Greetings all! Our regular readers will have noticed that I (Palehorse) haven’t been around for a while. For the past few weeks I’ve gone through a period where old understanding has been rapidly blenderized, and new insights, awareness and experiences were coming fast and furious, to the point that if I had started writing an article, by the time I finished it the first half would’ve been obsolete. I went on hiatus for a while to address things and process my experiences and what it all means; even still, I’m mulling over various experiences for insights and tools that I can use for myself and share with our visitors. Obviously, this post marks my triumphant return; ’tis good to be back and writing again! 
Onward…
With the widespread dissemination of ideas such as the Law of Attraction and the idea that “you create your own reality,” it has become a popular belief that we are responsible for creating ALL of our experience. From who our parents are, to how and when we die, and every aspect of everything in between, it is claimed that if you got it, then you created it, no matter what.
Admittedly this is a more empowering belief than to simply think we’re drifting through life as victims at the mercy of forces well beyond our control, even if it can be difficult to accept responsibility for painful experiences. But is it true?
There was a time when I decided to believe it was; I basically made a decision to take up the concept of “personal responsibility” and stretch it as far as it would go, if it was shown that it was a productive way to operate. I held that everything that came into my sphere of experience was either created or attracted by me, and I was responsible for every part of it, basically to see how this would affect my experience in practice. After feeling like I took this idea to the limits of usefulness, I have been swinging back around to a much more moderate view.
I will say that for a time, it accomplished some of the things I needed it to. When I first started exploring various approaches to spirituality, I quickly began uncovering signs of longstanding, severe negative interference which, not particularly wanting to be uncovered, quickly became hostile and much more overtly problematic. Taking responsibility for my life, and getting creative about extending the concept into every area that was affected, became the way to bring all those areas of experience directly under the influence of my own will, thus pushing out various hostile and unhealthy influences, entities and people, that would otherwise be vying for control. This period also helped me to form and clarify my personal boundaries, as I figured that if I could take responsibility for something, define how I wanted it to play out, and have that part of my life noticeably change, then that something can likely be considered part of my personal sphere. I also gained a lot of useful new tools and insight from stretching this idea as far as it would go – for instance, since deliberately and explicitly taking responsibility for my health a few years ago, I have not been sick, and have actually been able to head off symptoms of “pre-sick” from turning into “actually sick,” sometimes simply by sending the intent through my body that it’s not happening.
Are We Creating Unconsciously?
To say that we’re “creating” unconsciously betrays a poor understanding of how the subconscious mind actually works. The subconscious mind is where most of our experience originates, though it seems more accurate to say we emanate unconsciously; creation, on the other hand, is an inherently conscious act. Emanation and personal responsibility are mutually exclusive in the same way that it doesn’t seem fitting to say we “create” our dreams until we learn to become lucid and begin directing the experience. Before then, both are simply made of the “stuff” reflecting from the psyche, which the individual didn’t put there and has little knowledge of how to work with until we think to deliberately begin sorting it out. Said stuff would’ve been birthing experiences from wherever it happened to reside; that place just happened to be your subconscious mind. 
Once we begin taking responsibility for our emanations, only then does it start to becomes an act of creation.
The subconscious mind is made up of many aspects which come and go and can even get cut off from their conscious Self of origin. As I explained in the Soul Fragmentation series, subconscious aspects mostly run on autopilot, influenced by programmed beliefs and socialization we absorb from our upbringing, and whatever they happen to encounter and even fall under the control of while outside the influence of conscious awareness. The subconscious mind is not really capable of thinking critically and making choices – rather, it automatically makes connections and associations, and processes information; the interactions and energetic component of this process reflecting outward to form the basis of what we experience. What most people are emanating comes from a disorganized and contradictory jumble of absorbed influences and information, much of which can be negative, toxic or simply false. This conglomerate of influences does not think, plan or discriminate what would be healthy or desirable vs. not, when giving rise to our experiences – it simply reflects what it has onboard.
To make matters more complicated, the subconscious minds of individuals are networked with the Collective Unconscious, as well as each other. At this level, individuality seems to be much less differentiated in general, especially for the conscious mind if it were to try and trace all the origins of a given experience. Taking responsibility for what goes on at the subconscious level requires developing a working understanding of what’s actually going on there; otherwise “responsibility” becomes pretty much meaningless.
Interestingly, many of those who claim 100% responsibility for their experience are also anti-ego, which is often equated with the conscious mind. Y’know, the part of us capable of critical thinking, planning, troubleshooting, reasoning and evaluating why things happen the way they do so perhaps they can be made to happen in a preferable way? Or to make a long story short – the only part of ourselves capable of taking responsibility? Yep – if you manage to get rid of your ego, then no soup responsibility for you. You simply become part of the collection of influences, causes and effects with no “I” to organize or direct them, which the rest of us then have to take responsibility for if the artist formerly known as “you” should wander into our respective spheres. It could thus be said that the movement to be rid of ego can be rightly viewed as a collective ducking of responsibility.
At the end of it though – my personal guidance, as well as my intuition after piecing my experiences together, have repeatedly stated and shown that there were many things that have happened to me in this lifetime that were not chosen, planned, expected or wanted at any level of myself. While it is comforting to believe that our lives are planned by a benevolent sky council, and everyone follows the rules to ensure that we get exactly what we signed up for, this does not at all seem to be the case. In reality, while some people come in with a specific plan and a “backup team” behind the scenes to support its fulfillment, we share space with a vast diversity of people and entities, with many different agendas, and the same freedom to act on them that we have. With so many variables in play, some of them occasionally acting deliberately to change or block our plans, the idea of “taking responsibility” for literally every part of our experience is not realistic or advisable.
Toward a More Balanced View
While the concept of personal responsibility worked very well for pushing negative and undesired influences out of my sphere, I eventually noticed that I had taken it beyond the limits of its usefulness, as it was starting to push out positive influences as well. To figure out why that is, let’s take this belief to its logical conclusion.
Advocates of 100% responsibility often speak of life as if it were a dream; every person and event merely a reflection of some part of the Self. If this is true then it follows that if we can just figure out which part of the Self is reflecting which part of our experience, the actors can be rearranged at will just by rearranging the psyche. While this is often the case, it fails to account for the fact that at least some of the “actors” are conscious enough to be free free to write in their own part as they please at any point. (This can be true in night-time dreams as well, but that’s a subject for another post!)
The factors in our lives that we influence solely by doing things like changing our beliefs and attitude, work to shift those variables that were previously undecided and thus open to our influence, as well as people who have no particular interest in influencing those specific factors or were otherwise operating unconsciously in that area. This is all well and good at times, but would you want to live 100% of the time in a reality with nothing BUT sockpuppet dream characters who always acted according to our own beliefs and intentions? I sure wouldn’t, for a lot of reasons, starting with the fact that after a while it would just get boring, lonely and without meaningful challenge.
If your life had movie-credits, then 100% responsibility means putting your own name after every role, and every crew member. What do you think some of those free-thinking and acting contributors would have to say about that?
Therein lies the other major flaw I found in this theory. The longer I held it, the more I noticed the general flow of my life shifting in a direction where there was less happening at all, and the existing dynamic was increasingly negative, in spite of any positive beliefs or actions on my part. It was as if negative influences and people, those who don’t want their role known and have little use for responsibility, collectively said “whoa, he’s taking responsibility for my actions! Free-for-all time!” At one point I even had my boundaries flat-out steamrolled and was smacked around a bit by an entity that seemed to be wanting to prove that not only does one being’s idea of responsibility have little bearing on another’s will and ability to act, the implication that it does could be considered offensive in some circles. “Take responsibility for me, will ye! Harumph!” Point taken, lesson learned, and truth be told, I can kinda relate to that, heh.
On the other hand, those people I would actually want as co-contributors with some creative liberties in my experience; those who are responsible and I would consider as working toward personal sovereignty whether they’d put it in those terms or not, those who enjoy gifting myself and each other with fun surprises, began to give off a somewhat resentful vibe, and then became much less active and visible in my experience. Given the above, I can’t say I blame ‘em. It seems that on some level they were picking up on the fact that I had framed things in terms where I was taking responsibility for their contributions in my life – so they stopped contributing as much. Definitely not the effect I was shooting for, and so needless to say, a change in approach was needed.
As of now I still hold myself to a high standard of personal responsibility, but I expect the same of those I share space with; for those who can’t follow this basic rule I take responsibility for making sure our time sharing space is cut short enough to minimize liability. For most people I recommend focusing heavily on taking responsibility for your thoughts, words and actions; i.e., the parts of your experience that are easily recognized as originating directly with yourself, and likewise viewing other people as being ultimately responsible for theirs. For most of us, mastering those three things is more than enough to keep us busy. As for one’s manifested experience – personal responsibility gets a lot more fluid, or should, if it’s going to remain beneficial. That which I understand to some degree and can have some deliberate influence over, I take at least partial responsibility for. Taking responsibility for one’s beliefs and learning how to use beliefs as creative tools is useful, though I can say from experience that some “beliefs” and similar material that influence our experiences are buried very deep, may even be unrecognizable or unassociated to anything ever held consciously, come from a variety of sources, and taking responsibility without having discovered them will not change the influence they’re having. After a point it begins to look like claiming responsibility for everything going on in the depths of the ocean, when we know less about the ocean than we do the solar system. There is a learning curve, and a process of exploration involved.
Beyond that I find it more useful to fill in the gaps, not with absolute responsibility, but with positive intent, such as the intent that my experience is being co-created by myself and a variety of people, entities and influences who share enough of the same values to make creating together a mutually beneficial experience. Combine that with gratitude to those who contribute to fulfilling my intentions, and we’ve got a pretty good recipe for what could be considered a more diplomatic approach to manifestation.
The effects of this shift have been encouraging. It seems that a lot of negative people and influences are scared off and repelled by the prospect of having responsibility imposed on them for as long as they’re in my sphere. On the other hand, the sort of people and influences I’d actually welcome in my sphere, helping to create mutually beneficial experiences and increased options for all involved to express and explore, have noticeably gravitated back in my direction. Good deal, methinks!
–Palehorse
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A friend I’ve known since childhood asked me to write on the subject of “Disappointment”, and how other people offer platitudes that, while well-intended, often make us feel worse.
