Do you hate the word responsibility? Does it make your skin crawl? Your belly tight? (all body signals that we have HEALING to do there) That was definitely me for a long time! And that’s why recently I’ve been called to work with the fear and misunderstanding of responsibility. As a society, we have an upside-down understanding of responsibility, especially when it comes to working with healing and the infinite field of possibility.
You see, there’s a tendency to speak about abundance and manifesting without considering responsibility. We fear unconscious fears of the responsibility that comes with significant life changes, deep healing, and tremendous success. I don’t fear a pile of money being dropped on my door, and I fear the responsibility that comes with it.
Then there is the misuse of responsibility that keeps us in our patterns. As a parent, I know my responsibility to keep the house tidy and in order comes before my responsibility to my own creative vision. Often we put our responsibility towards our job ahead of our responsibility to nurture our dreams. That’s where the misuse of responsibility comes in. We are quite capable of being responsible. We use the skill in our old-known ways (the dishwasher is always empty and clean) and don’t let any of it shine on our secret dreams (the screenplay that’s been sitting on your computer for a year untouched).
When we have experienced trauma and pain, we often relinquish our responsibility or cling to it for dear life—deciding that the pain is your fault and yours to carry. Alternatively, decide that this is the other party’s responsibility to fix so you avoid it waiting for some apology that might never come. I’m not saying anyone is responsible for the trauma perpetrated against them. We live in a world where other people hurt each other, sometimes severely. I am saying that after trauma occurs, it’s our responsibility to decide what to do with it. It becomes our responsibility to heal, even if it’s slow and one tiny step at a time.
I know personally my misaligned responsibility comes into play with my work. I am deeply called to help heal the world of pain and trauma and teach about the freedom that meditation and spiritual practice brings. However, since all my previous career experience was team-based, I have unconscious fear around the responsibility of selling and sharing my teachings and services. It feels much better to blame the algorithm, my busy family, or traveling worldwide for why my business isn’t up to its next level. But, when I get quiet and meditate on responsibility, I see it’s mine to carry, and in fact, I am using my precious energy in ways that don’t support my calling.
Do you have misaligned or misused responsibility? If so, you are in luck. Because as hard as it can be to face our shadow aspects and patterns, once we are aware of them, freedom is around the corner. First, we must feel what this misaligned responsibility feels like in the body. Name the sensations. Is there tightness in the jaw, constriction in the belly, or stiffness in the upper arms? Fear indicates that we have hit a pattern line that we can melt with awareness. So, feel it. Notice the discomfort of the word responsibility. Then place that word in front of everything you do or want to do.
Shift your perspective and your language. Saying I should be writing or practicing music is a perfect way to feel awful and to avoid both the negative feeling (which then sticks around in the body) and the creative vision. Shifting your internal and external language to “I have a responsibility to practice music” shows your love and devotion to your creative vision. And really, that’s why we are here on earth, to devote ourselves to creative visions.
Small steps create significant change when it comes to responsibility. However, so many of us learned all or nothing, go for it, hustle til you croak mentalities that we think we need to create sweeping wildfire changes to see results. It’s just not true. To shift your alignment of responsibility, you need to make small changes with the utmost love and compassion for yourself. If you feel called to align your responsibility with money, you might start by simply tracking your spending without any change. Or if you are aligning to a responsibility to your creative project, commit to two one-hour blocks a week where you do deep work. The gains are always seen in our small, consistent efforts.
And remember that whatever we choose to align our responsibility with can be supercharged when we wrap it with guidance from the source. You must see what changes need to be made and hold the focus, but you are also so supported and loved by something more significant, just waiting for you to ask for guidance.
What’s the thing you want to devote more time and energy to and align your responsibility with? Let me know below.
Ps. Want to work with your body to shift your relationship with responsibility and create more freedom to feel amazing? Book a one-on-one intuitive somatic session with me, and we will find the pain patterns, feel them, and melt them away.
Pps. These are 25% off until August 31st, 2023! Discount automatically added to checkout.