me when I hear people complaining about how unhappy they are with their lives.  How they willingly engage in unproductive/destructive behavior and then look around for people/things/circumstances to blame.

I’m going to explore the issue of personal responsibility this month. It’s so critically important because when you begin to take responsibility for your life, your life changes.