Never Miss a Workability Post

Let’s take a whack at what is meant when folks in the field of well-being talk about you being responsible for your experience.  A lot of it is seriously eye-roll worthy.  A lot of the folks peddling it, don't really understand the foundation.

The foundation is awareness and consciousness.

Without awareness and consciousness, forget about the idea of being responsible for your experience.  It’s essentially gibberish.  If you are not aware, you are reacting, not responding.  

When in a reaction state-of-mind, this thing made you happy, that thing made you sad, this thing made you angry, so you went and ate something, and now you feel relieved soon to be followed by feeling guilty.  Just one reaction after the next.  Reactions (as opposed to responses) come from a lack of consciousness.  The more aware you are (think slowing down) the more responsive (responsible) you realize you can be.

The challenge is to get sufficiently conscious and aware so that you actually experience having made a choice.  Don’t try to brainwash yourself into thinking that you are responsible (this is where blame tends to get confused with responsibility).  The only path to experiencing more responsibility comes from increasing your consciousness and awareness.  

Simply telling someone, or yourself, "it’s your choice to be angry" is a bit silly without talking about the foundation.  If you are stuck in a mode of reacting to the world, the idea of choice is nowhere on the board.  Reactions are not choices - They are habituated, cyclic behaviors.  Have you ever wondered, how do I keep ending up in the same situation, having the same experience, or in the same relationship challenge again and again?  

Most often it is because of reactions sourced by unconscious (and sometimes conscious) beliefs.  These beliefs could be from your early childhood.  If you apply awareness and consciousness, slowly, gradually, you will start to see that some of your behaviors are reactions not responses.  It is from this perspective that the idea of being responsible for your experience starts to become a reality.  

To understanding the foundation!