Are you able to respond to all that is asked of you?
Are you willing to respond with Love?
Are you able to respond with gratitude?
Are you willing to fully be responsible for the quality of your own life?
Do you pay your debts?
Do you keep your agreements?
Do you honor your promises?
Do you live your own truth?
When we live in integrity, honoring what we believe, we are responsible.
When we fulfill our promises to ourselves, others and God, we are responsible.
When we keep our agreements on time and with excellence, we are responsible.
When we pay our debts, duties and obligations, we are responsible.
When we are responsible, we are confident and strong.
When we live responsibly, we are secure and at peace.
When we are responsible, we trust and respect ourselves.
When we are responsible, we are capable and not needy.
Yes, responsibility is learned, not earned.
As we grow up, ideally we are taught by our parents and elders to be responsible.
When we have no role models, we may simply not know how or why to be responsible.
When we lack accountability and experience no one and nothing to lead us, we may not live responsibly.
We are weakened, disempowered, feel anxious and insecure by our lack of responsibility.
When we avoid being responsible, we may stay immature and dependent, needy and fearful.
When we expect others to be responsible for us, we stay limited, lacking and little.
When we blame parents, partners and authority figures for our inability and unwillingness, we stay weak.
Life is meant to be a learning laboratory.
Through our experiences and the natural consequences of our choices, we are supposed to learn.
When others interfere or cover for our lack of responsibility, learning is limited and lacking.
When others take on our responsibilities a co-dependence and dysfunction occurs.
To grow healthy and strong we need to learn through the results of our own choices or lack thereof.
To grow in integrity and honesty with ourselves and others, we must hear and see the results of choices.
To be able to respond with conscious awareness, accuracy and excellence, we must know ourselves.
To learn to be fully responsible for ourselves and our lives, we must experience direct feedback.
Secrecy, guilt, blame, coverup, deception, co-dependence, addiction all lead to limiting the learning.
Hiding, lying, cheating, pretending, avoiding, blaming, all lead to lack of responsibility.
When we are unable and unwilling to be responsible for our actions, we cannot mature or succeed.
Take time today to assess your own level of responsibility for your relationships, health and finances.
Learn to take full responsibility.
Correct your errors immediately.
Forgive your mistakes.
Choose again with respect and wisdom.
You will grow in maturity and success, creating a stronger, more capable and positive future.
Change what you can change today.
Believing in you, Betty Lue
Assertiveness
Assertive People Do:
1. Decide what they want.
2. Decide if it is fair.
3. Ask for it clearly.
4. Are not afraid of taking risks.
5. Are calm and relaxed.
6. Express feelings openly.
7. Give and take compliments easily.
8. Accept and give fair evaluation.
Assertive People Do not:
1. Beat about the bush.
2. Go behind other people's backs.
3. Bully.
4. Call people names.
5. Bottle up their feelings.
Aids For Developing Assertiveness:
1. Models
2. Love and encouragement
3. Caring evaluation
4. A sense of values
5. A basic feeling of security
Comparing Responses
There are two primative, adaptive, instinctive responses when encountering a problem area: 1) a desire for flight or 2) a desire to fight. We mostly experience these responses as fear or anger. Both responses are basically "back-brain" or reactive in nature. Assertiveness brings the "fore-brain" into play, bringing objectivity and "rationality".
Affirmation:
The more I respect myself, the more I respect others.
The more I respect myself, the more others respect me.
The more I respect myself, the more others respect themselves.
Therefore, I choose to respect myself more.