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It is now time to set an important foundation for all future growth and development.  Everything I have shared with you in previous posts and anything I share in future posts will make zero difference in your life if you fail to properly grasp and apply this one fundamental principle.

Responsibility 

For most, the word responsibility is loaded with incorrect meaning and understanding so before we can even begin to define this principle, we must clarify what responsibility is not.  You will need to take notice of your current relationship to this word in order to make space for a new understanding.  You may think you already know what responsibility is, but it will work much better for you to consider that you actually don’t know what responsibility is. 

Not only should you consider that you do not know what the word really means but you ought to also consider that you also have some incorrect interpretations of responsibility that shape the way you are currently living your life.  Doing this will allow new insights to open up for you.

If you really want to get the most out of this post, take a moment to pause here and write out your current relationship to the word responsibility.  How would you define the word?  If someone said to you that you need to take more responsibility, what would you hear?  What would you think they were saying to you?  Do you like or dislike the idea of responsibility?  Does the idea of taking responsibility make you feel good or feel bad? 

Spend some time getting your current interpretations of the word on paper.  This writing process will help you to clear your mind enough to allow for a new understanding of the principle I am about to share with you.  

Stop reading and take a few minutes to do this now…

 

Welcome back!

Now that you’ve clarified your current relationship to the word responsibility, you will be better able to set aside your current understanding and be open to a new view of responsibility.  Acknowledge yourself for your willingness to participate fully.

However, some of you did not actually do the writing process at all.  Isn’t that interesting?  You just kept reading as if this did not apply to you.  Maybe you said to yourself that you are going to do it later or that it is not important.  If you didn’t do it, you now have an idea of how teachable you are.  What’s the point of continuing to read if you are not fully participating?  Why spend your time reading this if you don’t trust my recommendations?  It wasn’t a hard thing to do.  Why resist it?  Do you just not like being told what to do?  Do you think you know better?  Does it bother you that I’m pointing this out right now? 

The ability to follow instructions and do something as it is designed is an important aspect of being teachable.  Unfortunately most people have mental and emotional blocks and barriers about following instructions. This could be occurring for many different reasons. One reason could be that you spent over 15,000 hours in public education being told to do things you didn’t want to do by someone who was just following a curriculum and not actually teaching you what you wanted to learn.  Another could be that your parents told you to do things you didn’t want to do when you felt like doing something else.  Whatever it is, I feel for you. I get it.  I’ve been there.  Still, it is important to learn to follow instructions when you are being given guidance by a mentor.  

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t listen to yourself, it just means that you shouldn’t automatically resist being told what to do.  Whatever happened in your past that makes you not want to do what you are told is not relevant or useful to you here.  It is fair to assume that you are reading this blog for your own personal development interests so wouldn’t it be best to participate fully in the training as it is designed?  Don’t you think this would maximize your opportunity to gain benefit?

I suggest that, if you didn’t stop and do the writing process, you take a moment to confront whatever came up for you that had you not do the writing process.  If you look honestly at yourself, you will see something that has been blocking you from achieving all that you want in your life.  If you don’t take an honest look now, you will miss out on this insight and business will continue as usual for you.  

Once you have taken a moment to confront what came up for you, go back to the beginning of this blog post and read it again with a new attitude.  Allow yourself to elevate into a higher level of participation. Don’t let yourself be distracted by other things.  Let yourself focus on this material fully.  You will get what you put in and nothing more.  This time, when you get to the writing process, take the opportunity and participate fully.  It is for your benefit.  

Do this now… If you have already completed the writing process, continue reading.

 

Welcome back again!

Now that you have all done the work, what was your experience? Notice I told you to re-read the post from the beginning instead of just telling you to do the writing process that you didn’t do.  There is a lesson in this if you can hear it.  When you don’t participate fully, you end up creating more work for yourself later.  Taking shortcuts to avoid doing the work doesn’t get you there faster or in many cases it doesn’t get you there at all.  Taking shortcuts to avoid something often creates more work in your life later. This is why the conversation we are about to have about responsibility is so important as you will see. 

From the writing exercise you just did, notice what you wrote and any feelings that came up.  If you have any negative thoughts or feelings about responsibility, consider that they have nothing to do with the principle of responsibility as I am about to define it.  Put these feelings and ideas to the side for the moment and be open to something new. 

This is the beginning of learning responsibility.  You must first take full responsibility for your current relationship to responsibility itself.  True responsibility should, if you truly understand it, occur as an opportunity to you because it is an idea that when fully grasped will give you tremendous ability to cause and create the life you desire.  

 

What is the principle of responsibility? 

True responsibility is a state of being in which you take 100% ownership of the circumstances, situations and events that occur in your life including all of your thoughts and actions.  This is a powerful state in which to live.  No matter what happens in your life, you have a choice about whether you take this view or not.

Consider that you are always in one of two states at any given moment.  You are either being “at cause” OR being “at the effect of” external influences.  You are either influencing your reality or you are being influenced by your reality.  You either believe you have a say in how your life goes or you believe you do not have a say in how your life goes.  Responsibility is all about choosing to see everything in your life from the view that you are “at cause” and not “at effect.” One will make you more powerful and one will give your power away.

Pause to reflect on this idea for a moment. If you want to look up the definitions of any words to clarify or have insights about their meaning, do that as well.  You’ll notice I have bolded some words in the last two paragraphs for you to look up in the dictionary.  Remember that conversation we had about participating fully a moment ago?  Well here is another opportunity for you to participate.

As we continue in this blog, I will bold various words I believe will be helpful to look up.  If you really want to understand the meaning of what is being said here, the dictionary is your best friend.  You must always be looking up words to clarify their meaning because if you don’t, you will think you understand what is being said but you will be using incorrect associations and meanings of the words used.  This will skew your understanding and ultimately inhibit your ability to apply the principles I am describing.  Once you have thought about the definitions of the words, read the sentence again to understand better the context in which I am using it.  This practice will pay you enormous dividends over time.

Notice that, in my explanation of responsibility, I am not using the word blame at all.  The reason for this is that the word blame tends to invoke a feeling of being a bad or wrong person.  Responsibility is not about who is a good or bad person.  It is about knowing that you, and only you, have the ability to cause the circumstances of your life instead of believing something outside of you is the cause of whatever is happening in your life.  Instead of sourcing (or blaming) something outside of you, you look at yourself and generate a willingness to believe that you are the creator of these circumstances.  If you know that you are the creator of your current circumstances, you will also come to realize that you can create and cause new and improved circumstances in the very next moment.

When you blame others, your parents, the system, the government, your partner, or even God, or anything outside of you for that matter, you automatically disempower yourself because you are giving your power and ‘ability to create’ over to something outside of you.  You are essentially saying, “I did not create this. Someone or something else did… and so, because I did not create it, I cannot create something else.”  You cannot blame something outside of you AND believe you have the power to create what YOU want at the same time.  This is impossible.  Only when you take 100% responsibility, do you understand that you are the creator of your life and everything in it

Of course, you cannot control the free will of others but you can control how you respond to the free will choices of others.  Life comes at you the way that it does.  If you feel like a powerless victim, you will respond accordingly.  If you choose to take the view that you are “at cause” you will make different choices in how you respond, giving you more influence over the way your life plays out. Learning this is the first step.  However, applying this insight over and over again in your life is the way you truly get the benefits.  If you don’t apply it, you won’t gain the power to create what you desire in life.  This is true with no exceptions.

 

Why do I resist responsibility?

Most people don’t want to be in the driver’s seat of their lives because if the metaphorical car crashes, at least they are not to blame for it.  The word blame, again, is showing up as a reason you may use to avoid responsibility.  Because human beings do not understand the true meaning, and opportunity of responsibility, they avoid it.  They give up their power to avoid the ghost of blame (badness and wrongness.)  

However, let’s think logically about this for a moment.  Do you think you have a better chance of avoiding the car crash by keeping your hands on the wheel and doing your best to steer the car OR do you think it would work better to close your eyes and keep your hands off the wheel while the car is in motion?  Whether you like it or not, your life is in motion.  You are in the driver’s seat of your life whether you like it or not.  Even if you let someone else drive your car, you are the one who made the choice to let them drive instead of you.  No one can take your power to direct and cause your own life away from you.  It must be given and you are the only one who can make that choice.  

 

Asymmetrical Responsibility 

True responsibility is asymmetrical.  When you are stuck in the false interpretation of responsibility as blame (bad/wrong), you will attempt to divide responsibility symmetrically (look up symmetry.)  For example, in a relationship, you will think that you are 50% responsible and your partner is 50% responsible. This seems logical to the person who doesn’t understand responsibility but it is still entirely incorrect.  It is true that, looking from the outside, you are both 100% responsible in reality. You both have this power.  However, when you are looking at being responsible from YOUR point of view, it is best to ground yourself in the notion that you are 100% responsible and they are 0% responsible.  

This certainly doesn’t mean you shouldn’t empower others to take 100% responsibility in their life, or that you should settle for a relationship with a partner who is always being “at effect”  or playing the victim.  It simply means that you should not need them to take any percentage of responsibility before you are willing to take responsibility.  Remember, responsibility as I am defining it, is not about blame at all.  It is about looking from the view that you have 100% of your own power to influence your situation.  It is an understanding and awareness that you can and should choose your own thoughts and actions in the face of anything that happens in your life.  Responsibility is about claiming your power as a creator.

If you take this on, eventually, you will have made so many choices and taken so many actions in your life from the view that you are “at cause” that your experience of life will be that you always have a say in how your life goes and what you create.  Hopefully now, you can see why responsibility is a foundational principle.  Without it, you will not be able to apply any other principles effectively which is why you must confront any lack of willingness you have in taking 100% responsibility for everything in your life. 

Once you do this, you will be well on your way to creating a life of your own making and design.  It is up to you.  You are creating your life whether you accept the idea that you are responsible or not, so why not take the perspective that truly empowers you?  Why not consider that you are at cause?

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.