Every Thursday evening I facilitate a “developing intuition group” locally here in Mendocino. We do a variety of different exercises geared towards strengthening one’s ability to access and utilize their intuition. This week, each participant anonymously posed a question regarding their life that the group focused on receiving intuitive guidance for. One of the questions was:
“How do I graciously accept more responsibility, without harboring resentment?”
I had been pondering this question myself earlier in the day while processing my own life, so it was a good opportunity to actually take the time to give this a thoughtful answer:
When life calls us forth into greater responsibility, it usually comes in tandem with a new level of maturity that we have stepped into. It means that our capacity to handle complex situations has expanded, and our thresholds for growth have widened. This type of responsibility typically means that we are being called out of some form of isolation, and into a deeper level of connection and service to others. We are called to give up an aspect of ourselves that kept us separate and hidden from life, in order to merge with life in a more courageous way. This pushes us out of our comfort, and so our feelings of powerlessness become challenged. Then some dormant force gets brought forth from within us, and we step into a new arena of self expression.
The child must one day grow into an adult. This transition happens as the child’s blossoming maturity is utilized to meet life’s challenges. The maturity continues to deepen as the child learns to relate to others with greater mutuality and reciprocity. Because a child doesn’t have full autonomy, the child can’t meet their own needs, so the world “revolves around them”. They are fully dependent on others. Once autonomy is reached, the “child” must learn to meet their own needs, and how to also give back to the world in beneficial way. This calls the child out of a “me” centered universe, and into a “we” centered universe. Psychologically, as human beings, we will go through this process several times over the course of our lives. This is the true purpose of initiation.
In initiation, a part of the “child” gets leeched out of us – the part of us that is self-centered, that feels helpless to addressing our own needs, and who is incapable of fully giving back to others. And in this, there is of course a “loss of self” that may temporarily cause suffering. But this “loss” is met with something much greater – a depth of connection to the whole of life, service beyond oneself, and the fulfillment of personal empowerment.
The “anger” or “resentment” that comes with greater responsibility is often associated with underlying feelings of powerlessness that come with us not realizing our ability to asses the situation at hand. In allowing our natural maturity to rise to meet the occasion, the personal power is uncovered, and the anger subsides. In fact, life is actually conspiring to have us uncover deeper recesses of our personal power, hence why our feelings of powerlessness are being poked at. In other words, “trust the process”. It is all part of moving us into a greater expression of ourselves. The anger, the feelings of powerlessness – it’s all okay, and a very natural part of the transition. It all provides us with a humbling opportunity to surrender our personal will to a Higher Will. In this, we allow the organic unfolding of our soul to occur, and we learn to work with life, rather than against it.