How Do We Become Aware of the Places in Our Lives Where We Are Not Taking Responsibility?

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In short: The short answer, I would say, is to have perspective on yourself, which means coming out of my own process and looking in from a third person perspective, like someone getting the result of how I'm showing up. What helps is people who can deliver the truth and be heartfelt, imagining what it is like to be on the receiving end of my showing up, and looking for clues in the results. A good 80, 90 percent of our work we can kind of guess, and it really boils down to responsibility.

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Someone asked me this: "How do we become aware of the places in our lives where we are not taking responsibility?"

What does it mean to have perspective on myself?

The short answer to that, I would say, is to have perspective on yourself. A kind of visibility on my own process. I'll just speak for myself really.

In order for me to have perspective of my own process, I need to first come out of my process and be able to have, let's say, a third person perspective, like someone looking in on my process, or my life, as in they are getting the result of my behaviour or how I'm showing up.

Why don't I have awareness of how I show up?

It takes firstly developing the awareness to get to the point of realising there is more in this reality than me, my I. My world, my perspective, my experience, my feelings, the stuff I'm experiencing. We all have a mind and an ego, and the ego by its nature is selfish. Its only focus is me, my I.

So it would make sense that for anyone who hasn't done awareness work, starting to pay attention is how you become aware, put simply. When you haven't done awareness work, we don't have awareness of ourselves, as in we don't have awareness of how we show up. We don't have awareness of what it is like to be on the receiving end of your showing up, your behaviour, your words, your actions.

How do I get beyond the me, my, I focus?

It takes work firstly to get over ourselves enough to get beyond the suffering of the me, my, I focus. To get beyond the, oh my God, this is what I'm experiencing, this is hard for me, these are my emotions, this is my limitation. It takes a certain amount of awareness work to grow our capacity to hold our reality beyond the focus of me, my I.

Whatever the experience was, it will continue to show up until we actually deal with it. That's just kind of how life is.

To get that perspective, one is developing the awareness, and two is actually this exercise. I would call it an exercise of putting myself in the experience of someone else experiencing me, that they are getting the result of my communication, my actions, or lack thereof, or lack of communication, or just how I'm showing up basically. It's an imagination exercise. The mind's actually pretty good at imagining things, and generally we're pretty accurate.

I can imagine putting myself in the shoes of someone else, maybe a friend, or whoever else is on the other end, the receiving end of me showing up.

What does showing up include?

I'm using the word showing up because it includes the words I say and the actions I take. It also includes what I don't say and what I don't do. The actions that I don't take. That's how I'm showing up, and they get the result of that.

What if I think I'm free and floaty, and they experience me as flaky?

Let me make it more tangible. Let's say I have this kind of easy-go-lucky nature about me, where everything comes and goes, and it's all good, and everything just happens. That's good to a degree, because you are trusting that there is maybe a higher power, a greater energy than us, protecting and taking care.

But then there's also where's your agency in it.

So the other person, let's say I have a friend hanging out with me, some people might experience me as, oh, I'm just all free flowing. And some people might actually experience me as just being flaky, or irresponsible, or unreliable, because they can't rely on me showing up. Being dependable, being the person doing the action based on the words I say. Being reliable, or showing up on time, or simple things like booking certain things, turning up on time, showing up for the thing basically.

So then I might think, I'm really trusting and I'm free and I'm floaty and I'm flowing with life, but they might experience me as flaky, for example, or unreliable. And most of us won't get to that first. It really takes stepping out of myself and putting myself in their shoes and imagining that.

What does honest feedback look like when it comes with heart?

Imagining that is second best to having someone, or many someones, around you. If you've got lots of someones around you, then great, well done, you've done something right there to surround yourself with people who can be honest.

Honesty, I believe, speaking your truth, must be balanced with heart, kindness, compassion, love. So delivering, let's call it feedback. Someone who has enough capacity within themselves to go beyond their stuff, their ego, and to be able to deliver kindly, and who also has the depth and maturity and experience within themselves to give useful feedback, as in how they are experiencing you.

You can say someone's flaky, but it takes the capacity, the depth within yourself, to express that in a way that is useful. Being derogatory, cutting someone down and putting them down, or breaking them down, is even worse. I think that's quite rare. And I think that's one of the cool things about this work in our community, that you surround yourself with people who are doing work, so there's a certain depth around them, and therefore they can actually deliver the truth in a certain way that, hopefully, is useful.

Who can tell me the truth?

So number one, I'd say, is having people like that, who can deliver the truth and be heartfelt, and care enough for you, go beyond their own agenda and care enough for you to share. And also dare to risk sometimes. Sometimes it's risking the relationship, by them saying certain things. So having people like that, I think, is really, really valuable in our lives.

Second best to that is imagining what it is like to be on the receiving end of your showing up, as I said before.

What can the results tell me?

The third part is looking for clues in the results of how things are right now. So let's say a lot of people over the last few years have just disappeared from your life. Okay, maybe that was a coincidence, but a lot of times it might not be. And maybe they're the kinds of people that you don't want around anyway.

Maybe you didn't want to lose them. And a lot of people don't want to risk the relationship by speaking a certain truth. It's just uncomfortable, so they'd rather not be uncomfortable, or worse, risk the relationship. They'll just kind of quietly step away.

So looking for clues like that in our lives, where some of those things have just quietly disappeared, or people have distanced themselves, or certain options that were available to us are suddenly not available. I think these are all clues, without getting paranoid about it, and in your head, and over analytical about it. Just looking around. It's a guessing game, because if we don't have people that are willing to be honest to that degree, to tell us.

Am I really oblivious to all of this?

I think a lot of times, a big part of the mountain of the work that we have to do, the inner work, the bigger mountains, we are aware of. We're not completely oblivious to it. So let's say if I'm speaking in a way that is harsh all the time and I just expect people to put up with that, I might be aware of that. There's probably a million behaviours we could pick. A lot of times we have some level of awareness of it, it's just uncomfortable to face it. I think that's normally a good place to start, what we can kind of already guess about ourselves that we should be working on.

Most of us know a good.. this is not based on any science, I'm just kind of giving a rough number here.. probably a good 80, 90 percent of our work, we can kind of guess what it is. Like, oh, I don't like to have uncomfortable conversations, because I'd rather just please people. Okay, so then my work is to look at that pleaser. And that layer will probably be several years of work, if not many years of work, because it will keep showing up until it's resolved and cleared and shifted.

So I don't think we're completely oblivious to everything. I think it takes some paying attention, and actually more than that, it takes some facing it, with ourselves. Some part of us finds it uncomfortable to be that brutally honest with ourselves. So often it's just sitting with ourselves and the truth of it.

What if I'm unconscious of the action?

If you're unconsciously doing it, you will be conscious of the result, the repercussions of it. So if you're unconscious of the action, you will most likely be aware of the repercussion. You can call it result, but probably it's not the kind of result we want, so I'll say repercussion.

And the repercussion a lot of times is uncomfortable, and probably really difficult. So we are dealing with some difficult stuff over time, maybe for a long time, and that in and of itself gives clues to where to look, where to bring consciousness, where to bring awareness, and where to bring accountability and ownership.

What does it all boil down to?

As I think we've spoken about in this work, you probably hear me say the same thing over and over again, in a million ways, or several different ways. It's the same thing. It really boils down to responsibility, the radical responsibility of our own reality. Because from that place, I'm completely responsible for creating my reality, completely, even the things that don't directly look like I have any agency over them. But if I take responsibility for that, then I suddenly have agency over it, and so therefore I am the creator, I'm the master of my reality. I am the creator of my own reality. That's what radical responsibility results in.

It's not easy. So it's making conscious the unconscious, bringing awareness to the things that we're not aware of. That means giving space, slowing down, being brutally honest, looking at the things and paying attention to see what we can't see yet. And as we start to see the layers, as you start the journey and take the steps, you start to take ownership and accountability, then things will start to shift. And you start to get the results, and the compounding results, of taking responsibility.

Why is responsibility such hard work?

I think the responsibility work is probably some of the hardest work, which is probably why most human beings, society, would do anything and everything to run the opposite direction of responsibility. But the ones that are willing to take responsibility would be rewarded exponentially. Unfairly so. It's just the most worthwhile work to do.

What does handing responsibility away look like?

I think handing responsibility away is where I'm collapsing. I'm just giving up and hoping that someone or something will catch me. So in other words, collapsing into my victimhood, my victim story. That's normally a good area to look at, and again it's very uncomfortable. No one wants to think of themselves as a victim, and these days people get triggered. But if we're really honest and wanting, this is the fast track to the results, to get radically honest with ourselves.

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Questions People Ask

How do we become aware of the places in our lives where we are not taking responsibility?

The short answer is to have perspective on yourself. That means coming out of your own process and taking a third person perspective: someone looking in on your life and getting the result of how you're showing up.

Why can't I see how I show up?

When you haven't done awareness work, we don't have awareness of how we show up, or of what it is like to be on the receiving end of it. The ego's only focus is me, my I.

What if I think I'm free and floaty, and they experience me as flaky?

I give that as my own example: I might think I'm really trusting and flowing with life, but they might experience me as flaky or unreliable. It takes stepping out of yourself and putting yourself in their shoes.

Who can tell me the truth?

Number one is having people who can deliver the truth and be heartfelt, and care enough to share. Second best is imagining what it is like to be on the receiving end of your showing up, and the third part is looking for clues in the results of how things are right now.

Am I really oblivious to my own patterns?

I don't think we're completely oblivious, and, with the caveat that it's not based on any science, a good 80, 90 percent of our work we can kind of guess what it is. It takes paying attention, and more than that, facing it with ourselves.

What does handing responsibility away look like?

Handing responsibility away is where I'm collapsing, giving up and hoping that someone or something will catch me, which is collapsing into my victim story.

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Big love, Dylan