14 – Am I Really Responsible for Everything?

In the last post we talked about the importance of being 100% responsible for everything in your life.  

As we continue this conversation, I recommend taking on a simple but powerful practice when it comes to the study of responsibility.  Human beings have a very difficult time with the meaning of the word “responsibility” due to the fact that there is so much collective agreement for the misinterpretations of this word, and so, even after reading the last post, you are likely to find that humanity’s collective misinterpretations of the word continue to show up for you whenever the word comes up.  

When this happens, your misunderstanding and negative feelings associated with the word will skew what you hear whenever you hear or read the word “responsibility”.  Unconsciously, you will continue to feel that the word implies blame, burden or some kind of unwanted obligation, however, this is not what the word really means, and so these misinterpretations will continue to prevent your full understanding of what it means to take 100% responsibility for everything in your life. 

To mitigate this, whenever you are reading a book or listening to an audio training program and the words responsibility or responsible are used, I suggest that you mentally replace the word in your mind with the words “at cause.”  Doing this, over time will help you to elevate your relationship to the principle of responsibility itself, allowing you to feel the essence of what the word really means which, in turn, will allow you to engage this energy in your life more frequently.  

For example…

The title of this post is:  Am I Really Responsible for Everything?

When you see the word responsible, read the title again in your mind as:  

Am I Really At Cause for Everything? 

 

You may also find it useful to change some of the surrounding ancillary words in the phrase to gain more contextual understanding of the meaning.  In this example, change the word for as follows: 

Am I Really At Cause about Everything?

Am I Really At Cause in relation to Everything?

 

This may sound like a little thing.  It may occur to you as merely a tip and nothing more, but consider that success is in the subtleties and nuances in life.  If you reflect on this exercise a little longer, you may have a new insight.  You may begin to consider other ways of using this technique as well.  If you are really engaging in this text, you may be able to see where I am going with this.  Remember the power of reading actively.  Reflect on the information and seek to abstract the highest level of understanding.  Think deeply on what you are reading and how you can apply it in your life immediately.

Now, let’s broaden the scope of the application of this simple practice of mentally changing or replacing words to reflect their true meaning. There are many ways this technique can be used, and though it may seem like a simple idea, it will give you more ability to influence your day-to-day experience of life.

For example,

What if  every time you heard the name of your spouse, you mentally replaced their name with something like the love of my life?  

Sarah wants to watch a movie tonight.

Would become…

The love of my life wants to watch a movie tonight.

 

What if every time you heard the word problem, you mentally changed the word to opportunity?  

I was fired from my job.  I have a problem.

Would become…

I was fired from my job.  I have an opportunity.

 

What if you changed the word but to and? 

I want to write a book but I just don’t know where to start.

Would become… 

I want to write a book and I just don’t know where to start.

 

These are just a few examples of being at cause in your own words and interpretations.  It is important to remember that you have this ability so that you are more likely to keep practicing it over time.  This allows you to be at cause in the way you are perceiving and experiencing your reality moment to moment.  Perhaps you think this information is too simplistic or that you already know it, and so you think you don’t need to hear it.  

However, if you really knew it, you would be excited to be reminded about it.  You would be eager to find new ways to use this practice in your life because you would already know from past experience how powerful this way of thinking is.  A master never gets bored of basics because a master has already figured out that the pathway to new and greater success is always through a reapplication of the basics.  It doesn’t matter if you think you know this information.  Are you using it successfully?  Is it a habit?  This is the only true measure of whether or not you know it.  To know and not to do, is not to know.

 

Reframing: A Fundamental Practice of Responsibility

The above practice is an example of reframing.  Reframing is a pragmatic application of the principle of responsibility.  Being at cause of your own thoughts gives you the power to change your thoughts.  When you change your thoughts you are changing the filters or lenses through which you are seeing and experiencing your life.  In future trainings, I will share information with you that will help you to gain significantly more access to your ability to do this, but for now, work with what you currently understand and start practicing to the best of your ability. 

To do this, you simply begin replacing words that disempower you, with words that empower you, as we did when we replaced the word problem with opportunity.  Or, you don’t even have to change the word in some cases.  You can simply recontextualize the word so it has a more positive, accurate and productive meaning, as we did when we changed the context of the word responsibility from meaning “blame” to meaning “at cause.” 

You can change the underlying meaning or context for any word that disempowers you, but you can also do this with the stories you tell about the circumstances, people or situations in your life.  You can change the meaning you add to your life.  You can change the story you tell.  You don’t have to keep describing your life the way you do. 

If the story you are currently telling is disempowering you, change it.  The words you use and the meaning you hold about these words play a substantial role in the creation of your life.  Words are powerful.  They can be used consciously to your advantage or unconsciously to your detriment. 

If you are like most people. You do not realize how much power you actually have to create your life experience by deliberately choosing your own view.  You likely misunderstand the nature of your view itself because you have never examined it as a mechanism with which you create.  Your view is created in words.  You may often think you are accurately describing your reality, and so you never question your view at all.  You rarely consider that you may have learned biases, limited perceptions or old and erroneous assumptions. 

In this way you have come to be at the effect of your own stories and interpretations, despite the fact that you are the one choosing them.  You believe you are not choosing them at all.  You assume your first interpretations are correct.  You have come to believe that your view of life is the only possible view you can have and that your view cannot be changed, and so you are at the effect of your view, believing it is happening to you.  You tell disempowering and negative stories and then you believe that you are describing yourself and your life accurately. 

However, nothing in life is inherently negative.  We can tell a positive story or a negative story about anything.  We can even tell a positive story about death, disease, trauma and loss.  It is a matter of choice.  The trick to this is that you must be willing to be at cause in order to do this.  Reframing is a process that must be deliberately applied, while maintaining your current frames happens automatically. 

We always have a frame or view about everything.  The goal is to have your frame give you a more accurate view of reality that empowers you.  Otherwise you will forever be trapped in a negative and inaccurate view that causes you misery and suffering, and all of it will continue to be self-inflicted.

The way you describe something is what creates it in your life.  For example, if a man tells himself he is worthless, is it inherently true that he is worthless in actuality? Certainly not.  No baby is born worthless and no one becomes worthless in the process of living. Worthless is nothing but a possible view or story one chooses to adopt, whether this is done consciously or unconsciously.  Yet, even though “being worthless” may be a false story, the experience of being worthless will still manifest in one’s life, if they continue to believe it. 

If you believe yourself to be worthless, you won’t feel good because this thought isn’t really true and part of you knows this deep down.  You can continue to believe that you are worthless if you choose, but still, it is not inherently True in reality.  It is only true that you are experiencing worthlessness subjectively.  It may feel like your story is true, but it is important for you to understand that no matter how true it feels, it is not actually true in objective reality.   

Many people have several negative views of themselves that cause them to feel worthless, unlovable, unwanted, not enough etc…. Instead of confronting these views, taking responsibility for them and then changing the story, they bury it in their own unconscious mind.  They pretend it is not there.  They avoid it.  They forget about it.  They become unconscious of it.  It may be buried so deep that even when they read a blog like this, they do not think the words apply to them. 

Many will even work really hard to overcome their unconscious negative stories and beliefs, without even being aware of what is motivating all their behaviours and choices in life.  If you believe that you are unlovable, you may never consciously think the thought, “I am unloveable,” but you will still make choices in life to overcome being an unloveable person, without any awareness that you are doing so.  

It is important to understand that you have already organized your whole life – the job you have, the relationships you are in and all the choices you have made in an effort to fix or avoid these unconscious negative feelings you have about yourself deep down.  You can try all you want, but until you confront and change these underlying thoughts and feelings, they will continue to manifest in your life, without exception.

For example, if you feel like you disappointed your father when you were 6 years old, you may work really hard to become someone you think your father will be proud of.  If you feel like you are stupid because of something that happened in 2nd grade math class, you may spend your whole life trying to prove that you are smart while trying to avoid anything that would expose that you are stupid.  However, you are not even really stupid or a disappointment in reality.  You are only stupid or a disappointment in your own story about yourself. 

You made these stories up a long time ago and you have been believing them ever since.  Imagine how much time, attention and energy you would reclaim if you didn’t have to work so hard to fix or avoid something that isn’t even real.  These stories became the frames through which you experience your life.  An event that occurred 25 years ago, of which you failed to confront and deliberately reframe, may be running every aspect of your life today in a manner completely unknown to you. 

It’s ok that this happened.  You didn’t know what to do back then.  It is not your fault that you didn’t know this was happening when you were young.  However, now that you are aware of this, it will be entirely on you if you do nothing with this information.  Now that you are aware that you have created your view of yourself and your life, it is your responsibility to change it.  You cannot blame anyone else because it is your stories that cause the problems in your life.  Only you can change your stories.  

If you really grasp what is being said here, this is incredible news.  You actually do have the ability to change your story and so you can reframe your whole life.  Even though you likely have a lot of proof that your stories are true, this is only the case because you have been gathering proof for your stories for decades. 

If you change your filters, you can begin to change what you see.  Then, you will start to gather new evidence for your new stories.  You won’t be able to do this all in one day, but you would be astonished by what you could accomplish in a few years of practice.  Besides, what else have you got to do?  Do you want to keep doing what you are doing?  Or are you ready to make some changes in the stories you tell, so that you can influence your life to go in a new direction?

Creating a new life for yourself begins with describing it differently. The way you describe your life creates your life so it is time to consider being more at cause and creative about the stories you tell.  The way you see yourself, your life, others and the world will influence your thoughts, plans and actions until you have created circumstances that match your worldview. 

While a person who believes they are stupid may, in actuality, lack some knowledge and information, nothing in reality is stopping them from being willing to learn more information and knowledge.  The challenge for this person is that they will never even attempt to learn because they already know they are too stupid to understand it anyway.  Their own story is the only thing stopping them in reality, and they do not even realize that they are the creator of this story.  

A man who has lost his job and finds himself homeless may have unconsciously created this situation for himself to prove the old story that he is a failure.  If he keeps telling the story of his failure, he will continue to manifest circumstances that make him feel like a failure.  If he could only learn how to change his story about himself, he could begin to see himself and his future  differently.  If he could reframe the way he sees himself and his circumstances, he could begin to think, plan and act differently and his circumstances would begin to change. Unfortunately, he may not know that he has this power.  He believes his story is true and so will never even attempt to change it.

“Easier said than done!” you may be thinking.  Yes, it is simple but not always easy to change your story when your thoughts and feelings about your external circumstances seem to be screaming at you. There are definitely many nuanced distinctions to make, as well as some complimentary principles and axioms that will help you to actually apply this principle of reframing successfully.  This nuanced information is coming in future trainings, but it takes time to express the many layers of information you will need to know in order to better confront and change some of your deepest negative stories and beliefs.  

However, you should not wait until you know enough.  Remember that this is non-linear learning.  You need to apply your insights now.  This way, when you do get more information, you will have experiences to which you can relate the information and, because this, the new information will be even more useful to you.

Practicing reframing is simply a matter of changing your story one more time.  Sure, there may be many sensations and emotions occurring that make this simple process seem difficult, but as you continue to study this blog and all other trainings put out by the Family Unicity Network, your understanding and awareness will increase, and you will be better equipped to reframe anything and everything. 

There is so much coming in these posts. We have only just begun.  I am genuinely excited for you.  This journey will be life changing for you if you are willing to truly take it on, but you must bring yourself to this conversation fully and be willing to apply all that you are learning.  

The most important thing you can do right now is to get started.  Begin practicing as soon as possible.  There will be lots of stories and interpretations you can change right away.  Others will involve a deeper understanding of other topics, however, don’t wait until you have finished this blog.  Depending on when you are reading this, this post may be the last one available, or there may be a hundred more.  Either way, get started now.  Don’t wait!  

The purpose of this post was to elevate your awareness so that you understand better what is happening and why you would even want to practice and study the information in this blog.  It is important to know why reframing is important because if you know why it is important, you are more likely to want to use it in your day-to-day life.  

 

To get started, here are some questions to ask yourself:

What disempowering beliefs do I have about myself?

What negative views have I been holding onto?  

Where do I experience being at effect in my life?

What disempowering stories am I telling myself?

 

Acknowledging your current view is the first step in taking responsibility.  Do not settle for a disempowering story.  Becoming aware of your negative view allows you to see the view that has been creating your experience. You can then be at cause in creating a new story.  Begin practicing this right away. 

In the next post we will talk about some pitfalls and barriers you are likely to experience on your journey of mastering the art of reframing.