Personal Responsibility
This page is an extract from The Simple Little Development Book. I and many others have found that the message contained herein is an essential part of taking control of your life.
Things may not always work out as you hope they will after you start
applying these ideas in your life because there are always interactions with
others which may or may not coincide with your preconceived ideas of the way
you would like things to be. That is life. It is also a part of our learning
and growing. What is important here is that, by taking responsibility for the
choices you make, you are creating an environment where you CAN learn
and progress. If you continually blame others for what may occur in your life
that you don’t like, this environment CAN NOT EXIST.
It is also important to realise too that, no matter how any of our plans may turn out, there is no such thing as a ‘MISTAKE’. There are plans which are totally successful (hopefully, lots of those), some which are partially successful and others which are somewhat less than successful. None of these are ‘mistakes’ because each of them has the seeds for some learning, sometimes a lot of learning. If you learn from it, then it is transformed from a ‘mistake’ into a lesson. Besides, whether it works or whether it doesn’t, it must be the highest priority in your life at that time or you would choose to do something else which was more important.
Extract from:
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DEVELOPMENT BOOK.
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RESPONSIBILITY. CHAPTER
3
This chapter may be the second shortest in the book. I can't emphasise it's importance
enough. May I suggest that it would not
be inappropriate to put up several signs in prominent positions around your
home saying, "Every day, in Every way, I am taking Personal Responsibility
for Everything in my life".
Personal
Responsibility is not only the most important part of your Spiritual
Development. It is the VITAL
part. Accepting responsibility for
everything in your life, NO MATTER WHAT, not only contributes greatly to
your development, but also removes you from VICTIM STATUS. This 'victim' attitude is probably the
cause of more health problems
than any other single factor in our society, any medical opinions
notwithstanding. (More later.)
How
can anyone be responsible for what someone else does to them? Simply by making
a choice or a series of choices, you place yourself in a position where that
person can do something to you. This does not mean that you are responsible for
what the other person has done to you, but only for being there.
Sooner
or later that other person will have to accept responsibility (and the Karma)
for the actual 'doing' of the deed whatever it might have been. They may even have specifically sought you
out to do these things to you and for this they will also have to answer at
some time.
This
does not in any way lessen the fact that you are responsible for your being
where you were at that point in time, enabling the other person to find you and
treat you in whatever manner they may have done.
In
other words, if someone has done anything to you that you don't like, you do
not have to accept responsibility for their actions, but by making the choices
that you made at the time, you placed yourself in the position where those
things could happen to you. In effect,
you allowed it to happen to you.
Earlier
in this chapter, I mentioned VICTIM STATUS as being the cause of many health problems. This is because a 'victim', in whatever
situation, has little, if any, power to change their life. They are 'stuck' with that situation. They see themselves as being embroiled in
circumstances beyond their control.
As an
example, a group of victims of criminal acts (some of whom were not actual
'victims', but relatives of murder victims) formed a support group with the
word "victim" in the name. They found that over a period of about
eighteen months, all but two of their number, some twenty persons, had
developed cancer in one form or another.
All considered themselves to be 'victims'.
In
another instance, two hypnotherapist friends of mine did a study of a large
number of cancer patients referred to them by doctors for relaxation. By using
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RESPONSIBILITY CHAPTER
3
hypnotic regression
techniques, they found that almost all of these people had experienced some
emotional upheaval in the last eighteen months before diagnosis.
Many
people become sick regularly while many others almost never do. What is the reason for this difference
between people, who in many cases, live in the same home, or work in the same
environment? If you take a good look at
these people, I believe you will find that the difference lies in their
attitude; either
Positive or Negative.
VICTIM
STATUS is not only the fact of the event.
It is also very much a state of mind as well. Because it is a state of mind, it is possible for the person
concerned to change their status.
However, this change cannot be forced on them; they must want to change
themselves, as any attempt to change them usually only succeeds in reinforcing
their perception of themselves as a victim. "See what they are trying to
do to me now", sort of thinking, and this attitude causes increasing
resistance – which causes stress - which causes health problems, and so it
goes. (See Pages 119-122)
Each
person is responsible for their own perception of themselves. Are you a thinking, choosing person, making
the most of the opportunities you see before you, or are you a 'victim of
circumstances'?
Even knowing that our choices
are our personal responsibility, many people agonise for hours or even days
over some of the choices or decisions they need to make in their lives, because
they have great difficulty sorting out the priorities, so I will now offer you
a handy hint which would have made parts of my life
easier if I had known it
earlier.
When
you are faced with a multiple choice situation, such as a list of things to set
in order of priority, you may find it helpful to use what I call the
'Tournament'.
To do
this, simply arrange the items on your list in pairs and choose the most
important one from each pair. If you have one item left over from the first
round of pairings, put it into the next round with one of the 'winners' from
the first round of
pairings, but do not let it go
beyond the second round without pairing it with another item. By continuing to do this until you have only
one 'winner', you will have eliminated all but the most important thing on your
list and on the way you have also sorted the other items into 'levels' of
priority or importance. If it sounds too easy to be true, try it a few times
and see for yourself.
Whether
we realise it at the time or not, all our choices and decisions are the right
ones for us at that point in our lives.
If we had anything more important to do, we would be doing it instead
and this includes such life-affecting events as
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DEVELOPMENT BOOK.
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being born and dying. In the latter case, quite literally, if you
had anything more important to do, you would be doing that instead. (Would you not?)
Personal
responsibility also applies to your emotions because your emotions are
responses to outside stimuli including, in many cases, things that you may not
even be consciously aware of, but which register on your sub-conscious mind and
thus influence your emotions. Emotions are so 'programmed' into each person's
make-up as to be largely automatic, but no-one else can 'MAKE' you feel
any specific emotion.
"You
make me angry," is a very common expression which most of us have used at
some time or other and yet it is totally untrue. The person to whom these words are spoken is not responsible for
your becoming angry. You are. The other person may have said or done something
which 'pushed your buttons', but, even if they did it deliberately, they are
still not guilty of 'making you angry'.
All they have done is to say or do something with which you
disagree. It is your choice to become angry. (If you allow it to happen.) You
could have just as easily chosen to ignore them or laugh at them or to say that
they have every right to their view
and on this occasion you
choose to disagree and leave it at that. The choice, AND THE RESPONSIBILITY,
ARE YOURS.
One
further aspect of personal responsibility worth remembering is that what we
think and feel contributes to the world as we know it. Each of us creates our own 'reality' in this
world, but our realities affect those of the people around us and their
realities affect us and others about them and so on in ever-widening circles.
This is what makes it possible for us to learn our lessons here on the Physical
Plane.
IF you
try to make as many as possible (read ALL) of your thoughts and feelings
positive and uplifting, and if everyone else did the same, imagine how much
more pleasant a place to live this little spaceship Earth could be. So, if you want a better world in which to
live, love and raise your offspring, why not start by improving your own
outlook and thinking and being more aware of the energy you are sending forth
into the Universe as your contribution to the total energy 'Bank' of all of
Creation.
MANY HAPPY RESPONSES, FOLKS.
“REALITY -- IS THAT ONLY FOR PEOPLE WHO CAN'T
HANDLE DRUGS?”
OR ARE DRUGS THE REFUGE OF PEOPLE WHO CHOOSE NOT TO DEAL
WITH REALITY? BUT THEN AGAIN, DRUGS ARE A REALITY. IT'S A "GROWING"
QUESTION. WHATEVER WAY, IT'S YOUR
CHOICE AND YOUR RESPONSIBILITY.
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