Everyone is responsible for their own life, for their own choices and decisions. As children you learned this. As adults you often forget this and you want to just be a child again. But no, childhood is over and adulthood is asking you to show up every day for the next big feature presentation that is in your life’s unfolding. And just as you are expected to take care of yourself, so must you let others do the same. If you take responsibility for others, past their true needs, you might think you are being responsible but you are actually interfering in their lives. Let adults learn to be the grownups that they are meant to be. The only way they can do that is by living their own lives, separate from you. Some people will fail miserably at life, but that is their fate to deal with, in this life and the next. Others will take off like rockets and become outstanding members of society. The vast majority will live adequate lives of boredom and mundanity. But the lucky few will find a connection to their own spirit early in life and they will continually grow and change throughout their lives, never looking back except to give thanks, and never afraid of what is to come, for they learned early on that to live a full life is to always live in awe.
A Christmas story. Like Jung, Jeanne and I had no heartfelt attachment to any spiritual tradition but, with raising children, felt the responsibility to embody the magic of life through participation in some spiritual tradition. Like many befuddled parents we brought Spirit to life in living the myth of Santa Claus with our young children.
One of our sons was so deeply living the myth of Santa that he was impervious to the inevitable growing doubts of his peers, who were experiencing the primal wounding to their innocence, that right of passage, that ushers in the ascendence of the rational mind with its logical protection of the self from future deceptions and woundings.
As I recall, after a Tae Kwon Do class, when the truth of Santa had broken through to my son, he pointblank asked his mother why she had lied to him? Without skipping a beat, Jeanne explained that, though Santa was a myth, the magic was real, and that Christmas honored the truth of that magic, through Santa, for children, until they were ready to take charge of the magic within themselves.
So what is the magic? Christianity projected a divine savior for humanity onto the God/human personhood of Jesus Christ. The New Thought philosophical tradition came to understand this story as the awakening in humanity to the fact of our own divinity, ready to be claimed by taking charge of the relationship between our conscious and subconscious minds.
The human mind is divine. The magic is that everything we believe becomes suggestions to the subconscious mind, which then has the power to manifest those beliefs into the actual ‘flesh and blood’ of our lives. What we believe always serves as the architect of our ongoing lives.
To take conscious command of those beliefs is the key to abundance, in all areas of existence. To exercise that ability for the greater good of self, and all, is to fully ground one’s divine potential in truth.
Whatever we believe, good or bad, is an exercise of our divine power and will lead to actual manifestation. However, to fully benefit, one must be in alignment with truth; versus the errors of illusion that manifest in chaos, such as is grossly evident upon the world stage of now.
Last week, my blog pondered the question, “What is the matter with me?” The answer was, and is, the spirit, or thought, that is behind the matter, or current physical manifestation, of my life. The answer to this week’s question—”What is right with me?”—is the prescription for positive manifestation.
Every time I answer the question—”What is right with me?”—I define for my subconscious mind the fullness and brightness of self that I intend to manifest, via suggestion, to my magical subconscious mind. It is equally possible to reinforce a more limited version of self, through reciting and reinforcing negative beliefs about myself, those which I might habitually repeat daily. We are indeed magical beings, capable of manifesting either our heart’s desire or our greatest fears.
The trick is to consistently convert those limited habitual thoughts of self into expansively positive and life-enhancing thoughts of unlimited possibilities. Best to exercise the magic in emphasizing what is truly right with me! In this way, the magic still lives on in Santa’s gifts to self!
Ultimately, it’s all good. We will grow from all we manifest, and eventually find our way home to the fullness and magic of self.
Life asks you to take outer risks, to be daring, to allow yourself to have experiences that will help you navigate into and through life, that will mature you as you journey into the world around you. Life also asks you to take inner risks, to be daring in your spiritual practices, to question how you think about and perceive the world within. Are you a spiritual adventurer? Do you like to ponder the meaning of life and your purpose in it? Are you open to finding out? Are you open to exploring some new ideas? Are you ready for change? You may think that the world outside of you is the most challenging aspect of human life, but we are here to tell you that it is the inner world that will challenge you the most, the inner world that is full of mystery and confusion, that presents itself in so many ways, through the body, mind, emotions, and the spirit. Look inward today and try to connect to a new part of yourself that you have never visited before. You might be surprised at what you find.
Hold yourself accountable for decisions and choices rather than blame others. In so doing you take full responsibility for yourself and your life. You learn where you are weak and where you are strong. You test your values and commitments and you find out more about yourself so that you can grow and change. Change that happens because you accept responsibility for yourself is the best there is. It is lasting and deep and usually results in something new and unexpected. Accepting your own faults and turning them into strengths so that you can move forward in life is part of being a responsible human being. Everyone can improve.
When you fully take responsibility for yourself you realize that no one deserves anything, that in fact to deserve is a serious misnomer. Deserving implies that you are owed and no one is owed anything. With life as an evolutionary process there is only the accumulation of knowledge and wisdom, of lessons and actions that lead to learning how to be responsible, to take on responsibilities, to truly and fully take on the life you are in. Rather than feel you deserve anything, look instead with awe at the challenges in your life, and with great wonder accept them as your next chance to gain knowledge and wisdom, to grow and expand, and to fully live, perhaps in a completely new way.
