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reminders.

repeat after me: i am not responsible.

i am not responsible for what people see when they see me. i am not responsible for what people feel when i am near. i am not responsible for whether people allow my help. i am not responsible for other people’s chaos. i am not responsible for anyone else’s journey. i am not responsible for other people’s opinions, beliefs or judgments. i am not responsible for what other people think. i am not responsible for what people do or don’t do, say or don’t say, choose or don’t choose. i am not responsible for other people’s limitations.

they are only mirrors, as am i.

i am not responsible for saving the day; i am only responsible for doing my best. i am not responsible for other people’s decisions or their ways; i am only responsible for mine. i am not responsible for the state of anyone’s consciousness other than mine. i am not responsible for changing anyone’s mind; i am only responsible for changing mine.

the only reason i keep finding myself in confusing situations where i’m not sure what’s mine, or where i begin and end, is that i am meant to feel and fail my way through until i stop abandoning myself. if i try to make the bad feeling go away as quickly as possible (and there are so many earthly salves and distractions) i am most certainly signing up for more of the same. when i sit with myself, i can pray for clarity and find my way through the unknown. what i see on the outside won’t change until what i see on the inside changes.

embodiment means things take time. the spiral is meant to tire us out. we’ll be shown the same thing over and over until our eyes start to see differently and we start choosing differently. isn’t it funny that we get these bodies along with all the ways to leave it? all this power in a world that shames us into giving it away? you wouldn’t even have to feel what it is costing you, at least, not right away. the trap door closes slowly, gently, with hardly a sound. the trap is an invitation to sit with yourself until the body surrenders and the soul remembers how to walk itself out.