19 The giant misunderstanding about freedom and self-responsibility

We’ve become so afraid, though, of taking self-responsibility, our fear of it has become a large part of our abyss. We fear that if we assume self-responsibility, we will fall right in and be swallowed up whole… It seems like a huge danger to let go of our demand to always have our way… We literally fear we’ll be miserable if we have to give up our demand for Utopia…

We can never be happy because buried in our unconscious is this mistaken concept that happiness requires utter perfection in all ways. Yet none of this true. It’s all part of a grand illusion… We believe that harm can come to us through the arbitrariness of life… This fear is an illusion—it’s an abyss. And the only reason it exists is because of the way we avoid self-responsibility. For if we don’t want to be responsible for our life, someone else must be…

We are only helpless because we make ourselves so when we shift responsibility away from ourselves. When we look at things this way, we begin to see the heavy price we pay for insisting on Utopia. We pay every day with our fear… As we do this work of self-discovery, we want to find the corresponding note in ourselves that is vibrating due to provocation from another. Then we’ll stop feeling like a victim…

Part of being a grown-up and making independent decisions is that we are bound to make mistakes. The child in us who still clings to Utopia, however, believes we must always be perfect. To make a mistake is to fall into the abyss… Life on planet Earth is not Utopia, and we aren’t perfect. This is not a tragedy.

Listen and learn more.

Read Bones, Chapter 19: The Giant Misunderstanding About Freedom and Self-Responsibility

Read Original Pathwork® Lecture: #60 The Abyss of Illusion – Freedom & Self-Responsibility