It’s been several months since participating in my first retreat with Pachamama, and the insights I gained in the retreats still continue to unfold. Obviously, life is always unfolding every single day. However, the two retreats I have done since November continue to impact my daily life and awareness.
Radical Responsibility is a term I use in my work as a psychotherapist. It means that we can choose to voluntarily take 100% responsibility to face each and every circumstance in our lives. This includes the stuff we didn’t ask for (i.e., a hard childhood, an ex, the loss of a loved one, an accident, etc). The next part of Radical Responsibility is if we are willing to take responsibility for what is happening in our lives in this very moment then we can ask ourselves, “What am I (or We) going to do about this?” By asking ourselves the question, “What am I (or We) going to do about this?” We can respond. Most of the time, we live our lives reacting and not actually responding to moments or circumstances with clear intention. When we can respond, we are empowering ourselves to be part of creating our own destiny (versus sitting in the passenger seat and allowing another person, entity or system, etc.) to tell us how to be in this world.
So, in a nutshell, taking responsibility for our Self is amazing. It sets us free in so many ways, and it is also a pathway into re-writing our life narratives or even generational narratives.
Victor Frankl, a holocaust survivor, wrote: “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
These are words I have resonated with for a long time but now more than ever. I tell myself daily sometimes numerous times in a day to, ‘slow down, look around, take a solid self-inventory of what is mine and is not mine’ (as in, what can I take responsibility for in this moment?). Slowing down, checking in with myself, and not rushing give me a moment to collect myself so I can respond more fully to the present moment.
I continue to work with my own previous life choices and how they brought me to exactly where I am today. Not easy work to do (and very humbling) but wow, having more bandwidth to experience this growth and transformation is wonderful.
I am deeply grateful for these experiences and the Pachamama community.
with love.
Gia White
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