Mar 08, 2015

Pondering

 

Step 8. Take responsibility for my choices that have unintended consequences, including creating pain for others and myself.

 

For most of us, our first reaction when we have done something that hurts another person and/or ourselves is to find something outside of ourselves to blame. “Did you see what ‘they’ did?” ” I just had to respond to protect myself.” “They deserved what happened!. “I certainly showed them!” Many times our first reaction of self-defense is maintained until someone reminds us, if we are fortunate, that our action is our own choice, not the other person’s choice.

Taking responsibility of our actions is an important part of growing in maturity. We can not control what another person will do or their reaction to our actions, but we have full control on our own actions and reactions. No matter what the provocation, our response is our own response, and we bear full responsibility for our actions.

 

This step is surprisingly hard to live up to, as it is an ongoing process that never ceases. It becomes easier to follow the more often we accept our responsibility, but it remains always one of the sore points, as it makes us face our negative actions, especially those actions that can injure others, at least in our own minds.

 

Many times we have to have a little bit of time between the time of our action, and the recognition of the exact nature of what we did and our responsibility for our action. I can say this: after spending many decades working this one point, I finally find it easier to accept my own part of the problem as my own, and now usually within a few minutes I can accept my role in the issue. So I can truthfully say it does get easier with practice, and I have to admit I have had plenty of practice.

 

The Instinctual Center

 

The Instinctual or Moving Center of our mind is the part just above our central nervous system, which is commonly called the “fight or flee” part of our mind. It also contains the sexual side of our mind, which is why that drive is so difficult to control for most people. The reaction time for this center is extremely short, being just a few milliseconds, and almost impossible to stop the immediate reaction. Thus when we touch something hot, we immediately pull back without having to think about it at all. Herein lies all of our fears and terrors, and herein lies our defense mechanisms that we use when we feel under attack. It is in the instinctual center that most of our problems arise. Now, I am assuming we are basically a decent person, not going out of our way to provoke others or annoy others, otherwise you would not be reading this treatise to gain the next evolutionary step. But the instinctual center in our lives causes us all problems, as the “fight or flee” center is always alert for the slightest perceived problem that may arise, and triggers alarm bells in our mind that raise our blood pressure, cause us to go on full alert, sends adrenalin in our system, and in general raised havoc with our general peace of mind, destroying it in one fell swoop.

 

The task we have before us to teach the instinctual center that the world is not going to end just because someone said or did something. This training will usually take years, and only ends when we become a Master or we pass on, where nothing that occurs seems out of place, and all is well in God’s world, whether it appears that way to the outside observer or not. Thus Jesus could face his death with a calmness that said “This is a necessity, and it is ok.”

 

Emotional Center

 

Our Emotional Center, that is how we react to what we are perceiving, also acts with amazing speed, with no or little time lapse between what we observe and what we feel. The emotional center is directly driven by our Instinctual Center and causes us untold grief by our seemingly instinctual responses of anger and fear. One of the differences between the Instinctual Center and the Emotional Center, is that we can have a better control capability of the Emotional Center than we do of the Instinctual Center.

 

The Instinctual center is controlled almost by our DNA, and reacts as it will react. But our Emotional Center can be trained to respond differently, and this is one of the traits of a Master is that their Emotional Center is under control of their still higher centers, and will not respond in error. Thus Jesus had full control of his responses to events in his life, and did not respond beyond the level of response required by the immediate action. Yes, sometimes that reaction was firm and swift, as with the money changers in the temple, but even there he was careful not inflict permanent damage. He spilled the coins on the floor, but they could be picked up. He drove the flocks out, but they could be found and retrieved. But he told those with doves for sacrifice to leave, as to drive them out of the cages would have meant a loss for the owners. Even in this display of anger, he was careful to avoid long-term loss.

 

Depending on your disposition, your control of your emotions are a positive sign or a sign of inner terror. Only if you feel that your outward response is always a measure of the event can you say you have true control. I still find myself biting out something when it would be far better to listen and think before responding, but my emotional center is still too volatile for my own best interests.

 

Thinking Center

 

It is in the thinking center that we have the better chance to function, for thinking center gives us the chance to respond with grace. But the thinking center takes time to respond, often several seconds at best. In the meantime our instinctive and emotional centers have run all over the place causing us to cause pain and havoc in our vicinity. When our thinking center catches up with what we have said and responded, the damage is done. We have to stop, and accept what we just did, and make amends for our actions. Thus our energies have not only created pain for others, but pain for ourselves in the process.

 

These are our actions

 

This is the time to own up and accept what we have already done. The words and actions are out there, and there is nothing we can do to pull them back. We have to accept that we did ‘that’, apologize, and yes I understand how difficult that is to do, and move on. Hopefully we did not do harm to the extent that it truly hurts the relationship, but even that, if we do our part to apologize and move on, can change; for now it is the other person’s that has to learn to look beyond and forgive.

 

Forgiveness

 

And now comes that other shoe. What do we do if it is the other person that has said or did something that truly hurts us? Jesus put it this way when asked by Peter how many times to forgive: “I do not say seven times, but seventy times seven.” (Matt: 18:22). That is, there is no limit now many times we forgive another.

 

We do not forgive the other person for their sake, but for our own. “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.” (Mahatma Gandhi). These quotes, and many more of similar nature, lead us to understand that forgiveness is a sign of strength, even more so than an apology, but both acts are a sign of strength. No relationship can last unless both parties are willing to forgive and to put the action and reaction aside, for unless we value our relationship above the perceived slight, real or imagined, the relationship cannot survive.

 

Take Responsibility for our Actions

 

Taking responsibility for our actions, and I mean actions that can injure others and ourselves, for no action that injures another leaves ourselves unscarred. Only by accepting our actions as our own actions, intended or not, can we grow in Love and Being. We have to recognize that we are responsible for what we say or do. Each of us carries our own responsibility, including the responsibility to learn to stop ourselves before we do something that we will regret. Gaining control of our reactions and emotional response is a life-long commitment, one that is often too slow to come and hard to maintain.

 

What have others to say about this? Albert Einstein said “Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment, and learn again to exercise his will – his personal responsibility.” Sophocles said it well: “It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has made it.”

 

The Choice is ours

 

Only by taking responsibility for our actions and place in life can we hope to change what and where we are. The whole purpose of these 12 steps is to recognize that I, you, are responsible for the state of mind and place you and I find ourselves. We have to see that we are solely responsible for our place in life, and by changing our perspective on life we change our place in this life. We can have a life of Abundance, filled with joy and inner peace and strength, but we have to understand that the choice to that place is ours and ours alone. We can choose to remain buried in the mire of self-pity, bemoaning our fate, and that fate will continue. Or we can choose to have a different fate, one filled with light and joy, despite what is going on in our life.

 

Once we have a new perspective on our life, we will find that the outer circumstances will change to accommodate our new perspective. Sometimes the change will be subtle, for as with Christopher Reeve, he still had to deal with the consequences of his actions, but the love gained from his wife and family and the whole acting community was a priceless gift to his sense of peace and joy, which was evident in any of his interviews towards the end of his life.

 

Usually though, we have not constrained ourselves to the point that Christopher Reeve did, and we can have a much more positive outlook on life. The purpose of these 12 steps is to being us into a Life of Abundance, and that does require us to change our perspective on life, and to accept that we are responsible for our state in life.

 

So this 8th step is another key point in the road to Abundance: only by accepting that we are responsible for each thing we do in our life, will be able to move to the point that we Truly Are Responsible, and can make different choices that will lead to different results.

 

Consequences

 

I said earlier, that like Christopher Reeve, we have to bear the consequences of our actions in life. These consequences of the actions we have taken have formed into physicality, and can no longer be changed. But all future actions, stemming from those actions and there consequences, can be changed. It is these future actions that will lead us to the Life of Abundance, the consequences of these further actions will somewhat alleviate the original, sometimes devastating consequences, such as granting Christopher Reeve new opportunities, and starting a foundation to help those who are quadriplegic.

 

These movements of grace that follow from the Life of Abundance are part of the evolution of life that we are a part. We are in the process of creating the next highest version of the highest vision we ever had of ourselves, and these visions are not only for us personally but for the entire human race. Part of the task we came to this cycle of physicality is to raise the entire human race to the next higher level of existence, one life at a time, starting with our own. Only by changing ourselves can we change the human race, and by changing ourselves we introduce a higher set of energy levels to all around us, and to the entire human race.

 

Thus a Life of Abundance, while certainly meaningful and wonder for our own life, is also part of the overall drive of the human race to change, so that all humans can live a Life of Abundance.

 

Meditation

 

Our Eternal Wisdom, we place our life into your hands. We have surrendered ourselves into your shelter, and we accept responsibility, both for the good and for the not-so-good that we do, so that we may understand the energies you hold out to us as being rightfully ours. With these energies that are ours we can step into that blessed life you have promised, a Life of Abundance. We give this life back to you, our Eternal Wisdom, our God, to use to raise all of humanity to the next level of Being. We bow ourselves in gratitude for this opportunity to live a life of service, joy, and peace, so that when the time comes for us to leave this plane and join more fully with Your Being, we will move with joy at that stage of Life.