The responsibility of One

... the beginnning of freedom is when you realise exactly what you are responsible for...

Good morning Francois.

Hi Frank!  Nice of you to drop in, or pop up, or whatever it is what you do…

Yeah, don’t you just love the way things can shift in your mind from moment to moment?  One moment something is not there and the next moment it appears.

Amazing!  Now what do you have in store for us today?

Ah, that is a very good question.  How many of you are there?

Frank, can’t you count?  There is only one of me.  Or are you trying to tell me something?  I’m schizophrenic… I have multiple personality disorder!?

Relax and listen up.  There are as many of you as there are people that know you, plus 2.

What!?  Hoe does that work?

Alright, I am sure you would agree that there is a real you – as you are – and a you that is as you believe you are.

Sure.

Those can be two very different things.  You have worked towards actualisation or mastery… the first thing we talked about in this regard is awareness, and accepting yourself as you are.  The second step, if you can call it a step, was practice – doing, believing and being in different ways – ways of respect, congruence and so on. 

Yes, I can recall the conversation and I can tell you all about the things I did to practice…

Good.  The point is that your real self and what you believe about yourself should be very close to each other, but still there are differences.

Sure.  And what about the rest? You said that I am as many as the people that know me, plus two.  I take it the two are the me as I am and the me as I believe I am.

Yes, that’s right. Think about this:  How does your brother know your mother and how is that different from how you know her?

Ah, I get it.  He has his own set of experiences and beliefs about her and that is how he knows her.  So do I, and so do everyone else.

Yep.  So how many people are in a relationship?

Six!

Right.  How complicated can that be?  Now, remember we also talked about you being responsible for everything you do, say, think and feel?

Sure.  That is easy enough and I have been practicing.

So is it fair to say that in any relationship there is your half of the relationship and someone else’s half, whatever kind of relationship it is – friendship, business, romantic…

Yeah, that sounds right.

You are responsible for what you do and say, and the other party is responsible for how they understand it and how they react.

No, wait.  The meaning of my communication is the response I get… Does that not imply I am responsible for the interpretation of my communication too?

No.  Repeat after me: I am responsible for what I say; you are responsible for what you understand.

Okay, I am responsible for what I say; you are responsible for what you understand.

You are responsible for your half of the equation – your own interpretations, your own actions, your own beliefs and your own garbage.  You are not responsible for anyone else’s.

Fair enough.  You say I am not responsible of what people believe of me, their opinions, what they say, even how they act towards me. I need to process that for a bit…

Sure.  One more thing.  Are you a thing or are you a process?

Well, if those are my only two options I’d go for process – there are things happening in me all the time and I am different from what I were last year. 

Good.  So if you could see your whole life as a line stretching from your birth to now, what does the flow of that process that is you look like?

Oh wow!  There are some stuck times, but I see mostly flow.

Nice.  Remember that there are two kinds of flow – there is the in-the-moment genius type of flow that is well known to many people, but there is also the flow of the process that is you over a long time.  You flow, whether you believe it or not.

Like glass that is actually a liquid.

You can use that as an analogy, but your shape and substance are so much richer than glass…

Amazing…

Now let me leave you and your amazement to ponder the flow of your life and how you have travelled the landscape of life as a river… and to learn from the times and places you experienced abundance effortlessly.

Thanks, Frank.  We chat again soon.