Taking Total Responsibility

I have recently come across a new concept to me. It is one of taking Total Responsibility... not just for yourself, but for everything in your life. As Dr. Ihaleakala Hew Len explains to Joe Vitale in their book Zero Limits, "Total responsibility for your life means that everything in your life, simply because it is in your life, is your responsibility. In a literal sense, the entire world is your creation."

Joe Vitale goes on to write "Whew. This is tough to swallow. Being responsible for what I say or do is one thing. Being responsible for what everyone in my life says or does is quite another. Yet, the truth is this: if you take complete responsibility for your life, then everything you see, hear, taste, touch, or in any way experience is your responsibility because it is in your life."

"This means that terrorist activity, the president, the economy - anything you experience and don't like - is up for you to heal. They don't exist, in a manner of speaking, except as projections from inside you. The problem isn't with them, it's with you, and to change them, you have to change you."

Wow. Pretty deep, huh. It makes sense to me though because I believe that ultimately we are all connected, we are all one and the same, and as Neale Donald Walsch beautifully puts it in his book, Conversations with God: "There is only one of us."

So if we are at cause for all things in our life, if we are the creators of everything we experience and everything that comes into our experience, then we have an awesome responsibility - not only to ourselves, but to everyone we are aware of (because ultimately, they are us) - to heal ourselves and the world we create. This gives whole new meaning to a quote I love by Ghandi: "Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Taking total responsibility gives us the power to change anything and everything in our lives that we want to improve. Joe Vitale continues to write: "If you want to improve your life, you have to heal your life. If you want to cure anyone, even a mentally ill criminal, you do it by healing you. I asked Dr. Len how he went about healing himself and his patients. What was he doing exactly?"

Dr. Len explained, "I just kept saying, 'I'm sorry' and 'I love you' over and over again. That's it." As I read more about Dr. Len's work with Ho'oponopono, key phrases to say to yourself to release and heal anything are "Please forgive me. I forgive you. I love you. Thank you. God Bless You."

Joe Vitale: "Turns out that loving yourself is the greatest way to improve yourself, and as you improve yourself, your improve your world. Whenever you want to improve anything in your life, there's only one place to look: inside you. When you look, do it with love."

Well said, Joe.