10 Ways to Accept Personal Responsibility

The fundamental building block for creating a new life in alignment with who you are is taking personal responsibility. This is about owning your behaviour (thoughts, feelings, emotions, etc.) and consequences. Until you take responsibility for your actions, (as well as self-judgements, you do not develop self- respect or truly respect of others.

To take personal responsibilty means you don't react to external events.  You simply act. Your actions come from your true being, that which is self-directed, self- motivated, self- disciplined, and knows and resonates with harmony.

• What does personal responsibility look like to you?
• What are the specific steps to putting this into practice?

Consider 9 Ways to Accept Personal Responsibility:

1. Be accountable for thoughts, feelings, words & actions
2. Stop using words: try, can't, don't won't, shouldn't
3. Cease complaining & blaming
4. Take nothing personally
5. Listen to heartfelt intuition
6. Live in the present
7. Use the power of intention
8. Ground yourself in nature 
9. Engage in mindfulness practices
10. Accept where the will exist, a way can be found

Walking the Path

A path is made by walking it. This is about recognizing life takes on the meaning it is given.  Its easy to be positive or optimistic yet being overly positive doesn't allow feeling deeply. In fact, it blocks out shadows or another side of who we are. We are often taught to rush through adversity to avoid pain.  This does not allow us to get through pain or allow feelings entirely appropriate for different situations. Is it always desirable to rush turning a frown upside down?

A true Yoga perspective would say no.  Each person's truth ought to be honoured. All feelings in the moment deserve love and acceptance. Healthy emotional stages allow for shock, anger, disappointment, sadness then acceptance and reorientation to a more balanced focus.  Eventually, its useful to be more fully open to the unknown or new possibilities. To allow everything to flow, and seeing this is part of wholeness, this is truly walking the path.  The truth is only ever felt directly.

Know you are worth it

Form the moment we fuel our dreams with a mystical force, we are living as if we are worth realizing our visions and dreams. This takes shape as heartfelt trust.  It is imperative to live as if we deserve and embody what the mind tells us we are working toward. We must be the change we wish to see and feel. Unconscious conditioning might be temporarily holding us back.

We are either driven by a mental focus on perfectionism, logic and a dualistic connection or, by a focus on soul love and self- appreciation.  When we forget to love ourselves, moment-to-moment, we manage this though self-sabotage, denial, co-dependence and other unconscious addictions. Notice whether we are critical and shaming about ourselves or whether we are willing to snap out of it, love ourselves fully in this moment and live more consciously, the best we can.

Even now, it is possible to be fully present with our true selves.  What does this mean for you? The soul is our ever-present support system we can live by to rise above illusions and to help us see through the mind games we play.   Growing aware of who we are and what is possible requires self-acceptance. How is this arise? Well, its about diving deep, being with all the emotions rising within ourselves the best we can, knowing we are enough. How do we get here?  Affirmations are helpful. We benefit from reminding ourselves we are amazing, exquisite, talented, beautiful, gifted and perfect as is. Are you ready to receive compliments?

Turns out, positive affirmations are not the ultimate way to find yourself and feel better right where you are. Breathwork is a useful tool on the journey to deeper self awareness and self-love.   It is one avenue to get in touch with fragemented parts of your soul or shadow self, so these may enter your conscious awareness for healing and integration.  Every process is unique and divinely timed. Know you are worth it.

Breathwork shifts habits

Maxwell Maltz had us believe we only need 21 days to change a habit. Other research, such as a 2009 study by Phillippa Lally, a health psychology researcher at UCL, entitled ‘How long does it take to form a habit’, found that on average it takes 66 days for a habit to become ingrained.

What is often left out in therories is that conscious intention required as well as a knowing or conscious intelligence as to why habits, often viewed as negative, arose in first place. Many habits are addictions. Cathartic Breathwork is one spiritual technology of awakening that effectively uncover unconscious details.  Consider 7 Steps to breathe more consciously.

Meditation and breathwork techniques purify the chi and consciousness on the level responsible for these habit streams.  No seminar series or weekend retreat is as effective. Breathwork can transform self-perception. To purify the mind and body, we must purify the sixth consciousness by cultivating emptiness and detaching from the other five consciousnesses. This is the only way to make a lasting change in perception, personality and behavior.  The key is to see things energetically, to shift into the consistent vibration of self-love and acceptance.  Feeling better is within reach of everyone.

Deepen depth of character

Character deepens with experience.  Perceived (physical) pain and (mental) suffering build character. When things are not going the way our ego wants them to go, we are invited to step back, find patience and understanding. We can stop identifying with pain, see beyond it.

Radiance happens based on the attitude we hold when everythng is going our way or, at least in the direction that feels right or less painful. We navigate the waters of pleasure and pain until we move into calmer water.  As we travel this journey, increasing synchronicities arise.  Events unfold and give us information we did not even consciously know we needed, guide us to options to help us help ourselves, options we were previously unaware.   Acceptance and surrender in practice, is allowing intuition to guide us and trusting ourselves fully.

The perfect example is my recent atlas re-alignment. It was through connecting and engaging with friends that led to that atlas-related referral. For this process, I consulted an individual who helped me gain deeper insight into myself, as well as how to feel into the interconnectedness of my spine, joints, breath and the rest of my body on a whole new level. I now have more detailed understanding of reasons for my posture and breathing that extensive breathwork training had not itself given me.  However, in trusting in that path and completing that training, I was being prepared for what was coming next. A friendly reminder we are always being preapred for the unforeseen.

Similarly, this process led me to a dentist who is now assisting me to piece together a puzzle about my son. Emoional, physical and other symptoms are all related to energy flow.  What we see is always guiding us to see what we are not yet seeing. Recent life experience teaches me that it is the degree of connection and engagement we nurture in our relationships that catapults us to precisely what the soul requires to love on a whole new level. Wisdom of connection is timeless.