responsibility – Page 2 – Surprised By Joy

“I am too alone in the world and not alone enough to make every moment holy.” – Rainier Maria Rilke

Willie Nelson and his son Lukas Nelson were talking about the power of manifesting life on a podcast with Brené Brown that I recently listened to. They suggested that the secret is in dreaming what you want in your life and then letting it go for God to make possible. This secret speaks to the line between being and doing that always confounds me.

When I first wanted to have a baby at age 45, I talked with the general practitioner that I was seeing at the time. She told me to eat organic. I was pretty sure that I needed to do a little more than that to have kids – either that or the organic food industry has a whole other marketing niche they aren’t plugging. 😊 So I went to talk with a fertility specialist next who had some very concrete steps for me to do.

On the other hand, I’ve always joked I’ll get married again when a man falls out of the sky and lands on my head. So far just putting that one out there and letting it manifest hasn’t created any results but I’m not all compelled to take more action in this moment.

I suspect the line between being, just putting it out there and letting it happen in God’s flow, and doing, taking very specific action to make things happen, is so difficult because no one can pass on that wisdom for anyone else’s life. It’s just between us and God. And it’s further complicated, at least for me, because I very much believe that I’m responsible for my own happiness so I don’t leave much for God to do.

Listening to that podcast inspired me to wonder about this balance all over again. The Nelson’s with their deep faith also talked about working hard to practice, embodying the same push and pull of being vs. doing. It illuminated part of my struggle and the beginnings of a solution – I suspect that I’ll never have a line that I can chart with any mathematical precision. Instead I was directed back to my daily practice of listening to the Divine about what I need to do that day, doing my best at that and leaving the rest to God.

(featured image from Pexels)

“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.” – Joshua J. Marine

Can we talk about spilled milk? I completely believe, “No crying over spilled milk.” When my kids spill milk – no problem. But when I spill milk, I have a much harder time finding graciousness. The other morning I spilled a glass that I had just filled before I could get a top on it. I found myself reviewing my rhythm of the morning trying to find what I hadn’t done well enough so that I was in such a hurry and spilled the milk.

Years ago when I read the famed psychiatrist Dr. Scott Peck’s book The Road Less Traveled for the first time, I was captivated by his explanation of the continuum between neurosis and character disorder. If you are neurotic, you tend to take too much responsibility for the events of your life and if you are character disordered, you tend to take too little. The beautiful takeaway quote from that section is, “…the problem of distinguishing what we are and what we are not responsible for in this life is one of the greatest problems of human existence.”

There is no doubt that I exist on the neurotic side of the continuum and having kids has made it more pronounced.

My tendency to take personal (over)responsibility for one has evolved into personal responsibility for three people. If my kids doddle on the way to bed and I don’t manage to get them to bed on time, I believe it’s my fault that they’ll have a poorer shot to have a good day the next day because they aren’t well-rested. There is a whole post I need to write (and read) on shifting that responsibility from me to them as they age.

But it has created a lot of great ground for meditation. Because as I create space to observe my own ego, I have a much better chance of observing when I overreach the boundaries of my responsibility. Sometimes, the milk just spills.

This brings back a poignant conversation I had with my ex-husband about the concept of neurotic vs. character disordered right around the time we were finalizing our divorce. As I explained what Dr. Peck’s long experience and training in psychiatry revealed, he proclaimed himself the only person that is right in the middle with no tendency one way or the other. It seemed his self-awareness could stretch just enough to know that he was not neurotic but couldn’t quite expand far enough to own that he tends to take too little responsibility. It was such a deeply ironic moment — and one that I remember just quietly witnessing because it explained so much.

There is a delightful space that I find now and again where I can just admit, “I spilled the milk” and laugh about it. When I do, I know I’ve found some balance and the milk is just there to help remind me.

(photo from Pexels)

Tag: responsibility

Being vs. Doing

Spilled Milk