I’ve never really thought of self responsibility before until you mentioned it. Most of my life I’ve been dominated by others. Firstly as a child,  then with my partner once I left home. I’ve never really known who I am. I’ve tried to go down the spiritual path but never really succeeded. May be now is my time…

My first steps on the road to Personal Responsibility were to leave Cornwall for Wales.  Leaving behind a place to live and work. The place was a flower farm and the job was working outside in winter in all kinds of weather picking flowers. After over 30 years of the work it was raking its toll on my body. As I left the farm, it also means I’ve left behind the summer work I had.  Cleaning holiday cottages down the road from where I was living.  Not that I was really sad about that one.

Now I’m in Wales.  I have a bit of cleaning work just down the road from where I’m staying.  For the summer anyway.  I don’t quite know where my future will take me at the moment, but I have somewhere to live – so that’s a good start.

I have spent the last few months recovering from the last flower season and I am feeling better psychologically. I have been reading and learning about the mind.  One book has a more scientific thought to it, the other Shamanic.  I have given details of these books at the end of what I have written.

I am discovering that we are so much more than our minds.  We have an outer mind and an inner mind.  The outer mind shouts out at us, the inner mind whispers.  The outer mind is our day to day mind.  The inner mind denotes awareness, spiritual self and high consciousness.

In itself our outer mind is not bad as it is how we learn about things.  But it is also what gives us our internal dialogue, that is hard to switch off, skips from one thought to another.  It is always going over old memories.  Storing those bad memories in our bodies and causing illness and pains.  It’s what causes us to worry about the future and generally carries all the flotsam on the tide of our waking existence.

Our identity to the outer mind has trapped us in a view of ourselves as separate from the rest of creation, believing our identity to be the outer mind and the physical body.  From the Shamanic point of view we are part of the Earth.  We are part of the living world, not separate from it.  We need to quieten our outer minds and listen to our inner minds more.

We are all part of one big organism.  The Earth.  All united (well, supposed to be!) like tiny parts of something that’s bigger than us. Our minds rule our bodies and  not letting us forget the bad things in our lives hurts. Storing pain in our bodies this way causes sickness in us.

I don’t know if I’m saying the right thing, but my definition of Personal Responsibility is taking a more spiritual path.  Not letting my mind take over me.  It’s not easy shutting up.  But if I can live in the now, spend time in the natural world and be grateful for the life I have, then I can be one of those tiny little parts of the Earth that’s sending out good vibrations.  The ripple effect.  We all have responsibility to our great Mother.  So that’s my self responsibility to send out good ripples for all of life.

Leya (59)

References: 
“Calling us home” by Chris Luttichau

“Breaking the habit of being yourself” by Dr Jo Dispenza