“We took our vows seriously”.

This is what a friend replied recently to the comment, “You have to tell us your secret!”  on a post about her and her husband of many decades celebrating their anniversary over dinner.

I love that so much.

It clearly, in one sentence, summed up what is wrong with the world today.

In the West, everything needs to be easy.

And, god forbid, we feel bad in any way.

If we’re not feeling good 100% of the time, something must be bad, wrong or off.

It’s a lie and that lie is making us miserable.

This lie is creating unrealistic expectations in our lives.

We are here to experience breadth and depth of the human condition.

That means experiencing ALL of the emotions.

Yes, even the icky ones we would prefer to run from.

The icky feelings come about through circumstances that we don’t really want to go through.

But we must.

It is part of why we are here.

To transmute and transcend this, whatever “this” is for you.

To allow our light to lift us up and overcome and get to the point where we feel joy in spite of this.

And in my experience, ultimately, because of this.

But usually, when we start to feel the least little bit off and we feel a little icky and we don’t like what’s happening in our lives, we go into victim-mode.

We look to blame external circumstances and unfortunately, those closest to us are often the “external circumstances” who get blamed… parents, spouses, whomever.

It’s not to say that they aren’t the problem sometimes, but you know, this is your life and you do have a responsibility for your thoughts, beliefs, actions and words you put out there in this world.

Just as other people are responsible for their own actions, we are each responsible for ours.

Those thoughts, beliefs, words and actions form the reality we live in.

But people don’t like it when I say that.

And I get it. I’ve been there.

I would always feel like a gigantic spotlight was trained on me, like I was in a police interrogation, highlighting in most cases what I wasn’t doing that was keeping me stuck.

It puts us on the spot. And nobody likes that.

Even when it is necessary. Especially then. It usually means unpleasantness ahead.

Because, let’s be honest, if it were easy or pleasant, we’d all be doing it already!

It simply highlights that they are not taking accountability for their lives, that they are not stepping into their power.

They would prefer to continue to blame everyone and/or everything outside of themselves for their condition rather than make the effort and do the work needed to have a more joyous and fulfilling life.

We want the easy fix.

We are in a convenience culture.

It’s why Apple products are so prolific.

It’s set up so that it is all done for us.

So, when someone talks about taking responsibility, people get fearful and shy away from it.

But what they don’t realize is, if they just stopped for a moment and thought about it, it is incredibly freeing to take accountability for your life.

It’s declaring, “Every decision contributes to my future reality, and I don’t like where this is headed just leaving this all up to chance. So now, I’m going to stop blaming others and I will consciously choose what I do from here on out.”

Decide to reclaim your power – and yes, that is an over-used term but my god, do we need to do it! – step into your life and create your life consciously so you can finally be happy.

Yes, in the short term there will likely be discomfort. After all, you will have likely come to this decision point because of turmoil or stress you are experiencing.

That means dealing with all of the ugly emotions that are coming up as a result of that.

But that’s okay. There is nothing wrong with that; that is why we’re here, to experience all things human.

Take a breath. It’ll all be okay and let’s move through it.

Learn it, once and for all.

So you can stop running from it.