One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes...and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.
Eleanor Roosevelt (https://www.brainyquote.com/topics/responsibility)
Eleanor's words have been vibrating in my ears since my "Aha!" moment at 530 this am. (Why on earth do moments of profound realization have to hit us so bloody early in the morning lol...especially when we are already so sleep deprived?) It was so intense.
The Aha!
The realization, that pretty much floored me was, "I am responsible to some degree for what my children are continuing to experience and act out as suffering in their lives." Whoa!!! That was a big one. All the ' could of,' 'would of', 'should of' dones of my parenting hit me like a slap in the face, one at a time. I seen so clearly how I was allowing my own 'crap' to get in the way of my parenting responsibility for too long. My own need to hide away from the world, like a sick cat licking its wounds, interfered with my response to my children's needs in a healthy and effective way. I let them down to save myself.
It was a truth that knocked me to the ground. It was a truth I knew all along but denied, rationalized, and intellectualized my way over like I was on some mental John Deere mowing away all the unpleasant grass that was interfering with my need for smooth.
I neglected my responsibility. That's not a nice thought to realize at 530 in the morning and ego can have a field day with it if we let it, overwhelming us with punishment for our sin in the form of guilt and shame. That's because we truly do not understand the nature of the word.
What does responsibility mean?
We often get tripped up on the word responsibility. We see it as meaning obligation, duty, something we 'owe' and 'have to do. It induces fear, anxiety, a tendency to want to avoid it or to over exaggerate it leading to constant guilt and shame. Yet that is because we got it all wrong. Responsibility...respons-ability- is simply the ability to respond...and to act in the way that serves all best.
We all have a certain amount of responsibility to others in this world. We all have the ability to respond rather than react, whether we know it or not. As parents we have an ability to respond to our children in ways that will best serve them. When they are in need we have the ability to respond....but too often we react in self serving, 'self' protecting ways without even realizing it. Ego too often gets in between the situation and our knowledge of our ability to respond. It tricks us into reacting.
Respon-(dis)-ability
Ego is not an altruist parent nor is it a friend to us. It couldn't care less about our children or about us. It just wants to serve itself. Reactivity serves ego, responding from a place of higher wisdom doesn't. It therefore creates reactivity in the form of non-action; too much action...chaotic unfocused action.It will then blame us and shame us for the choices it encouraged us to make; for what we do or do not do as parents; it will then try to soothe us and redeem us with a whole bunch of rationalizations, denials, and intellectualizations just so we do not 'respond' from the higher place that diminishes its power over us. It gives us a long list of reasons why we couldn't, shouldn't and are unable to respond. It creates the respons-dis-ability net for us to fall into and hide under. Ego reacts...it does not respond but we can!
Responsibility is not about taking blame...it is about owning our ability and making better choices for ourselves and others. My hiding away from life has translated into my running and hiding away from the bigger issues my children face. Though I have been dealing with it on a superficial level...able to truthfully say in words what I have done as a parent...I have not been dealing with it on the deeper more Life affirming and 'healing' level. I was not operating from the state I want my children to operate from.
I need to be there for them, not in my ego derived sense of 'me' way. I need to reach out from a state of peace, the kind healing provides. So what if my body is tired. so what if my mind is tired...I do not need to use that as an excuse for not taking part in inspired action for their benefit. ? This is not about 'me'. It is about the greater I. I still need more healing to get there. If I want them to heal I have to be healed.
My best response is owning that I am not healed....admitting that, and making honest steps to heal. And ...not from my head or my physical being but from the only place where healing can take place.
Man...I am not making sense...and I am not sure I care....because it is not in words that my philosophies will be expressed but in my actions. I may need to do a little more...in an inspired way. I need to respond and to know that without ego, I am not disabled.
If we give way to a disturbance, let us learn how to dismiss it and return to peace. ACIM-W-273:1:3
When we respond we dismiss it...when we react ...we resist it.
All is well.
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