Taking Responsibility

I've been a bit quiet lately and it's only because I've been processing a lot of stuff internally – hence, I'm Right Here, Doing It™, learning and growing right along with you. But, I'm still here!

As I get back active with my blogging, a call I listened to last night is the perfect way for me jump back into things.

As some of you know, I've been really focusing this year on being obedient to divine guidance and really trying to open my heart to what God is trying to tell me. It's not always easy, and I admit that I have been afraid to sometimes hear the messages that may come through so I purposely do things to tune God out…but that's a whole 'nother post!

Anyway, when I'm not being stubborn and putting my hands over my ears like my eight-year-old and going "Nah, nah, nah I can't hear you!", I am able to be guided to some wonderful gems. Just the other day while perusing in a local used bookstore Doreen Virtue's Divine Guidance

was jumping out at me from the shelf, so I bought it. Perfect. And just last week while checking out someone else's info on MySpace, I saw a post from another woman and the name of her business caught my eye.

I immediately headed over to her site to check her out and was instantly hooked. The woman's name is Khama Anku and her business is called Spiritual Physique. She has a lot of great information to help people get out of their ruts and she has amazing energy. Her story is very interesting as well on where she came from to where she is today. She has a lot of free goodies on her site, and one of them are free weekly calls she hosts each Wednesday.

Last night her topic was "You Were Made for This Moment" and one of the key points she made is that we are the masters of our universe and that we must take 100% responsibility for what does and does not happen in our lives.

This one point was especially poignant for me because I realized that for the past year or so of my ongoing spiritual and entrepreneurial journey, I have been complaining about my husband. And let me follow that with, my husband is a wonderful man. He truly is. However, we don't always see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, especially when it comes to finances, which is true of a lot couples I'm sure.

In my case, where I found myself complaining is that I have been working really hard to maintain a prosperity mindset. I tell myself that we can afford things and that we have everything we need. My husband on the other hand doesn't operate from that place. He operates from a "This is the reality of things" place and we naturally clash.

My ongoing complaint has been that it is almost impossible to maintain a prosperity mindset when your life partner is constantly reminding you of "the reality of things". But after listening to Khama's call last night, I can now see that I've been using that as an excuse.

My prosperity mindset is just that, MINE, not his. It is not my place to try and make him think like me or for me to abandon what I'm doing to think like him. Obviously our prosperity mindsets operate differently, but that doesn't mean that I cannot and should not continue on the path that I've started for myself.

Ladies, I know this is a touchy subject because so many of us are faced with instances where our spouses don't support our efforts. That lack of support can be financially, discouraging words or refusing to watch the kids one evening a week so you can attend local networking events. However it shows up, we tend to take that internally and let that be the reason why we cannot move forward. Instead of adopting an "I can no matter what" attitude, we take on "I can't because he…." fill in the blank here. We take the responsibility of our own success off our own shoulders and dump it on our spouses. Wrong move – and it took Khama's call last night to help me see that (thanks Khama!).

Please don't misunderstand me, my husband does support me. He believes in me and encourages me constantly. He subscribes to and reads my blogs, so Babe, thank you. All I'm pointing out is that in my marriage, our different approaches in prosperity mindset have caused me to blame him for me not being able to maintain my prosperity mindset. Unfortunately, there are women out there who do not have supportive husbands and I feel for them because I imagine that is extremely challenging. However, in either case, not taking responsibility for our own success and happiness is not acceptable. We cannot and should not look to another to provide our success and happiness, that is something we are 100% responsible for.

So going forward, I know me and my husband will continue to see things differently when it comes to finances – it keeps things spicy! But, I also know that I can no longer whine and nag and complain that he is the reason I can't maintain my own definition of a prosperity mindset. What's in my mind and what I allow to be there is not in his control, just as I have no control over what is in his mind. I am responsible for what I allow in and no one else. What I can do however is respectfully listen to his point of view (as I expect him to do for me) and work together to find a middle ground that we can both appreciate.

Do I think this will be easy? Probably not. Humans are victim to habit and I am no different. It is going to take a lot of effort to not slip into a feeling of despair the next time something comes up that requires us to evaluate our current finances and we have differences of opinion. But I am remaining open to
divine guidance and trusting that not just mine, but our needs will be met no matter what we are faced with.

What about you? What areas of your life are you placing blame with someone else and you need to take responsibility back? I'd love to hear from you. Please leave your comments. Thanks!

In Celebration,