The issue of responsibility has been a focus for my work with a patient for the last four years. Recently I heard she told someone that I could take my responsibility and do unsavory things with it. What is a holistic practitioner to do? Afterall one of the primary tenets of holistic medicine is for the individual to be responsible for his own health. The “healer” is within the patient and the so-called doctor is simply a facilitator to bring forth the patient’s inner healing.
Not everyone is willing to take responsibility for his health or for other areas of life for that matter. Responsibility then is a choice. We can assume or not assume responsibility for anything out there. I can be responsible for the computer I’m using, for my cat, or for the starving children in Africa. This is easy enough. However, what happens when someone runs into my car? Or when someone makes me angry? Or when I sustain an injury on my job? Whose responsibility is it then? The usual assumption is that we are not responsible for things that happen to us. What we forget is that this assumption is a choice we make. Sure, we could argue that we are right about it or that the law provides for it. However, choosing to be responsible is for the results it produces, and not because someone says it’s so.
I recommend that we choose to be responsible for everything that occurs in our lives, but to do it in a way that empowers us and does not demean us. Take the case of an industrial accident. If you are injured on the job, you might be down on yourself for being careless. This would not be a positive result. You could instead realize that everyone makes mistakes, figure where you went wrong, and make changes for the future. On the other hand, you might place responsibility on your company or on other members of the staff and expect compensation. This could get you compensation, but might also lead to chronic physical or emotional symptoms until you receive that proper compensation or settlement.
Taking proper responsibility for one’s situation means being compassionate with one’s self and forgiving one’s self for what happened. What is the point of beating yourself up? And when will the beatings end? You can only do the best you can. That best is whatever you did at the time, because if you really could have done more, you would have.
Smart responsibility means reflecting on the value of the seemingly unfortunate situation. What can you learn about yourself? What can you learn about life? There is always a lesson to be learned from any crisis if we look for the lesson. We can then easily turn any upset into an insight.
Being responsible means you can still enlist the help of others, but the ultimate responsibility for an outcome lies in your hands. Others can give you their expertise, but it is up to you to apply it and apply it in a way that best suits you. If your experts don’t do the trick, you either need other experts or you need to be sure you are applying the advice correctly.
The nature of our existence is that many choices are available to us. One of these choices is that of responsibility. The choice is yours. Again, you can choose to be responsible for that choice or not.