Responsibility
This is the ongoing journal of my personal awakening. Through up to date and un-edited realness, I hope to help you walk through your own awakening with more balance, love and ease.
I feel responsible
for everything that could
possibly “go wrong.”
Even things that are
none of my business.
I feel like it’s mine.
Like I own it.
If I don’t leap in to save the day
it’s my fault.
Life is going on all around me,
and consciously I know it’s
not all my responsibility.
It doesn’t all rest on my shoulders alone.
And yet it feels that way.
I feel my heart racing,
my chest tighten.
Prepped to jump into action
at any moment.
Trigger-happy to leap.
The trigger used to go off and
immediately I’d be in action mode.
No space between cause and effect —
pure movement without pausing for thought.
Now I find time stretching to infinity.
The trigger pulled
and I feel time wind down
almost to a stop.
Is this mine?
Where does my responsibility end
and someone else’s pick up?
That boundary is non-distinct to me.
I’d like it to be clearer.
What happens when I get close to that edge?
It feels tricky inside.
Like I can’t pull my eyes away
from what will happen.
It’s hard not to think of the
“what ifs” or “if only I…”
What if it’s not my place to step in?
And in stepping in I’d be keeping someone
from the wisdom on the other side?
I think I know that lies on the other side,
but maybe that’s a biased view.
Maybe it’s different
from third person perspective.
Maybe it needs to be seen from first person
to be known and embodied.
When I step in to save the day —
I’m preventing that growth.
When I take it all on myself
the growth becomes twisted
and lays heavy on my shoulders.
No longer growth,
it morphs into chains —
obligation, duty, responsibility.
The chains feel wrong,
not something I want to keep picking up.
I choose to practice a new way.
Breathe deep.
Discern where my responsibility ends.
Relax my grip on the chains.
Exhale.
Julia Coplan, an intuitive artist, uses dance, photography and writing to get unstuck from mental chatter and allow creativity to flow through.
