This Person in Your Life Does Not Take Responsibility For Themselves; Nor Do You
Your Higher Self says it is time to stop playing the blame game. Take responsibil-ity for your own life to restore flow.
Responsibility is the state of being response ‘able’. In being response ‘able’ you have developed a set of skills that you can draw upon, which enable you to initiate and respond capably towards people, situations and events. Response ‘able’ individuals understand their own boundaries and use their feelings to guide them towards the boundaries that signal their responsibil-ities. With the right set of abilities in place to support them, they happily accept duty or authority and responsibility towards themselves and others.
Think of yourself (and all that you are) as being held within a circle. At the edge of the circle are your boundaries. The central core of the circle is your direct responsibility. This core contains the responsibilities of your self-care such as health, what you think and feel, and maintaining your safety and security. Moving out from the central core, and depending on the level of importance, are different circles of responsibilities such as children, partner, parents, friends, relations, colleagues, projects, community, church, and so on. At different stages some circles will overlap and other circles – such as those for parents and children – will be included in your inner circle (under your direct responsibility). With time, your responsibilities towards these other circles change and people move out of your inner circle and into their own. Ideally we are able to meet the responsibilities of care towards ourselves in the inner circle and this enables us to choose what responsibilities we want to meet in the outer circles.
In choosing this card you have signalled that you have either highly developed or underdeveloped response capabilities to meet life’s challenges. In either case you have confused your sense of responsibility and are taking responsibility for areas that are not yours to take. As a result you are not taking responsibility for the life you live. By choosing this card you have identified that you are struggling to meet the responsibilities of your own self-care because the boundaries of your inner circle are incorrectly set. Those with highly developed response capabilities have an inner circle that is overextended to include everyone else’s boundaries and responsibilities. Those with less developed response capabilities have a contracted or underset inner core.
When the inner core is overextended your personal space includes the responsibility for other people’s thoughts and feelings. These overset bound-aries of yours are difficult to maintain because you treat other people’s needs as if they were your own. You tend to take responsibility for all the jobs that need doing and all the feelings that need taking care of. You immediately see the actions required and then offer help or take care of the situation regardless of whether or not you were invited to do so. Unable to distinguish between your boundaries and the boundaries of others, you create confusion by taking on the responsibility of other people’s inner circle. In doing so you stop being responsible for your own needs. Taking care of yourself by taking time out or focusing on your own goals takes second place to someone else’s needs. You become overwhelmed, exhausted and controlling trying to manage your unwieldy boundaries.
Misguidedly you think that your problems are caused by the other people who refuse to do their bit. Or you believe that you will create the freedom you want if you just give them a little bit more help. You start putting more time and effort into helping them develop the response abilities that you have. You start waiting … waiting for the others to either help you or grow up.
Your journey is to learn how to let others develop the skills to take on the duty of self-care and management in their journey. Being leader or caring for others may affirm your identity as a good person. However, the reality is you are actually taking a journey away from the other person. They relax when you take responsibility for them. They let you defend them, forward the plan, identify risks, and then they don’t have the satisfaction of a job well done to completion. Those you help or protect miss out on learning new skills and all the fun of growing up. It’s time for you to step back and let the others find their own path. In doing so, you will have time to take ownership of your own circle and journey.
In the scenario of the underset boundaries, your circle of responsibil-ity is much smaller. You may be considered by others as self-focused or irresponsible. Your world has contracted and is limited by your inability to set boundaries with others. You have yet to develop the skills necessary to respond appropriately towards criticism or protect yourself. This along with your fear of blame and being made wrong will keep your boundaries closely set to yourself in order to reinforce them. In holding onto your boundaries of self too tightly you avoid commitment, procrastinate or blame in order to prevent others from controlling or criticising you. Your lack of – or underdeveloped – response capability may be hidden through the sabotage of opportunities or ongoing confusion but essentially you haven’t taken ownership of your circle of responsibilities. In your avoidance of others you often struggle to create the life you want. You struggle to commit and become disconnected from the responsibility of creating your own dreams. You are waiting for Spirit or someone else to show you the way or to do something to respond to life for you.
As with those with overset boundaries, a person with underset bound-aries also takes on responsibilities that are not theirs to take on, such as an adult’s shame, a parent’s fears or the guilt for a trauma. If this is you, you are ready to find out that you are not responsible for overbearing parents, bullying teachers or community leaders. In your avoidance, rebelliousness or victimhood you miss out on a truth that ultimately one’s satisfaction in life comes from taking responsibility for one’s own life. By taking responsibility for what we do, what we do for ourselves and what we have learned on our journey with both the small and large victories we connect to a fullness of self. Taking ownership of self is not a selfish position because it allows us to create a deeper connection with others. The difference is that in taking ownership of who we are we can then connect to what we want to experi-ence and work to create it. Connecting to self always creates flow because we connect back to Source.
The key to change is to become response ‘able’ for your feelings. Underlying all of your inappropriate responses is all of your pain. To protect yourself your responses formed a barrier like a Band-Aid that prevented you from being further wounded from your pain. This is the true circle you are living within. Learn the skills appropriate to the feelings that lay beneath your experiences and you will be able to respond capably and appropriately. Only then will you detect the boundaries of yourself that haven’t been set or feel vulnerable to attack. Connecting to these aspects of yourself will help you reset the boundaries of your responsibility.
Stop waiting for help or for others to grow up or for your life to start. It’s time for you to find out who you are and take responsibility for that. In this connection you will feel the flow of Source.
