Tag: responsibility

The White Knight Complex

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series, Metaphysical MussingsLeave a comment

“Don’t get dependent on that Knight in Shining Armor.  All being rescued does is remove you from your immediate circumstances.  It does nothing to address the question of how the devil you ended up in that situation to begin with.”  ~SSHenry

Why is it that in every fairy tale that features a princess there is always a knight in shining armor (or sometimes tarnished armor, black leather or blue jeans and a cowboy hat) waiting right around the corner to rescue her?

God I find the princesses annoying; all perfect hair and fluffy dresses (usually long to inhibit freedom of movement) and more often than not under some sort of a spell that keeps them from escaping on their own or even realizing that they are just a pawn in some dark and evil chess game.

Yes, yes, I know, the princess is symbolic of innocence and purity and the knight is supposed to symbolize the noble instinct to protect and preserve those qualities.  But honestly, as a culture we’ve taken this to heart so deeply that we’ve ingrained the idea of the noble knight; the belief in there being someone or something out there that will “save” the princess (or the innocent child, or the weak and willful sinner) into our collective unconscious.

More disturbing to me than the idea of a savior, however, is the thought that so many people who are capable of saving themselves believe that they need someone to do it for them.  Why is that?  Why can’t they see that they have the power within themselves to not only to take care of the problem at hand but to take responsibility for themselves; for today’s thoughts and beliefs; these choices and actions that will become tomorrow’s reality?

That is how it works you know.  It is the thoughts we entertained yesterday; the beliefs we held to be true; the choices we made and the actions that we took that determine where we find ourselves today.

Every thought that enters your head (and more importantly, those thoughts that you tend to dwell on) impacts the beliefs that you hold to be true.  These beliefs in turn affect the choices that we make on a day-to-day basis.  And, just as one domino is responsible for knocking down the next in the line; the choices that we make directly impact our actions; actions which determine the look, feel and flavor of the reality that we will find ourselves in tomorrow.

Ah yes, I know there will be some of you that say that this is far too simplistic of a view; that it can’t possibly be this easy.  It can’t possibly be that all a person has to do is to pay attention to the thoughts that are passing through their minds and to select those that they want to bring into their reality (this is called mindfulness by the way).  I can hear the questions now; “What about the bad things that happen to us; those things that we have no choice in?” or maybe “What about the influence of god or the devil; of good or evil?”

It is true that we do not get to choose all of yesterday’s circumstances (well, true that is unless you believe in reincarnation and soul destiny, but without going into all of that we can still address the issue).  There are things that happen to us that we have no direct control over.  But even so, this does not mean that choices we made in the distant (or not so distant) past may not have some impact on whether or not we put ourselves in a position to have those particular experiences.

And yes, there are some things that are done to you; things over which you have absolutely no control.  But what we do have control over (at least outside of those extreme situations where the trauma is so extreme that the mind disconnects from reality altogether and makes it impossible for the person to change their thought patterns) is how we choose to react and respond to those experiences that we did not consciously choose to participate in.

We can choose to react from fear; allowing those circumstances to control our lives and seeing them as obstacles on our path to happiness, or we can change our perspective and choose to see those circumstances as opportunities to prove that we are in control of our own destinies.

Of course if we do not acknowledge the fact that it is our thoughts as well as the beliefs that are spawned by our thoughts, the decisions we make due to these beliefs and the actions that we take that even in regard to those circumstances that are beyond our control, then it is perfectly understandable that we would look around desperately for someone or something that will rescue us from the tangle our lives have become; a white knight in shining armor who will cut through the crap and free us from the mess that we have gotten ourselves into through our thoughts and words and actions.

Of course relying on these knights opens up its own can of worms; like dealing with the fact that until we learn how to take responsibility for our own lives we will continue to revert back to those thoughts and beliefs and actions that got us into trouble in the first place (and we’ll have to call on the white knight once again to work his magic).

How much simpler to simply acknowledge the fact that it is ourselves and ourselves alone that have the power to change our lives for the better; that by accepting responsibility for everything our lives are right now at this moment in time that we can take positive action to ensure that today’s thoughts, beliefs and actions will work together to create a tomorrow that is everything we could have hoped for.

One Twisted Sister

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living SeriesLeave a comment

I don’t know how many of you remember this, but during the 1980’s there was a heavy metal band by the name of Twisted Sister.  (Note:  Actually, I believe that they are still performing, but I lost track of them after their break up during the late 80’s).  Anyway, my freshman year in high school they came out with a song that spoke to an entire generation of young people and became the battle cry for change, or at least for rebellion.

That year it felt like We’re Not Gonna Take It was playing everywhere.  You heard it at parties and on the radio and kids screaming it in the halls.  It was the classic case of teenage rebellion against parental control; against societal expectation; a million kids standing shoulder to shoulder and screaming that they would be damned if they were going to become their parents.

Well, just as with every other generation, we focused so hard on what we didn’t want that we brought it to us.  All you have to do is look around at the 40-something generation to see that (with a handful of exceptions) they have become what they most feared; they have become their parents.

So what happened?  How did an entire generation of kids so determined to NOT be their parents end up drinking the Kool-Aid, buying houses in suburbia and haranguing their own sons and daughters to get haircuts and clean up their rooms?  Frankly, it was a lack of intention.

You see, one thing that many of the Law of Attraction gurus fail to focus on is that without adding intention to the mix you can focus on happy happy thoughts until the end of time without ever seeing any change for the better.  In fact, if your focus is fear of something (in my generation’s case a fear of becoming like their parents) just wanting to NOT be like them was (obviously) not enough.

So going back to 1984; you had a generation of kids screaming that they weren’t going to take it; that they were NOT going to be like their parents (many of whom had been a part of the flower power generation in their own time but who had then gone mainstream), and for a while it worked.  These kids (like every other generation of teenagers in the history of mankind) went out and did the exact opposite of what their parents wanted.  They let their hair grow and played guitar loudly in the basement.  They refused to give a crap about their education or to take life seriously.  They escaped the demands of reality by escaping into video games and shut out the world around them by strapping on their walkmans.

But for all of their breaking away from reality, for all of their refusal to conform to societal standards or to give a crap about anyone other than themselves, it all fell apart due to their lack of intention.  They knew that they wanted to change, that they wanted their lives to be different; to have actual meaning and purpose, but they had no idea what exactly that meaning or purpose should be.

And so, like so many generations before them, these 80’s children went from screaming “We’re not gonna take it” to accepting it in order to get a job that would pay the bills to bending over and taking it in order to keep the job and continue being able to pay the mortgage and their own children’s college bills.

Yes, as with every other generation there have been exceptions to the rule; individuals who broke free from the traditions and the expectations and who focused their intention on creating a life for themselves free of restrictions.  But for the most part, those without intention; those who were not able to focus their wants and desires into actual decisions simply lost their momentum and turned into replicas of their parents; working within the system if not by choice then out of necessity.

Regardless of what generation you grew up in, just because you find yourself stuck in a (seemingly) unalterable lifestyle does not mean that change cannot happen.  All it means is that you are less likely to break free from it than you were as a teenager when there were fewer obligations and responsibilities weighing you down.  Change can still happen. It just isn’t as easy.

Indeed, if you can pause in your rat race for long enough the need for change can become an overwhelming urge; the desire to break free from the traditions and expectations that have turned you into something that you are not can wash over you with the force of a tsunami and the race for an authentic life; one lived from the heart and not from someone else’s expectations of who and what you should be can take on a driving force all of its own.

But what is to keep you from failing again?  What is to keep your dreams of a fuller, richer life from being just that; dreams?  The answer is in intention.

Just knowing that you want something more; something different is not enough.  Every teenager wants something different. For that matter, many adults do too (even though they repress it with their need to be responsible and ‘mature.’)  What it takes is intention to turn your dream of something more into your reality of the life you know that you were always meant to live.

Mind you, as adults you have more baggage to sort through, and it is going to be harder to let go of many of those expectations that have become ingrained parts of your life and that are keeping you from creating your dream life, but it can be done.  It is possible to create the life you always wanted; you just have to be able to live life intentionally.

When you can do that, when you can turn the universe’s perverse sense of humor (bringing you what you focus on; in most people’s cases – fear) to your own advantage, everything will fall into place and you will cease regarding the universe as a twisted sister who keeps you from getting what you want and see it instead as simply the source of your own power for change and intentional living.

The Power of Responsibility

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living SeriesLeave a comment

Learning to take responsibility for yourself; for the life that you have created; for the decisions that you make is one of the most important things that you can do.  But where is this kind of responsibility learned?  For most people, responsibility is learned from their parents.

There is nothing, nothing like holding your child in your arms for the first time; looking down at her face; the perfect features; tiny fingers and toes.  The knowledge that you have created life is so awe inspiring that it takes your breath away and sends you into a world of awe and wonder from which you don’t emerge until you bring her home from the hospital and suddenly realize that not only have you created life, but now you’re responsible for it.  And you are not just responsible for today, or for this week, but for the next 18 years. It is then you realize that your life is never going to be the same again.

I still remember the day that my husband and I brought our brand new baby girl back from the hospital.  I took her out of the carrier and handed her to my husband while I unpacked my overnight bag.  When I came out he was still standing where I’d left him.  He looked at me and, in a stunned voice said “now what?”  It only took a moment before we were both laughing rather hysterically.

Now what indeed!

Now we become parents.

And becoming a parent is not a temporary role.  It’s not something that stops when your child turns 18 or goes to college, finally gets their own apartment, gets married or even has children of their own. Being a parent is something that will follow you for the rest of your life.

But it’s the concept of responsibility that comes with the title of “parent” that hits you right between the eyes, and it’s each parent’s interpretation of responsibility where things really get interesting.

For some the responsibility of being a parent becomes a power struggle; an attempt to control their child in order to ensure that they fit into a particular mold; that they become the kind of person that the parent believes that they should.  For others, the responsibility of becoming a parent means helping the child to become their own person; to take responsibility for themselves and to give them the tools to craft a life for themselves out of the raw materials of childhood. In short, it is your parents’ definition of responsibility that determines your own take on the subject.

Those whose parents were open with them; who allowed for the child’s own interests, skills and abilities to be valued; those whose parents encouraged them to take increasing amounts of responsibility for their own lives as they matured will find the idea of taking responsibility for creating their reality as a logical outgrowth of this process.

For those whose parents were controlling and domineering – even if it was with the best of intentions and the desire to protect the child from those things that might harm them – the idea of taking responsibility for your own life; of listening to your own heart when it comes to the decisions that you make can be a foreign one indeed.  They have become so conditioned to doing what they were instructed to do by their families; by their schools and governments and societies that the idea of taking responsibility for their own lives is about as familiar as the Arabic language, and inspires the same sort of fear-based avoidance.

Of course this does not mean that there is no hope for those whose parents brought them up to conform to the standards that they, their society or religion or government imposed on them.  It simply means that there are more layers to be peeled away before you can get down to the task of re-inventing yourself as the kind of person that you were meant to be.

Peeling away these layers can be a painful and time consuming process, and whether you choose to work through them yourself by reading self-help books, taking up meditation or chronologically journaling your life (and all of the bitterness and resentments that tend to surface during the process) or whether you choose to seek outside assistance in the form of a psychiatrist or spiritual counselor, it is well worth the effort and can lead to the kind of life that you have always wished for yourself.

It can also completely revolutionize the way that you view parenting and the importance of everything that you say and do to influence your child as well as the impact of every decision that you make that affects them.  It doesn’t matter if your child is two or twenty; your own ability to strip away those layers upon layers of conditioning in order to take responsibility for your own life can make a world of difference, not just for you, but for all the generations yet to come.

And that, my friends, is the true power of responsibility.

The First Day of Forever

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series, Metaphysical MussingsLeave a comment

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams!  Live the life you’ve imagined.  

~ Thoreau

It’s going to happen.  One morning you are going to wake up and realize that today is the first day of forever.  It will happen when you are ready for it to; this first day of forever.

It will happen when you have decided to stop looking for happiness as you would an object you have lost and instead choose to be happy.

It will happen when you stop looking for wonder and mystery long enough to open your eyes and see the wondrous and mysterious things that surround you in every moment of the day.

It will happen when you stop looking for someone outside of yourself to blame for everything in your life that you have seen as evil or negative and finally realize that everything that happens to you is a result of decisions that you have made in the past.

It will happen when you finally realize that the only one who has the power to change your present circumstances – is you.

You see, there comes a point when it becomes clear that there is no one else that you can blame for the situations in which you find yourself.  I don’t care how dysfunctional your childhood family was or what negative circumstances you had to deal with as you were growing up or how many of your relationships have failed.  It’s still your fault. You brought this on yourself.  If you had been paying attention, you would never be in the situation that you are in now.

Oh, I’m sorry, is that too harsh?  Would you rather hear that it is all “their” fault?  That you can put the blame for the person that you have become on your parents or on the partners of failed relationships or on the seemingly random and chance events that have created the life that you are currently living? Or maybe you’d prefer the concept of a random and chance universe where bad things happen to good people for absolutely no reason.

It would be easier if I did that, wouldn’t it? It would be easier to be able to point fingers and place blame and sigh about how much better your life would be if only this or that hadn’t happened or if only this or that would.  Ah yes, much easier than actually getting out there and doing something about it.

You see it is your fault; all of it.  The circumstances you have found yourself in, the problems that you are being faced with, the seemingly random events that make no logical sense; they are all of them the result of your past focus and actions.  These are not tests by a divinity or temptations by an evil being.  You have drawn them to you by the focus of yesterday’s thoughts; the focus of yesterday’s energy.

And what about the seeming randomness of so many events and circumstances?  Well here’s the thing, chances are that you didn’t realize yesterday that your current attitude was going to have an effect on tomorrow’s events.  You probably weren’t paying attention to what you were thinking about; to the direction that your chaotic emotions were pointing you in.  You simply went with it.  You let your emotions control your thoughts and you let your thoughts control the focus of your energy.  And so it was that your energy was focused – unintentionally mind you – but focused nonetheless.  And what you were focused on is what you brought into your life today.

And yes, there are random circumstances that are not the result of your intentional (or unintentional) focus of energy but which are in fact the result of someone else’s intentional (or unintentional) focus of energy.  But here’s the thing, it is still up to you as to how you react or respond to these circumstances.

The random traffic accident that is not caused by anything you did wrong but rather by someone else being in too big of a hurry to stop at the light.  That accident may in no way be your fault, or even the result of your previous actions.  There may have been absolutely nothing you could have done to prevent it.  But first, that does not mean that you didn’t bring the event into your life.  Secondly, it does not mean that you have to allow your emotions to control how you react to that event.

You can choose to get upset and let it ruin your entire day, or you can calmly and coolly exchange insurance information and go on about your business knowing that while it may have seemed to be a random accident may instead have been your higher self’s way of ensuring that you’ve learned what you need to know about controlling your temper or about letting your emotions control your reactions.

And it doesn’t matter how big or small the circumstance.  It doesn’t matter how mundane an action or how life changing of an event you are faced with.  The truth of the matter still remains; you can control tomorrow’s reality by how you choose to react and respond to today’s events and circumstances.

You can stop letting your body-generated emotions dictate tomorrow’s reality and instead take the necessary steps to ensuring that tomorrow you will be living the life you always imagined.  And when you have done this for long enough there will come that morning when you wake up to realize that tomorrow is today, and that today is, finally, the first day of forever.

Authentic Living 104: Taking Responsibility

On By Just StephIn Authentic Living Series1 Comment

 

Look around you.  That’s right, I’m talking to you. Stop what you’re doing right now.  Put down your pen; your iPhone; your preconceived notions of what your life is supposed to look like and take a look at what it actually consists of.

Is this what you were expecting? Be honest now, it’s just me you’re talking to, so you don’t have to pretend.

Did you really want to be working in this dead end job?  Yes, I know, it’s a job, but we both know that this isn’t where you thought you’d be five years ago. No, that’s not something you should be telling your supervisor when it’s time for your semi-annual review, but this is me you’re talking to, and if you can’t be honest with me, then who can you be honest with?

How about the relationship with your significant other?  Ah, I saw that flinch.  I hit a nerve, didn’t I?  Yes I know, they’re a good person and you’re lucky to have them.  Well, that’s what you tell yourself every day, isn’t it?  There an awesome conversationalist; they’re a great parent; they really have a way with animals.  It’s what keeps you going, isn’t it?  And that other stuff; the fact that there are things you can’t talk to them about because they just wouldn’t understand; that they brush off things that are really important to you; that doesn’t matter, does it, because they have other qualities….It’s okay, you can keep telling yourself that.  But do me a favor, would you?  And just stop.  Look at the person you’re with.  Look at them, exactly as they are, not as you would like them to be, not as you hope they will be one day, but as they are, right now.  Is this what you were expecting?  Better yet; is this what you want?

But wait, I’m How about your kids?  What about the place where you are living; your friends; your beliefs about politics your view of God?  How about yourself?  Are you happy with the way that you jump to conclusions so quickly?  Do you really enjoy losing your temper so easily?  Ha – you didn’t like that, did you?  It was fine when I was talking about the external aspects of your life and the things that you deserve or want, but analyzing you yourself isn’t as much fun, is it?  No, don’t turn away from me just because you’re uncomfortable with my questions, I’m not finished yet!

I could go on like this all day you know; making you analyze each and every aspect of your life.  But I’m not going to because that’s not what I’m here for.  But before you get too comfortable and think that you’re just going to go back to the way things were, I have one more question for you:

If you had the power to create the perfect life for yourself how would you go about doing it?

Let’s say that you could be teleported back to the point in your life where it all went wrong; where you started making decisions that turned out to negatively impact your life, what could you do to make sure that your life turned out differently? That’s right; you would have to have made different decisions.  Mind you, you now have the power of hind sight.  You know which decisions negatively impacted your life and which one was the right one to make, and hind sight is not something you possessed when that decision was initially made.  But what if I were to tell you that there was a way that you could have determined – right then and there – as to whether or not you were making the right decision?

Yes, I can see that you are skeptical about it, but would I lie to you?  I can’t lie to you.  In fact, I’m probably one of the only people on earth who can’t lie to you (probably because I am you) but the fact remains, there is a way that you could have known.  In fact, you did know.  The thing is you were not aware of what you knew.  It’s called intuition.

No, intuition is not some sort of New Age mumbo jumbo; it’s that still small voice that prompts you to not trust the person who has offered you the job; the unease in your stomach when you contemplate going out on another date with that person; that hunch that says you really shouldn’t take this road today.  It’s those uneasy moments that we want to listen to but that we always override with cool logic and reason:  It’s a perfectly good job.  You had a good time on your first date; there is no reason to turn them down now.  This is the shortest way to work, don’t be silly!

And then the job turns out to be a soul-sucking miserable job that you can’t quit because it will look bad on your resume.  You end up involved with a neurotic, egotistical idiot that you can’t shake because you don’t want to be responsible for deepening their neuroses, and the shortest road turned out to be the scene of a six car pileup and now you don’t have a working vehicle, and you find yourself really wishing that you had listened to your first instinct after all.

But of course there is no way that you could have known that this was going to happen, so it’s not your fault.  And if it’s not your fault then it’s the fault of whoever you’re working for; involved with; or the guy who hit you, isn’t it?  It has to be, because to realize that it has really your decisions that have been responsible for the direction that you life has taken; for where you are in life right now; means that you have to stop blaming other people for those aspects of your life that are not what you wish they were.

You want to know something else?  (Too bad, I’m going to tell you anyways).  What I need to tell you is that it isn’t just the decisions that you made in the past that you need to regret.  It’s the decisions that you are making every single day; the decisions that you are making right now that are ensuring that your life is not going to get any better.

Yeah, think about that one for a minute.  Sort of scary, isn’t it?  I mean, you may have made one decision to ignore intuition and it led to others that led to others until you found yourself in so deep that it seems impossible to extract yourself.  But it’s not as hopeless as it may seem.  Not really.  There actually is a way out.

I don’t care how messed up your life is right now.  I don’t care how big a mess you’ve made of things.  I don’t care how bad things are, you can change them.  You have the power to change them.  You always have had the power, you just weren’t aware of how to use it.  Do you want to know what it is?  Heh, you already know, but I’ll tell you anyway:  Intuition.

That’s right.  It’s never too late to start using the gift that you’ve had all along; to start listening to the voice that was trying to tell you which path to take.  Mind you, it’s going to be harder now, especially since you’ve tangled up so many other people in your life; have taken on so many responsibilities and obligations, but you can still turn your life around.

No, you won’t be able to create the life you once thought you wanted; the life you saw for yourself when your first started down this path however many years ago.  The decisions you have made between then and now mean that you are no longer the same person that you were, and the life you had imagined for yourself then is most likely not the life you would want now; experience has enriched you; given you a new perspective; helped you to see the bigger picture.

But by learning to once again listen to that still small voice inside your head; that prompting that tells you that this really isn’t the right choice for you, you can stop living a lie and start living from your heart and soul; that place that knows deep down what the right decision is for this moment in time; if you’ll just have the patience to listen to it; and the courage to act on what it tells you to do.