Peace and responsibility
Listen to this articleI’ve been enjoying a growing peace in myself. It has to do with understanding that everyone is on the path they are to be on. If I can trust that the Divine has chosen to express his/her self in exactly the way we all are living and that the way we are living is just the path the Divine wants to experience, I can start to unravel my thoughts of responsibility.
Responsibility is a very sticky and pervasive belief system that the ego has developed that causes all sorts of distress. When I believe there is a right and wrong way to do something, and even more that’s it’s my responsibility to make sure the right thing happens around me, my life becomes very complicated. When I am contributing to others out of responsibility, I’m not really doing it for them, I’m doing it for me.
My desire is to trust that the Divine has set life up just the way it needs to be. To be able to see there isn’t any good or bad, right or wrong, just experiences. If I can do that, then my thoughts about responsibility recede. When that happens I can be very clear on why I’m making the choices I am, and be able to contribute from a pure space. That is miraculous. That is Holy.
I just flew to Florida for a conference. The flight was going to come in very late, with just enough time to get the rental car before they closed. On my last connection however, the plane had some technical difficulties just before we were to take off, and we had to return to the terminal and wait for another plane. As soon as I knew this was happening I started to try to call the rental car company at my destination to let them know, hoping they would stay open for me. I could never get through. My fourth try a national agent told me they would close and I would just have to come back the next day for the car. I was able to watch myself try to control this situation; try to be responsible for doing just the right thing to make sure everything happened just as I wanted. With the last call I finally let it go. I realized there was a plan in place, it may include getting a car that night, it may not, but there was nothing to be done.
What I really wanted in that situation was peace. I was worrying about all the things that could or couldn’t happen and I just wanted to trust I was going to be OK. My calls were my strategy to give myself peace, and they weren’t working. By stepping back, and letting go, I got the peace I was craving.
Nobody can make life be any better by being responsible about it because whatever you gain in that direction you lose at the same time. — Alan Watts
Top photo of the Kamakura Buddha by Wikipedia
Heather Schlessman, PhD is a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner who has spent her career either working with or teaching about families. She is also a mother who, like so many other parents, spent years muddling her way raising 3 wonderfully different children, one who happens to be experiencing a disability. Fortunately she has a life partner who muddled along with her. Spending most of her time trying to be perfect, as that would be the safest way to live, she became aware of a desire to be able to see people in a more compassionate way. Little did she know that the person she needed the most compassion for was herself. There is a saying that when you are ready to learn a teacher will appear, and so it was for Dr. Schlessman. She was introduced to the work of Dr. Marshall Rosenberg, the developer of Nonviolent Communication, and her world completely changed. She learned a way to have an intimate connection with herself and others, a way to truly contribute. Her passion now is to help others find their way to a more compassionate life. You can find more of Dr. Schlessman’s empathic expressions along with her husband’s, Rev. Mark Schlessman on their website.